The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Had crushed him to his country’s blood-stained dust.

  Even where the milder zone afforded man

  420

  A seeming shelter, yet contagion there,

  Blighting his being with unnumbered ills,

  Spread like a quenchless fire; nor truth availed

  Till late to arrest its progress, or create

  That peace which first in bloodless victory waved

  425

  Her snowy standard o’er this favoured clime:

  There man was long the train-bearer of slaves,

  The mimic of surrounding misery,

  The jackal of ambition’s lion-rage,

  The bloodhound of religion’s hungry zeal.

  430

  Here now the human being stands adorning

  This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind;

  Blest from his birth with all bland impulses,

  Which gently in his noble bosom wake

  All kindly passions and all pure desires.

  435

  Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing,

  Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal

  Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise

  In time-destroying infiniteness gift

  With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks

  440

  The unprevailing hoariness of age,

  And man, once fleeting o’er the transient scene

  Swift as an unremembered vision, stands

  Immortal upon earth: no longer now

  He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling

  445

  And horribly devours its mangled flesh,

  Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream

  Of poison thro’ his fevered veins did flow

  Feeding a plague that secretly consumed

  His feeble frame, and kindling in his mind

  450

  Hatred, despair, and fear and vain belief,

  The germs of misery, death, disease, and crime.

  No longer now the wingèd habitants,

  That in the woods their sweet lives sing away,

  Flee from the form of man; but gather round,

  455

  And prune their sunny feathers on the hands

  Which little children stretch in friendly sport

  Towards these dreadless partners of their play.

  All things are void of terror: man has lost

  His desolating privilege, and stands

  460

  An equal amidst equals: happiness

  And science dawn though late upon the earth;

  Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame;

  Disease and pleasure cease to mingle here,

  Reason and passion cease to combat there;

  465

  Whilst mind unfettered o’er the earth extends

  Its all-subduing energies, and wields

  The sceptre of a vast dominion there.

  Mild is the slow necessity of death:

  The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp,

  470

  Without a groan, almost without a fear,

  Resigned in peace to the necessity,

  Calm as a voyager to some distant land,

  And full of wonder, full of hope as he.

  The deadly germs of languor and disease

  475

  Waste in the human frame, and Nature gifts

  With choicest boons her human worshippers.

  How vigorous now the athletic form of age!

  How clear its open and unwrinkled brow!

  Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, or care,

  480

  Had stamped the seal of grey deformity

  On all the mingling lineaments of time.

  How lovely the intrepid front of youth!

  How sweet the smiles of taintless infancy.

  Within the massy prison’s mouldering courts,

  485

  Fearless and free the ruddy children play,

  Weaving gay chaplets for their innocent brows

  With the green ivy and the red wall-flower,

  That mock the dungeon’s unavailing gloom;

  The ponderous chains, and gratings of strong iron,

  490

  There rust amid the accumulated ruins

  Now mingling slowly with their native earth:

  There the broad beam of day, which feebly once

  Lighted the cheek of lean captivity

  With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines

  495

  On the pure smiles of infant playfulness:

  No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair

  Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes

  Of Ivy-fingered winds and gladsome birds

  And merriment are resonant around.

  500

  The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more

  The voice that once waked multitudes to war

  Thundering thro’ all their aisles: but now respond

  To the death dirge of the melancholy wind:

  It were a sight of awfulness to see

  505

  The works of faith and slavery, so vast,

  So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing!

  Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall.

  A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death

  To-day, the breathing marble glows above

  510

  To decorate its memory, and tongues

  Are busy of its life: to-morrow, worms

  In silence and in darkness seize their prey.

  These ruins soon leave not a wreck behind:

  Their elements, wide-scattered o’er the globe,

  515

  To happier shapes are moulded, and become

  Ministrant to all blissful impulses:

  Thus human things are perfected, and earth,

  Even as a child beneath its mother’s love,

  Is strengthened in all excellence, and grows

  520

  Fairer and nobler with each passing year.

  Now Time his dusky pennons o’er the scene

  Closes in steadfast darkness, and the past

  Fades from our charmed sight. My task is done:

  Thy lore is learned. Earth’s wonders are thine own,

  525

  With all the fear and all the hope they bring.

  My spells are past: the present now recurs.

  Ah me! a pathless wilderness remains

  Yet unsubdued by man’s reclaiming hand.

  Yet, human Spirit, bravely hold thy course,

  530

  Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue

  The gradual paths of an aspiring change:

  For birth and life and death, and that strange state

  Before the naked powers that thro’ the world

  Wander like winds have found a human home,

  535

  All tend to perfect happiness, and urge

  The restless wheels of being on their way,

  Whose flashing spokes, instinct with infinite life,

  Bicker and burn to gain their destined goal:

  For birth but wakes the universal mind

  540

  Whose mighty streams might else in silence flow

  Thro’ the vast world, to individual sense

  Of outward shows, whose unexperienced shape

  New modes of passion to its frame may lend;

  Life is its state of action, and the store

  545

  Of all events is aggregated there

  That variegate the eternal universe;

  Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,

  That leads to azure isles and beaming skies

  And happy regions of eternal hope.

  550

  Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on:

  Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk,

  Though frosts may blight the freshness of
its bloom,

  Yet spring’s awakening breath will woo the earth,

  To feed with kindliest dews its favourite flower,

  555

  That blooms in mossy banks and darksome glens,

  Lighting the green wood with its sunny smile.

