The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  From me remorse then wrung that truth.

  I could not bear the joy which gave

  Too just a response to mine own.

  In vain. I dared not feign a groan;

  450

  And in their artless looks I saw,

  Between the mists of fear and awe,

  That my own thought was theirs; and they

  Expressed it not in words, but said,

  Each in its heart, how every day

  Will pass in happy work and play,

  Now he is dead and gone away.

  After the funeral all our kin

  Assembled, and the will was read.

  My friend, I tell thee, even the dead

  460

  Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,

  To blast and torture. Those who live

  Still fear the living, but a corse

  Is merciless, and power doth give

  To such pale tyrants half the spoil

  465

  He rends from those who groan and toil,

  Because they blush not with remorse

  Among their crawling worms. Behold,

  I have no child! my tale grows old

  With grief, and staggers: let it reach

  470

  The limits of my feeble speech,

  And languidly at length recline

  On the brink of its own grave and mine.

  Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty

  Among the fallen on evil days:

  475

  ’Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,

  And houseless Want in frozen ways

  Wandering ungarmented, and Pain,

  And, worse than all, that inward stain

  Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers

  480

  Youth’s starlight smile, and make its tears

  First like hot gall, then dry for ever!

  And well thou knowest a mother never

  Could doom her children to this ill,

  And well he knew the same. The will

  485

  Imported, that if e’er again

  I sought my children to behold,

  Or in my birthplace did remain

  Beyond three days, whose hours were told,

  They should inherit nought: and he,

  490

  To whom next came their patrimony,

  A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold,

  Aye watched me, as the will was read,

  With eyes askance, which sought to see

  The secrets of my agony;

  495

  And with close lips and anxious brow

  Stood canvassing still to and fro

  The chance of my resolve, and all

  The dead man’s caution just did call;

  For in that killing lie ’twas said—

  500

  ‘She is adulterous, and doth hold

  In secret that the Christian creed

  Is false, and therefore is much need

  That I should have a care to save

  My children from eternal fire.’

  505

  Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,

  And therefore dared to be a liar!

  In truth, the Indian on the pyre

  Of her dead husband, half consumed,

  As well might there be false, as I

  510

  To those abhorred embraces doomed,

  Far worse than fire’s brief agony.

  As to the Christian creed, if true

  Or false, I never questioned it:

  I took it as the vulgar do:

  515

  Nor my vexed soul had leisure yet

  To doubt the things men say, or deem

  That they are other than they seem.

  All present who those crimes did hear,

  In feigned or actual scorn and fear,

  520

  Men, women, children, slunk away,

  Whispering with self-contented pride,

  Which half suspects its own base lie.

  I spoke to none, nor did abide,

  But silently I went my way,

  525

  Nor noticed I where joyously

  Sate my two younger babes at play,

  In the court-yard through which I passed;

  But went with footsteps firm and fast

  Till I came to the brink of the ocean green,

  530

  And there, a woman with gray hairs,

  Who had my mother’s servant been,

  Kneeling, with many tears and prayers,

  Made me accept a purse of gold,

  Half of the earnings she had kept

  535

  To refuge her when weak and old.

  With woe, which never sleeps or slept,

  I wander now. ’Tis a vain thought—

  But on yon alp, whose snowy head

  ’Mid the azure air is islanded,

  540

  (We see it o’er the flood of cloud,

  Which sunrise from its eastern caves

  Drives, wrinkling into golden waves,

  Hung with its precipices proud,

  From that gray stone where first we met)

  545

  There—now who knows the dead feel nought?—

  I Should be my grave; for he who yet

  Is my soul’s soul, once said: ‘’Twere sweet

  ’Mid stars and lightnings to abide,

  And winds and lulling snows, that beat

  550

  With their soft flakes the mountain wide,

  Where weary meteor lamps repose,

  And languid storms their pinions close:

  And all things strong and bright and pure,

  And ever during, aye endure:

  555

  Who knows, if one were buried there,

  But these things might our spirits make,

  Amid the all-surrounding air,

  Their own eternity partake?’

