The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark

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  The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see

  The floating bark of the light-laden moon

  With that white star, its sightless pilot’s crest,

  Borne down the rapid sunset’s ebbing sea;

  Tracking their path no more by blood and groans,

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  And desolation, and the mingled voice

  Of slavery and command; but by the light

  Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours,

  And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices,

  And sweetest music, such as spirits love.

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  Apollo. And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make

  My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse

  Darkens the sphere I guide; but list, I hear

  The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit

  That sits i’ the morning star.

  Ocean. Thou must away;

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  Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell:

  The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it

  With azure calm out of the emerald urns

  Which stand for ever full beside my throne.

  Behold the Nereids under the green sea,

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  Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream,

  Their white arms lifted o’er their streaming hair

  With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns,

  Hastening to grace their mighty sister’s joy.

  [A sound of waves is heard.

  It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm.

  Peace, monster; I come now. Farewell.

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  Apollo. Farewell.

  SCENE III.—Caucasus. PROMETHEUS, HERCULES, IONE, the EARTH, SPIRITS, ASIA, and PANTHEA, borne in the Car with the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR. HERCULES unbinds PROMETHEUS, who descends.

  Hercules. Most glorious among Spirits, thus doth strength

  To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love,

  And thee, who art the form they animate,

  Minister like a slave.

  Prometheus. Thy gentle words

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  Are sweeter even than freedom long desired

  And long delayed.

  Asia, thou light of life,

  Shadow of beauty unbeheld: and ye,

  Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain

  Sweet to remember, through your love and care:

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  Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave,

  All overgrown with trailing odorous plants,

  Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers,

  And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain

  Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound.

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  From its curved roof the mountain’s frozen tears

  Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires,

  Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light:

  And there is heard the ever-moving air,

  Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds,

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  And bees; and all around are mossy seats,

  And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass;

  A simple dwelling, which shall be our own:

  Where we will sit and talk of time and change,

  As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged.

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  What can hide man from mutability?

  And if ye sigh, then I will smile; and thou,

  Ione, shalt chant fragments of sea-music,

  Until I weep, when ye shall smile away

  The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed.

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  We will entangle buds and flowers and beams

  Which twinkle on the fountain’s brim, and make

  Strange combinations out of common things,

  Like human babes in their brief innocence;

  And we will search, with looks and words of love,

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  For hidden thoughts, each lovelier than the last,

  Our unexhausted spirits; and like lutes

  Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind,

  Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new,

  From difference sweet where discord cannot be;

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  And hither come, sped on the charmèd winds,

  Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees

  From every flower aëreal Enna feeds,

  At their known island-homes in Himera,

  The echoes of the human world, which tell

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  Of the low voice of love, almost unheard,

  And dove-eyed pity’s murmured pain, and music,

  Itself the echo of the heart, and all

  That tempers or improves man’s life, now free;

  And lovely apparitions,—dim at first,

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  Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright

  From the embrace of beauty (whence the forms

  Of which these are the phantoms) casts on them

  The gathered rays which are reality—

  Shall visit us, the progeny immortal

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  Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy,

  And arts, though unimagined, yet to be.

  The wandering voices and the shadows these

  Of all that man becomes, the mediators

  Of that best worship love, by him and us

  Given and returned; swift shapes and sounds, which grow

  More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind,

  And, veil by veil, evil and error fall:

  Such virtue has the cave and place around.

  [Turning to the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR.

  For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. Ione,

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  Give her that curvèd shell, which Proteus old

  Made Asia’s nuptial boon, breathing within it

  A voice to be accomplished, and which thou

  Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock.

  Ione. Thou most desired Hour, more loved and lovely

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  Than all thy sisters, this is the mystic shell;

  See the pale azure fading into silver

  Lining it with a soft yet glowing light:

  Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there?

  Spirit. It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean:

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  Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange.

  Prometheus. Go, borne over the cities of mankind

  On whirlwind-footed coursers: once again

  Outspeed the sun around the orbèd world;

  And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air,

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  Thou breathe into the many-folded shell,

  Loosening its mighty music; it shall be

  As thunder mingled with clear echoes: then

  Return; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave.

  And thou, O, Mother Earth!—

  The Earth. I hear, I feel;

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  Thy lips are on me, and their touch runs down

  Even to the adamantine central gloom

  Along these marble nerves; ’tis life, ’tis joy,

  And through my withered, old, and icy frame

  The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down

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  Circling. Henceforth the many children fair

  Folded in my sustaining arms; all plants,

  And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged,

  And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes,

  Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom,

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  Draining the poison of despair, shall take

  And interchange sweet nutriment; to me

  Shall they become like sister-antelopes

  By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind,

  Nursed among lilies near a brimm
ing stream.

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  The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float

  Under the stars like balm: night-folded flowers

  Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose:

  And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather

  Strength for the coming day, and all its joy:

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  And death shall be the last embrace of her

  Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother

  Folding her child, says, ‘Leave me not again.’

  Asia. Oh, mother! wherefore speak the name of death?

  Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak,

  Who die?

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  The Earth. It would avail not to reply:

  Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known

  But to the uncommunicating dead.

  Death is the veil which those who live call life:

  They sleep, and it is lifted: and meanwhile

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  In mild variety the seasons mild

  With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds,

  And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night,

  And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun’s

  All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain

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  Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild,

  Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even

  The crag-built deserts of the barren deep,

  With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers.

  And thou! There is a cavern where my spirit

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  Was panted forth in anguish whilst thy pain

  Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it

  Became mad too, and built a temple there,

  And spoke, and were oracular, and lured

  The erring nations round to mutual war,

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  And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee;

  Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds

  A violet’s exhalation, and it fills

  With a serener light and crimson air

  Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around;

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  It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine,

  And the dark linkèd ivy tangling wild,

  And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms

  Which star the winds with points of coloured light,

  As they rain through them, and bright golden globes

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  Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven,

  And through their veined leaves and amber stems

  The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls

  Stand ever mantling with aëreal dew,

  The drink of spirits: and it circles round,

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  Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams,

  Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine,

  Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine.

  Arise! Appear!

  [A SPIRIT rises in the likeness of a winged child.

  This is my torch-bearer;

  Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing

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  On eyes from which he kindled it anew

  With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine,

  For such is that within thine own. Run, wayward,

  And guide this company beyond the peak

  Of Bacchic Nysa, Mænad-haunted mountain,

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  And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers,

  Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes

  With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying,

  And up the green ravine, across the vale,

  Beside the windless and crystalline pool,

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  Where ever lies, on unerasing waves,

  The image of a temple, built above,

  Distinct with column, arch, and architrave,

  And palm-like capital, and over-wrought,

  And populous with most living imagery,

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  Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles

  Fill the hushed air with everlasting love.

  It is deserted now, but once it bore

  Thy name, Prometheus; there the emulous youths

  Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom

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  The lamp which was thine emblem; even as those

  Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope

  Into the grave, across the night of life,

  As thou hast borne it most triumphantly

  To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell.

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  Beside that temple is the destined cave.

  SCENE IV.—A Forest. In the Background a Cave. PROMETHEUS, ASIA, PANTHEA, IONE, and the SPIRIT OF THE EARTH.

  Ione. Sister, it is not earthly: how it glides

  Under the leaves! how on its head there burns

  A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams

  Are twined with its fair hair! how, as it moves,

  5

  The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass!

  Knowest thou it?

  Panthea. It is the delicate spirit

  That guides the earth through heaven. From afar

  The populous constellations call that light

  The loveliest of the planets; and sometimes

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  It floats along the spray of the salt sea,

  Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud,

  Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep,

  Or o’er the mountain tops, or down the rivers,

  Or through the green waste wilderness, as now,

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  Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned

  It loved our sister Asia, and it came

  Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light

  Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted

  As one bit by a dipsas, and with her

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  It made its childish confidence, and told her

  All it had known or seen, for it saw much,

  Yet idly reasoned what it saw; and called her—

  For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I—

  Mother, dear mother.

  The Spirit of the Earth (running to Asia). Mother, dearest mother;

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  May I then talk with thee as I was wont?

  May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms,

  After thy looks have made them tired of joy?

  May I then play beside thee the long noons,

  When work is none in the bright silent air?

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  Asia. I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth

  Can cherish thee unenvied: speak, I pray:

  Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights.

  Spirit of the Earth. Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child

  Cannot be wise like thee, within this day;

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  And happier too; happier and wiser both.

  Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly worms,

  And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs

  That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever

  An hindrance to my walks o’er the green world:

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  And that, among the haunts of humankind,

  Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks,

  Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles,

  Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance,

  Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts

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  Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man;

  And women too, ugliest of all things evil,

  (Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair,

  When good and kind, free and sincere like thee),

  When false or frowning made me sick at heart

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  To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen.

  Well, my
path lately lay through a great city

  Into the woody hills surrounding it:

  A sentinel was sleeping at the gate:

  When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook

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  The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet

  Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all;

  A long, long sound, as it would never end:

  And all the inhabitants leaped suddenly

  Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets,

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  Looking in wonder up to Heaven, while yet

  The music pealed along. I hid myself

  Within a fountain in the public square,

  Where I lay like the reflex of the moon

  Seen in a wave under green leaves; and soon

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  Those ugly human shapes and visages

  Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain,

  Passed floating through the air, and fading still

  Into the winds that scattered them; and those

  From whom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms

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  After some foul disguise had fallen, and all

  Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise

  And greetings of delighted wonder, all

  Went to their sleep again: and when the dawn

  Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts,

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  Could e’er be beautiful? yet so they were,

  And that with little change of shape or hue:

  All things had put their evil nature off:

  I cannot tell my joy, when o’er a lake

  Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined,

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  I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward

  And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries,

  With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay

  Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky;

  So, with my thoughts full of these happy changes,

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  We meet again, the happiest change of all.

  Asia. And never will we part, till thy chaste sister

  Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon