The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  305

  Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,

  And other such lady-like luxuries,—

  Feasting on which we will philosophize!

  And we’ll have fires out of the Grand Duke’s wood,

  To thaw the six weeks’ winter in our blood.

  310

  And then we’ll talk;—what shall we talk about?

  Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout

  Of thought-entangled descant;—as to nerves—

  With cones and parallelograms and curves

  I’ve sworn to strangle them if once they dare

  315

  To bother me—when you are with me there.

  And they shall never more sip laudanum,

  From Helicon or Himeros1;—well, come,

  And in despite of God and of the devil,

  We’ll make our friendly philosophic revel

  320

  Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers

  Warn the obscure inevitable hours,

  Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;—

  ‘To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.’

  * * *

  1, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  THE WITCH OF ATLAS

  TO MARY

  (ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST)

  I

  How, my dear Mary,—are you critic-bitten

  (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,

  That you condemn these verses I have written,

  Because they tell no story, false or true?

  5

  What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten,

  May it not leap and play as grown cats do,

  Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,

  Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

  II

  What hand would crush the silken-wingèd fly,

  10

  The youngest of inconstant April’s minions,

  Because it cannot climb the purest sky,

  Where the swan sings, amid the sun’s dominions?

  Not thine. Thou knowest ’tis its doom to die,

  When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions

  15

  The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile,

  Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

  III

  To thy fair feet a wingèd Vision came,

  Whose date should have been longer than a day,

  And o’er thy head did beat its wings for fame,

  20

  And in thy sight its fading plumes display;

  The watery bow burned in the evening flame,

  But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way—

  And that is dead.—O, let me not believe

  That anything of mine is fit to live!

  IV

  25

  Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years

  Considering and retouching Peter Bell;

  Watering his laurels with the killing tears

  Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell

  Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres

  30

  Of Heaven, with lewy leaves and flowers; this well

  May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil

  The over-busy gardener’s blundering toil.

  V

  My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature

  As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise

  35

  Clothes for our grandsons—but she matches Peter,

  Though he took nineteen years, and she three days

  In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre

  She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,

  Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress

  40

  Like King Lear’s ‘looped and windowed raggedness.’

  VI

  If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow

  Scorched by Hell’s hyperequatorial climate

  Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:

  A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;

  45

  In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello.

  If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate

  Can shrive you of that sin,—if sin there be

  In love, when it becomes idolatry.

  THE WITCH OF ATLAS

  I

  BEFORE those cruel Twins, whom at one birth

  50

  Incestuous Change bore to her father Time,

  Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth

  All those bright natures which adorned its prime,

  And left us nothing to believe in, worth

  The pains of putting into learnèd rhyme,

  55

  A lady-witch there lived on Atlas’ mountain

  Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.

  II

  Her mother was one of the Atlantides:

  The all-beholding Sun had ne’er beholden

  In his wide voyage o’er continents and seas

  60

  So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden

  In the warm shadow of her loveliness;—

  He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden

  The chamber of gray rock in which she lay—

  She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

  III

  65

  ’Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour,

  And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

  Like splendour-wingèd moths about a taper,

  Round the red west when the sun dies in it:

  And then into a meteor, such as caper

  70

  On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit:

  Then, into one of those mysterious stars

  Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

  IV

  Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent

  Her bow beside the folding-star, and hidden

  75

  With that bright sign the billows to indent

  The sea-deserted sand—like children chidden,

  At her command they ever came and went—

  Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden

  Took shape and motion: with the living form

  80

  Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm.

  V

  A lovely lady garmented in light

  From her own beauty—deep her eyes, as are

  Two openings of unfathomable night

  Seen through a Temple’s cloven roof—her hair

  85

  Dark—the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight,

  Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,

  And her low voice was heard like love, and drew

  All living things towards this wonder new.

  VI

  And first the spotted cameleopard came,

  90

  And then the wise and fearless elephant;

  Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame

  Of his own volumes intervolved;—all gaunt

  And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.

  They drank before her at her sacred fount;

  95

  And every beast of beating heart grew bold,

  Such gentleness and power even to behold.

  VII

  The brinded lioness led forth her young,

  That she might teach them how they should forego

  Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung

  100

  His sinews at her feet, and sought to know

  With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue

  How he might be as gentle as the doe.

  The magic circle of her voice and eyes

  All savage natures did imparadise.

  VIII

  1
05

  And old Silenus, shaking a green stick

  Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew

  Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick

  Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:

  And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,

  110

  Teasing the God to sing them something new;

  Till in this cave they found the lady lone,

  Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

  IX

  And universal Pan, ’tis said, was there,

  And though none saw him,—through the adamant

  115

  Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air,

  And through those living spirits, like a want,

  He passed out of his everlasting lair

  Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,

  And felt that wondrous lady all alone,—

  120

  And she felt him, upon her emerald throne.

