The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind

  The strength of tempest: day was almost over,

  3185

  When through the fading light I could discover

  A ship approaching—its white sails were fed

  With the north wind—its moving shade did cover

  The twilight deep;—the Mariners in dread

  Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

  XLI

  3190

  ‘And when they saw one sitting on a crag,

  They sent a boat to me;—the Sailors rowed

  In awe through many a new and fearful jag

  Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed

  The foam of streams that cannot make abode.

  3195

  They came and questioned me, but when they heard

  My voice, they became silent, and they stood

  And moved as men in whom new love had stirred

  Deep thoughts: so to the ship we passed without a word.

  CANTO VIII

  I

  ‘I SATE beside the Steersman then, and gazing

  3200

  Upon the west, cried, “Spread the sails! Behold!

  The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing

  Over the mountains yet;—the City of Gold

  Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold;

  The stream is fleet—the north breathes steadily

  3205

  Beneath the stars, they tremble with the cold!

  Yet cannot rest upon the dreary sea!—

  Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!”

  II

  ‘The Mariners obeyed—the Captain stood

  Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said,

  3210

  “Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued

  By wicked ghosts: a Phantom of the Dead,

  The night before we sailed, came to my bed

  In dream, like that!” The Pilot then replied,

  “It cannot be—she is a human Maid—

  3215

  Her low voice makes you weep—she is some bride,

  Or daughter of high birth—she can be nought beside.”

  III

  ‘We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,

  And as we sailed, the Mariners came near

  And thronged around to listen;—in the gleam

  3220

  Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear

  May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear;

  “Ye all are human—yon broad moon gives light

  To millions who the selfsame likeness wear,

  Even while I speak—beneath this very night,

  Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.

  IV

  ‘ “What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home,

  Even for yourselves on a beloved shore:

  For some, fond eyes are pining till they come,

  How they will greet him when his toils are o’er,

  And laughing babes rush from the well-known door!

  Is this your care? ye toil for your own good—

  Ye feel and think—has some immortal power

  Such purposes? or in a human mood,

  Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?

  V

  ‘ “What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give

  A human heart to what ye cannot know:

  As if the cause of life could think and live!

  ‘Twere as if man’s own works should feel, and show

  The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow,

  3240

  And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free

  To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,

  Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity

  Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!

  VI

  ‘ “What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood

  3245

  Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown

  Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood

  The Form he saw and worshipped was his own,

  His likeness in the world’s vast mirror shown;

  And ’twere an innocent dream, but that a faith

  3250

  Nursed by fear’s dew of poison, grows thereon,

  And that men say, that Power has chosen Death

  On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.

  VII

  ‘ “Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,

  Or known from others who have known such things,

  3255

  A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between

  Wields an invisible rod—that Priests and Kings,

  Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings

  Man’s freeborn soul beneath the oppressor’s heel,

  Are his strong ministers, and that the stings

  3260

  Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,

  Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

  VIII

  “ ‘And it is said, this Power will punish wrong;

  Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!

  And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,

  3265

  Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain,

  Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,

  Clung to him while he lived;—for love and hate,

  Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain—

  The will of strength is right—this human state

  3270

  Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.

  IX

  ‘ “Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail

  Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon

  Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail

  To hide the orb of truth—and every throne

  3275

  Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,

  One shape of many names:—for this ye plough

  The barren waves of ocean, hence each one

  Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,

  Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.

  X

  3280

  ‘ “Its names are each a sign which maketh holy

  All power—ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade

  Of power—lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;

  The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,

  A law to which mankind has been betrayed;

  3285

  And human love, is as the name well known

  Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid

  In bloody grave, and into darkness thrown,

  Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

  XI

  ‘ “O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men

  3290

  Art as the calm to Ocean’s weary waves!

  Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can

  From slavery and religion’s labyrinth caves

  Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.

  To give to all an equal share of good,

  To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves

  She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,

  To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend’s dearest blood,—

  XII

  ‘ “To feel the peace of self-contentment’s lot,

  To own all sympathies, and outrage none,

  3300

  And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought,

  Until life’s sunny day is quite gone down,

  To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,

  To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;

  To live, as if to love and live were one,—

  3305

  This is not faith or law, nor those who bow

&n
bsp; To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.

  XIII

  ‘ “But children near their parents tremble now,

  Because they must obey—one rules another,

  And as one Power rules both high and low,

  3310

  So man is made the captive of his brother,

  And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother,

  Above the Highest—and those fountain-cells,

  Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other,

  Are darkened—Woman as the bond-slave dwells

  3315

  Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells.

  XIV

  ‘ “Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave

  A lasting chain for his own slavery;—

  In fear and restless care that he may live

  He toils for others, who must ever be

  3320

  The joyous thralls of like captivity;

  He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin;

  He builds the altar, that its idol’s fee

  May be his very blood; he is pursuing—

  O, blind and willing wretch!—his own obscure undoing.

  XV

  3325

  ‘ “Woman!—she is his slave, she has become

  A thing I weep to speak—the child of scorn,

  The outcast of a desolated home;

  Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn

  Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn,

  3330

  As calm decks the false Ocean:—well ye know

  What Woman is, for none of Woman born,

  Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe,

  Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.

  XVI

  ‘ “This need not be; ye might arise, and will

  That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory,

  That love, which none may bind, be free to fill

  The world, like light; and evil faith, grown hoary

  With crime, be quenched and die.—Yon promontory

  Even now eclipses the descending moon!—

  3340

  Dungeons and palaces are transitory—

  High temples fade like vapour—Man alone

  Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

  XVII

  ‘ “Let all be free and equal!—From your hearts

  I feel an echo; through my inmost frame

  3345

  Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts—

  Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name

  All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame,

  On your worn faces; as in legends old

  Which make immortal the disastrous fame

  3350

  Of conquerors and impostors false and bold,

  The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.

  XVIII

  ‘ “Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood

  Forth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold,

  That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude?

  3355

  Or from the famished poor, pale, weak, and cold,

  Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!

  Speak! Are your hands in slaughter’s sanguine hue

  Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?

  Know yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew,

  3360

  And I will be a friend and sister unto you.

  XIX

  ‘ “Disguise it not—we have one human heart—

  All mortal thoughts confess a common home:

  Blush not for what may to thyself impart

  Stains of inevitable crime: the doom

  3365

  Is this, which has, or may, or must become

  Thine, and all humankind’s. Ye are the spoil

  Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb,

  Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil

  Wherewith ye twine the rings of life’s perpetual coil.

  XX

  3370

  ‘ “Disguise it not—ye blush for what ye hate,

  And Enmity is sister unto Shame;

  Look on your mind—it is the book of fate—

  Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name

  Of misery—all are mirrors of the same;

  3375

  But the dark fiend who with his iron pen

  Dipped in scorn’s fiery poison, makes his fame

  Enduring there, would o’er the heads of men

  Pass harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.

  XXI

  ‘ “Yes, it is Hate—that shapeless fiendly thing

  3380

  Of many names, all evil, some divine,

  Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting;

  Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine

  Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine

  To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside

  3385

  It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine

  When Amphisbæna some fair bird has tied,

  Soon o’er the putrid mass he threats on every side.

  XXII

  ‘ “Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself,

  Nor hate another’s crime, nor loathe thine own.

  3390

  It is the dark idolatry of self,

  Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone,

  Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan;

  O vacant expiation! Be at rest.—

  The past is Death’s, the future is thine own;

  3395

  And love and joy can make the foulest breast

  A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.

  XXIII

  ‘ “Speak thou! whence come ye?”—A Youth made reply:

  “Wearily, wearily o’er the boundless deep

  We sail;—thou readest well the misery

  3400

  Told in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep

  Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep,

  Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow;

  Even from our childhood have we learned to steep

  The bread of slavery in the tears of woe,

  3405

  And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now.

  XXIV

  ‘ “Yes—I must speak—my secret should have perished

  Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand

  Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished,

  But that no human bosom can withstand

  3410

  Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command

  Of thy keen eyes:—yes, we are wretched slaves,

  Who from their wonted loves and native land

  Are reft, and bear o’er the dividing waves

  The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.

  XXV

  3415

  ‘ “We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest

  Among the daughters of those mountains lone,

  We drag them there, where all things best and rarest

  Are stained and trampled:—years have come and gone

  Since, like the ship which bears me, I have known

  3420

  No thought;—but now the eyes of one dear Maid

  On mine with light of mutual love have shone—

  She is my life,—I am but as the shade

  Of her,—a smoke sent up from ashes, soon to fade.

  XXVI

  ‘ “For she must perish in the Tyrant’s hall—

  3425

  Alas, alas!”—He ceased, and by the sail

  Sate cowering—but his sobs were heard by all,

  And still before the ocean and the gale

  The ship fled fast till the stars ’gan to fail,

  And, round me gathered with mut
e countenance,

  3430

  The Seamen gazed, the Pilot, worn and pale

  With toil, the Captain with gray locks, whose glance

  Met mine in restless awe—they stood as in a trance.

  XXVII

  ‘ “Recede not! pause not now! Thou art grown old,

  But Hope will make thee young, for Hope and Youth

  3435

  Are children of one mother, even Love—behold!

  The eternal stars gaze on us! Is the truth

  Within your soul? care for your own, or ruth

  For others’ sufferings? do ye thirst to bear

  A heart which not the serpent Custom’s tooth

  3440

  May violate?—Be free! and even here,

  Swear to be firm till death!” They cried “We swear! We swear!”

  XXVIII

  ‘The very darkness shook, as with a blast

  Of subterranean thunder, at the cry;

  The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast

  3445

  Into the night, as if the sea, and sky,

  And earth, rejoiced with new-born liberty,

  For in that name they swore! Bolts were undrawn,

  And on the deck, with unaccustomed eye

  The captives gazing stood, and every one

  Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone.

  XXIX

  ‘They were earth’s purest children, young and fair,

  With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought,

  And brows as bright as Spring or Morning, ere

  Dark time had there its evil legend wrought

  3455

  In characters of cloud which wither not.—

  The change was like a dream to them; but soon

  They knew the glory of their altered lot,

  In the bright wisdom of youth’s breathless noon,

  Sweet talk, and smiles, and sighs, all bosoms did attune.