The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

785

  Till slowly from his mien there passed

  The desolation which it spoke;

  And smiles,—as when the lightning’s blast

  Has parched some heaven-delighting oak,

  The next spring shows leaves pale and rare,

  But like flowers delicate and fair,

  On its rent boughs,—again arrayed

  His countenance in tender light:

  His words grew subtile fire, which made

  The air his hearers breathed delight:

  795

  His motions, like the winds, were free,

  Which bend the bright grass gracefully,

  Then fade away in circlets faint:

  And wingèd Hope, on which upborne

  His soul seemed hovering in his eyes,

  Like some bright spirit newly born

  Floating amid the sunny skies,

  Sprang forth from his rent heart anew.

  Yet o’er his talk, and looks, and mien,

  Tempering their loveliness too keen,

  805

  Past woe its shadow backward threw,

  Till like an exhalation, spread

  From flowers half drunk with evening dew,

  They did become infectious: sweet

  And subtile mists of sense and thought:

  810

  Which wrapped us soon, when we might meet,

  Almost from our own looks and aught

  The wide world holds. And so, his mind

  Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear:

  For ever now his health declined,

  815

  Like some frail bark which cannot bear

  The impulse of an altered wind,

  Though prosperous: and my heart grew full

  ’Mid its new joy of a new care:

  For his cheek became, not pale, but fair,

  820

  As rose-o’ershadowed lilies are;

  And soon his deep and sunny hair,

  In this alone less beautiful,

  Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare.

  The blood in his translucent veins

  Beat, not like animal life, but love

  Seemed now its sullen springs to move,

  When life had failed, and all its pains:

  And sudden sleep would seize him oft

  Like death, so calm, but that a tear,

  830

  His pointed eyelashes between,

  Would gather in the light serene

  Of smiles, whose lustre bright and soft

  Beneath lay undulating there.

  His breath was like inconstant flame,

  835

  As eagerly it went and came;

  And I hung o’er him in his sleep,

  Till, like an image in the lake

  Which rains disturb, my tears would break

  840

  Then he would bid me not to weep,

  The shadow of that slumber deep:

  And say with flattery false, yet sweet,

  That death and he could never meet,

  If I would never part with him.

  And so we loved, and did unite

  845

  All that in us was yet divided:

  For when he said, that many a rite,

  By men to bind but once provided,

  Could not be shared by him and me,

  Or they would kill him in their glee,

  850

  I shuddered, and then laughing said—

  ‘We will have rites our faith to bind,

  But our church shall be the starry night,

  Our altar the grassy earth outspread,

  And our priest the muttering wind.’

  855

  ’Twas sunset as I spoke: one star

  Had scarce burst forth, when from afar

  The ministers of misrule sent,

  Seized upon Lionel, and bore

  His chained limbs to a dreary tower,

  In the midst of a city vast and wide

  For he, they said, from his mind had bent

  Against their gods keen blasphemy,

  For which, though his soul must roasted be

  In hell’s red lakes immortally,

  865

  Yet even on earth must he abide

  The vengeance of their slaves: a trial,

  I think, men call it. What avail

  Are prayers and tears, which chase denial

  From the fierce savage, nursed in hate?

  870

  What the knit soul that pleading and pale

  Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late

  It painted with its own delight?

  We were divided. As I could,

  I stilled the tingling of my blood,

  875

  And followed him in their despite,

  As a widow follows, pale and wild,

  The murderers and corse of her only child;

  And when we came to the prison door

  And I prayed to share his dungeon floor

  880

  With prayers which rarely have been spurned,

  And when men drove me forth and I

  Stared with blank frenzy on the sky,

  A farewell look of love he turned,

  Half calming me; then gazed awhile,

  885

  As if thro’ that black and massy pile,

  And thro’ the crowd around him there,

  And thro’ the dense and murky air,

  And the thronged streets, he did espy

  What poets know and prophesy;

  890

  And said, with voice that made them shiver

  And clung like music in my brain,

  And which the mute walls spoke again

  Prolonging it with deepened strain:

  ‘Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,

  895

  Or the priests of the bloody faith;

  They stand on the brink of that mighty river,

  Whose waves they have tainted with death:

  It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,

  Around them it foams, and rages, and swells,

  900

  And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,

  Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.’