  X

  And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,

  And every shepherdess of Ocean’s flocks,

  Who drives her white waves over the green sea,

  And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,

  125

  And quaint Priapus with his company,

  All came, much wondering how the enwombèd rocks

  Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;—

  Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

  XI

  The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,

  130

  And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant—

  Their spirits shook within them, as a flame

  Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:

  Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,

  Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt

  135

  Wet clefts,—and lumps neither alive nor dead,

  Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

  XII

  For she was beautiful—her beauty made

  The bright world dim, and everything beside

  Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:

  140

  No thought of living spirit could abide,

  Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,

  On any object in the world so wide,

  On any hope within the circling skies,

  But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

  XIII

  145

  Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle

  And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three

  Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle

  The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she

  As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle

  150

  In the belated moon, wound skilfully;

  And with these threads a subtle veil she wove—

  A shadow for the splendour of her love.

  XIV

  The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling

  Were stored with magic treasures—sounds of air,

  155

  Which had the power all spirits of compelling,

  Folded in cells of crystal silence there;

  Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling

  Will never die—yet ere we are aware,

  The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,

  160

  And the regret they leave remains alone.

  XV

  And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,

  Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,

  Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint

  With the soft burthen of intensest bliss.

  165

  It was its work to bear to many a saint

  Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,

  Even Love’s:—and others white, green, gray, and black,

  And of all shapes—and each was at her beck.

  XVI

  And odours in a kind of aviary

  170

  Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept,

  Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy

  Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;

  As bats at the wired window of a dairy,

  They beat their vans; and each was an adept,

  175

  When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds,

  To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.

  XVII

  And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might

  Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,

  And change eternal death into a night

  180

  Of glorious dreams—or if eyes needs must weep,

  Could make their tears all wonder and delight,

  She in her crystal vials did closely keep:

  If men could drink of those clear vials, ’tis said

  The living were not envied of the dead.

  XVIII

  185

  Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device,

  The works of some Saturnian Archimage,

  Which taught the expiations at whose price

  Men from the Gods might win that happy age

  Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;

  190

  And which might quench the Earth-consuming rage

  Of gold and blood—till men should live and move

  Harmonious as the sacred stars above;

  XIX

  And how all things that seem untameable,

  Not to be checked and not to be confined,

  195

  Obey the spells of Wisdom’s wizard skill;

  Time, earth, and fire—the ocean and the wind,

  And all their shapes—and man’s imperial will;

  And other scrolls whose writings did unbind

  The inmost lore of Love—let the profane

  200

  Tremble to ask what secrets they contain.

  XX

  And wondrous works of substances unknown,

  To which the enchantment of her father’s power

  Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,

  Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;

  205

  Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone

  In their own golden beams—each like a flower,

  Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light

  Under a cypress in a starless night.

  XXI

  At first she lived alone in this wild home,

  210

  And her own thoughts were each a minister,

  Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,

  Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,

  To work whatever purposes might come

  Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire

  215

  Had girt them with, whether to fly or run,

  Through all the regions which he shines upon.

  XXII

  The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,

  Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,

  Offered to do her bidding through the seas,

  220

  Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks,

  And far beneath the matted roots of trees,

  And in the gnarlèd heart of stubborn oaks,

  So they might live for ever in the light

  Of her sweet presence—each a satellite.

  XXIII

  225

  ‘This may not be,’ the wizard maid replied;

  ‘The fountains where the Naiades bedew

  Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;

  The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew

  Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;

  230

  The boundless ocean like a drop of dew

  Will be consumed—the stubborn centre must

  Be scattered, like a cloud of summ
er dust.

  XXIV

  ‘And ye with them will perish, one by one;—

  If I must sigh to think that this shall be,

  235

  If I must weep when the surviving Sun

  Shall smile on your decay—oh, ask not me

  To love you till your little race is run;

  I cannot die as ye must—over me

  Your leaves shall glance—the streams in which ye dwell

  240

  Shall be my paths henceforth, and so—farewell!’—

  XXV

  She spoke and wept:—the dark and azure well

  Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,

  And every little circlet where they fell

  Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres

  245

  And intertangled lines of light:—a knell

  Of sobbing voices came upon her ears

  From those departing Forms, o’er the serene

  Of the white streams and of the forest green.

  XXVI

  All day the wizard lady sate aloof,

  250

  Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity,

  Under the cavern’s fountain-lighted roof;

  Or broidering the pictured poesy

  Of some high tale upon her growing woof,

  Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye

  255

  In hues outshining heaven—and ever she

  Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

  XXVII

  While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece

  Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;

  Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is—

  260

  Each flame of it is as a precious stone

  Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this