  Then ’twas a wild and playful saying

  560

  At which I laughed, or seemed to laugh:

  They were his words. now heed my praying,

  And let them be my epitaph.

  Thy memory for a term may be

  My monument. Wilt remember me?

  565

  I know thou wilt, and canst for give

  Whilst in this erring world to live

  My soul disdained not, that I thought

  Its lying forms were worthy aught

  And much less thee.

  Helen, O speak not so,

  570

  But come to me and pour thy woe

  Into this heart, full though it be,

  Ay, overflowing with its own:

  I thought that grief had severed me

  From all beside who weep and groan;

  575

  Its likeness upon earth to be,

  Its express image; but thou art

  More wretched. Sweet! we will not part

  Henceforth, if death be not division;

  If so, the dead feel no contrition.

  580

  But wilt thou hear since last we parted

  All that has left me broken hearted?

  Rosalind. Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn

  Of their thin beams by that delusive morn

  Which sinks again in darkness, like the light

  585

  Of early love, soon lost in total night.

  Helen. Alas! Italian winds are mild,

  But my bosom is cold—wintry cold—

  When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves,

  Soft music, my poor brain is wild,

  590

  And I am weak like a nursling child,

  Though my soul with grief is gray and old.

  Rosalind. Weep not at thine own words, though they must make

  Me weep. What is thy tale?

  Helen. I fear ’twill shake

  Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well


  595

  Rememberest when we met no more,

  And, though I dwelt with Lionel,

  That friendless caution pierced me sore

  With grief; a wound my spirit bore

  Indignantly, but when he died

  600

  With him lay dead both hope and pride.

  Alas! all hope is buried now.

  But then men dreamed the agèd earth

  Was labouring in that mighty birth,

  Which many a poet and a sage

  605

  Has aye foreseen—the happy age

  When truth and love shall dwell below

  Among the works and ways of men;

  Which on this world not power but will

  Even now is wanting to fulfil.

  610

  Among mankind what thence befell

  Of strife, how vain, is known too well;

  When Liberty’s dear paean fell

  ’Mid murderous howls. To Lionel,

  Though of great wealth and lineage high,

  615

  Yet through those dungeon walls there came

  Thy thrilling light, O Liberty!

  And as the meteor’s midnight flame

  Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth

  Flashed on his visionary youth,

  620

  And filled him, not with love, but faith,

  And hope, and courage mute in death;

  For love and life in him were twins,

  Born at one birth: in every other

  First life then love its course begins,

  625

  Though they be children of one mother;

  And so through this dark world they fleet

  Divided, till in death they meet:

  But he loved all things ever. Then

  He passed amid the strife of men,

  630

  And stood at the throne of armèd power

  Pleading for a world of woe:

  Secure as one on a rock-built tower

  O’er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro,

  ’Mid the passions wild of human kind

  635

  He stood, like a spirit calming them;

  For, it was said, his words could bind

  Like music the lulled crowd, and stem

  That torrent of unquiet dream,

  Which mortals truth and reason deem,

  640

  But is revenge and fear and pride.

  Joyous he was; and hope and peace

  On all who heard him did abide,

  Raining like dew from his sweet talk,

  As where the evening star may walk

  Along the brink of the gloomy seas,

  Liquid mists of splendour quiver.

  His very gestures touched to tears

  The unpersuaded tyrant, never

  So moved before: his presence stung

  650

  The torturers with their victim’s pain,

  And none knew how; and through their ears,

  The subtle witchcraft of his tongue

  Unlocked the hearts of those who keep

  Gold, the world’s bond of slavery.

  655

  Men wondered, and some sneered to see

  One sow what he could never reap:

  For he is rich, they said, and young,

  And might drink from the depths of luxury.

  If he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned

  The champion of a trampled creed:

  If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned

  ’Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed

  Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil,

  Those who would sit near Power must toil;

  665

  And such, there sitting, all may see.

  What seeks he? All that others seek

  He casts away, like a vile weed

  Which the sea casts unreturningly.

  That poor and hungry men should break

  670

  The laws which wreak them toil and scorn,

  We understand; but Lionel

  We know is rich and nobly born.

  So wondered they: yet all men loved

  Young Lionel, though few approved;

  675

  All but the priests, whose hatred fell

  Like the unseen blight of a smiling day,

  The withering honey dew, which clings

  Under the bright green buds of May,

  Whilst they unfold their emerald wings:

  For he made verses wild and queer

  On the strange creeds priests hold so dear,

  Because they bring them land and gold.

  Of devils and saints and all such gear,

  He made tales which whoso heard or read

  685

  Would laugh till he were almost dead.

  So this grew a proverb: ‘Don’t get old

  Till Lionel’s “Banquet in Hell” you hear,

  And then you will laugh yourself young again.’

  So the priests hated him, and he

  690

  Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.

  Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died,

  For public hope grew pale and dim

  In an altered time and tide,

  And in its wasting withered him,

  695

  As a summer flower that blows too soon

  Droops in the smile of the waning moon,

  When it scatters through an April night

  The frozen dews of wrinkling blight.

  None now hoped more. Gray Power was seated

  700

  Safely on her ancestral throne;

  And Faith, the Python, undefeated,

  Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on

  Her foul and wounded train, and men

  Were trampled and deceived again,

  705

  And words and shows again could bind

  The wailing tribes of human kind

  In scorn and famine. Fire and blood

  Raged round the raging multitude,

  To fields remote by tyrants sent

  710

  To be the scorned instrument

  With which they drag from mines of gore

  The chains their slaves yet ever wore:

  And in the streets men met each other,

  And by old altars and in halls,

  715

  And smiled again at festivals,

  But each man found in his heart’s brother

  Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived,

  The outworn creeds again believed,

  And the same round anew began,

  720

  Which the weary world yet ever ran.

  Many then wept, not tears, but gall

  Within their hearts, like drops which fall

  Wasting the fountain-stone away.

  And in that dark and evil day

  725

  Did all desires and thoughts, that claim

  Men’s care—ambition, friendship, fame,

  Love, hope, though hope was now despair—

  Indue the colours of this change,

  As from the all-surrounding air

  730

  The earth takes hues obscure and strange,

  When storm and earthquake linger there.

  And so, my friend, it then befell

  To many, most to Lionel,

  Whose hope was like the life of youth

  735

  Within him, and when dead, be came

  A spirit of unresting flame,

  Which goaded him in his distress

  Over the world’s vast wilderness.

  Three years he left his native land,

  740

  And on the fourth, when he returned,

  None knew him: he was stricken deep

  With some disease of mind, and turned

  Into aught unlike Lionel.

  On him, on whom, did he pause in sleep,

  Serenest sm
iles were wont to keep,

  And, did he wake, a wingèd band

  Of bright persuasions, which had fed

  On his sweet lips and liquid eyes,

  Kept their swift pinions half out spread,

  750

  To do on men his least command;

  On him, whom once ’twas paradise

  Even to behold, now misery lay:

  In his own heart ’twas merciless,

  To all things else none may express

  755

  Its innocence and tenderness.

  ’Twas said that he had refuge sought

  In love from his unquiet thought

  In distant lands, and been deceived

  By some strange show; for there were found,

  Blotted with tears as those relieved

  By their own words are wont to do,

  These mournful verses on the ground,

  By all who read them blotted too.

  ‘How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire:

  765

  I loved, and I believed that life was love.

  How am I lost! on wings of swift desire

  Among Heaven’s winds my spirit once did move.

  I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire

  My liquid sleep: I woke, and did approve

  770

  All nature to my heart, and thought to make

  A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.

  ‘I love, but I believe in love no more.

  I feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleep

  Most vainly must my weary brain implore

  775

  Its long lost flattery now: I wake to weep,

  And sit through the long day gnawing the core

  Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep,

  Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure,

  To my own soul its self-consuming treasure.’

  780

  He dwelt beside me near the sea:

  And oft in evening did we meet,

  When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee

  O’er the yellow sands with silver feet,

  And talked: our talk was sad and sweet,