  I dwelt beside the prison gate,

  And the strange crowd that out and in

  Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate,

  905

  Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,

  But the fever of care was louder within.

  Soon, but too late, in penitence

  Or fear, his foes released him thence:

  I saw his thin and languid form,

  910

  As leaning on the jailor’s arm,

  Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while,

  To meet his mute and faded smile,

  And hear his words of kind farewell,

  He tottered forth from his damp cell.

  915

  Many had never wept before,

  From whom fast tears then gushed and fell:

  Many will relent no more,

  Who sobbed like infants then: aye, all

  Who thronged the prison’s stony hall,

  920

  The rulers or the slaves of law,

  Felt with a new surprise and awe

  That they were human, till strong shame

  Made them again become the same.

  The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim,

  925

  From human looks the infection caught,

  And fondly crouched and fawned on him;

  And men have heard the prisoners say,

  Who in their rotting dungeons lay,

  That from that hour, throughout one day,

  930

  The fierce despair and hate which kept

  Their trampled bosoms almost slept:

  Where, like twin vultures, they hung feeding

  On each heart’s wound, wide torn and bleeding,—
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  Because their jailors’ rule, they thought,

  Grew merciful, like a parent’s sway.

  I know not how, but we were free:

  And Lionel sate alone with me,

  As the carriage drove thro’ the streets apace;

  And we looked upon each other’s face;

  940

  And the blood in our fingers intertwined

  Ran like the thoughts of a single mind,

  As the swift emotions went and came

  Thro’ the veins of each united frame.

  So thro’ the long long streets we passed

  Of the million-peopled City vast;

  Which is that desert, where each one

  Seeks his mate yet is alone,

  Beloved and sought and mourned of none;

  Until the clear blue sky was seen,

  950

  And the grassy meadows bright and green,

  And then I sunk in his embrace,

  Enclosing there a mighty space

  Of love: and so we travelled on

  By woods, and fields of yellow flowers,

  And towns, and villages, and towers,

  Day after day of happy hours.

  It was the azure time of June,

  When the skies are deep in the stainless noon,

  And the warm and fitful breezes shake

  960

  The fresh green leaves of the hedge row briar,

  And there were odours then to make

  The very breath we did respire

  A liquid element, whereon

  Our spirits, like delighted things

  That walk the air on subtle wings,

  Floated and mingled far away,

  ’Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.

  And when the evening star came forth

  Above the curve of the new bent moon,

  970

  And light and sound ebbed from the earth,

  Like the tide of the full and weary sea

  To the depths of its tranquillity,

  Our natures to its own repose

  Did the earth’s breathless sleep attune:

  975

  Like flowers, which on each other close

  Their languid leaves when daylight’s gone,

  We lay, till new emotions came,

  Which seemed to make each mortal frame

  One soul of interwoven flame,

  980

  A life in life, a second birth

  In worlds diviner far than earth,

  Which, like two strains of harmony

  That mingle in the silent sky

  Then slowly disunite, passed by

  985

  And left the tenderness of tears,

  A soft oblivion of all fears,

  A sweet sleep: so we travelled on

  Till we came to the home of Lionel,

  Among the mountains wild and lone,

  990

  Beside the hoary western sea,

  Which near the verge of the echoing shore

  The massy forest shadowed o’er,

  The ancient steward, with hair all hoar,

  As we alighted, wept to see

  His master changed so fearfully;

  And the old man’s sobs did waken me

  From my dream of unremaining gladness;

  The truth flashed o’er me like quick madness

  When I looked, and saw that there was death

  1000

  On Lionel: yet day by day

  He lived, till fear grew hope and faith,

  And in my soul I dared to say,

  Nothing so bright can pass away:

  Death is dark, and foul, and dull,

  1005

  But he is—O how beautiful!

  Yet day by day he grew more weak,

  And his sweet voice, when he might speak,

  Which ne’er was loud, became more low;

  And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek

  1010

  Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow

  From sunset o’er the Alpine snow:

  And death seemed not like death in him,

  For the spirit of life o’er every limb

  Lingered, a mist of sense and thought.

  1015

  When the summer wind faint odours brought

  From mountain flowers, even as it passed

  His cheek would change, as the noonday sea

  Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.

  If but a cloud the sky o’ercast,

  1020

  You might see his colour come and go,

  And the softest strain of music made

  Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade

  Amid the dew of his tender eyes;

  And the breath, with intermitting flow,

  Made his pale lips quiver and part.

  You might hear the beatings of his heart,

  Quick, but not strong; and with my tresses

  When oft he playfully would bind

  In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses

  His neck, and win me so to mingle

  In the sweet depth of woven caresses,

  And our faint limbs were intertwined,

  Alas! the unquiet life did tingle

  From mine own heart through every vein,

  Like a captive in dreams of liberty,

  Who beats the walls of his stony cell.

  But his, it seemed already free,

  Like the shadow of fire surrounding me!

  On my faint eyes and limbs did dwell

  That spirit as it passed, till soon,

  As a frail cloud wandering o’er the moon,

  Beneath its light invisible,

  Is seen when it folds its gray wings again

  To alight on midnight’s dusky plain,

  I lived and saw, and the gathering soul

  Passed from beneath that strong control,

  And I fell on a life which was sick with fear

  Of all the woe that now I bear.

  Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,

  On a green and sea-girt promontory,

  Not far from where we dwelt, there stood

  In record of a sweet sad story,

  An altar and a temple bright

  Circled by steps, and o’er the gate

  1055

  Was sculptured, ‘To Fidelity;’

  And in the shrine an image sate,

  All veiled: but there was seen the light

  Of smiles, which faintly could express

  A mingled pain and tenderness

  1060

  Through that ethereal drapery.

  The left hand held the head, the right—

  Beyond the veil, beneath the skin,

  You might see the nerves quivering within—

  Was forcing the point of a barbed dart

  1065

  Into its side-convulsing heart.

  An unskilled hand, yet one informed

  With genius, had the marble warmed

  With that pathetic life. This tale

  It told: A dog had from the sea,

  When the tide was raging fearfully,

  Dragged Lionel’s mother, weak and pale,

  Then died beside her on the sand,

  And she that temple thence had planned;

  But it was Lionel’s own hand

  1075

  Had wrought the image. Each new moon

  That lady did, in this lone fane,

  The rites of a religion sweet,

  Whose god was in her heart and brain;

  The season’s loveliest flowers were strewn

  On the marble floor beneath her feet,

  And she brought crowns of sea-buds white,

  Whose odour is so sweet and faint,

  And weeds, like branching chrysolite,

  Woven in devices fine and quaint.

  1085

  And tears from her brown eyes did stain

  The altar: need but look upon

  That dyin
g statue fair and wan,

  If tears should cease, to weep again:

  And rare Arabian odours came,

  1090

  Through the myrtle copses steaming thence

  From the hissing frankincense,

  Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,

  Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome—

  That ivory dome, whose azure night

  1095

  With golden stars, like heaven, was bright—

  O’er the split cedar’s pointed flame;

  And the lady’s harp would kindle there

  The melody of an old air,

  Softer than sleep; the villagers

  Mixed their religion up with hers,

  And as they listened round, shed tears.

  One eve he led me to this fane:

  Daylight on its last purple cloud

  Was lingering gray, and soon her strain

  The nightingale began; now loud,

  Climbing in circles the windless sky,

  Now dying music; suddenly

  ’Tis scattered in a thousand notes,

  And now to the hushed ear it floats

  1110

  Like field smells known in infancy,

  Then failing, soothes the air again.

  We sate within that temple lone,

  Pavilioned round with Parian stone:

  His mother’s harp stood near, and oft

  1115

  I had awakened music soft

  Amid its wires: the nightingale

  Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale:

  ‘Now drain the cup,’ said Lionel,

  ‘Which the poet-bird has crowned so well

  1120

  With the wine of her bright and liquid song!

  Heardst thou not sweet words among

  That heaven-resounding minstrelsy?

  Heardst thou not, that those who die

  Awaken in a world of ecstasy?

  1125

  That love, when limbs are interwoven,

  And sleep, when the night of life is cloven,

  And thought, to the world’s dim boundaries clinging,

  And music, when one beloved is singing,

  Is death? Let us drain right joy ously

  1130

  The cup which the sweet bird fills for me.’

  He paused, and to my lips he bent

  His own: like spirit his words went