  Fear not then, Spirit, death’s disrobing hand,

  So welcome when the tyrant is awake,

  So welcome when the bigot’s hell-torch flares;

  560

  ’Tis but the voyage of a darksome hour,

  The transient gulf-dream of a startling sleep.

  For what thou art shall perish utterly,

  But what is thine may never cease to be;

  Death is no foe to virtue: earth has seen

  565

  Love’s brightest roses on the scaffold bloom,

  Mingling with freedom’s fadeless laurels there,

  And presaging the truth of visioned bliss.

  Are there not hopes within thee, which this scene

  Of linked and gradual being has confirmed?

  570

  Hopes that not vainly thou, and living fires

  Of mind as radiant and as pure as thou,

  Have shone upon the paths of men—return,

  Surpassing Spirit, to that world, where thou

  Art destined an eternal war to wage

  575

  With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot

  The germs of misery from the human heart.

  Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe

  The thorny pillow of unhappy crime,

  Whose impotence an easy pardon gains,

  580

  Watching its wanderings as a friend’s disease:

  Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy

  Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will,

  When fenced by power and master of the world.

  Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind,

  585

  Free from heart-withering custom’s cold control,

  Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued.

  Earth’s pride and meanness could not vanquish thee,

  And therefore art thou worthy of the boon

  Which thou hast now received: virtue shall keep

  590

  Thy footsteps in the path that thou hast trod,

  And many days of beaming hope shall bless

  Thy spotless life of sweet and sacred love.

  Go, happy one, and give that bosom joy

  Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch

  595

  Light, life and rapture from thy smile.

  The Daemon called its wingèd ministers.

  Speechless with bliss the Spirit mounts the car,

  That rolled beside the crystal battlement,

  Bending her beamy eyes in thankfulness.

  600

  The burning wheels inflame

  The steep descent of Heaven’s untrodden way.

  Fast and far the chariot flew:

  The mighty globes that rolled

  Around the gate of the Eternal Fane

  605

  Lessened by slow degrees, and soon appeared

  Such tiny twinkles as the planet orbs

  That ministering on the solar power

  With borrowed light pursued their narrower way.

  Earth floated then below:

  610

  The chariot paused a moment;

  The Spirit then descended:

  And from the earth departing

  The shadows with swift wings

  Speeded like thought upon the light of Heaven.

  615

  The Body and the Soul united then,

  A gentle start convulsed Ianthe’s frame:

  Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed;

  Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained:

  She looked around in wonder and beheld

  620

  Henry, who kneeled in silence by her couch,

  Watching her sleep with looks of speechless love,

  And the bright beaming stars

  That through the casement shone.

  THE REVOLT OF ISLAM

  A POEM IN TWELVE CANTOS

  PREFACE

  THE Poem which I now present to the world is an attempt from which I scarcely dare to expect success, and in which a writer of established fame might fail without disgrace. It is an experiment on the temper of the public mind, as to how far a thirst for a happier condition of moral and political society survives, among the enlightened and refined, the tempests which have shaken the age in which we live. I have sought to enlist the harmony of metrical language, the ethereal combinations of the fancy, the rapid and subtle transitions of human passion, all those elements which essentially compose a Poem, in the cause of a liberal and comprehensive morality; and in the view of kindling within the bosoms of my readers a virtuous enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith and hope in something good, which neither violence nor misrepresentation nor prejudice can ever totally extinguish among mankind.

  For this purpose I have chosen a story of human passion in its most universal character, diversified with moving and romantic adventures, and appealing, in contempt of all artificial opinions or institutions, to the common sympathies of every human breast. I have made no attempt to recommend the motives which I would substitute for those at present governing mankind, by methodical and systematic argument. I would only awaken the feelings, so that the reader should see the beauty of true virtue, and be incited to those inquiries which have led to my moral and political creed, and that of some of the sublimest intellects in the world. The Poem therefore (with the exception of the first canto, which is purely introductory) is narrative, not didactic. It is a succession of pictures illustrating the growth and progress of individual mind aspiring after excellence, and devoted to the love of mankind; its influence in refining and making pure the most daring and uncommon impulses of the imagination, the understanding, and the senses; its impatience at ‘all the oppressions which are done under the sun’; its tendency to awaken public hope, and to enlighten and improve mankind; the rapid effects of the application of that tendency; the awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and degradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the bloodless dethronement of their oppressors, and the unveiling of the religious frauds by which they had been deluded into submission; the tranquillity of successful patriotism, and the universal toleration and benevolence of true philanthropy; the treachery and barbarity of hired soldiers; vice not the object of punishment and hatred, but kindness and pity; the faithlessness of tyrants; the confederacy of the Rulers of the World, and the restoration of the expelled Dynasty by foreign arms; the massacre and extermination of the Patriots, and the victory of established power; the consequences of legitimate despotism, —civil war, famine, plague, superstition, and an utter extinction of the domestic affections; the judicial murder of the advocates of Liberty; the temporary triumph of oppression, that secure earnest of its final and inevitable fall; the transient nature of ignorance and error, and the eternity of genius and virtue. Such is the series of delineations of which the Poem consists. And, if the lofty passions with which it has been my scope to distinguish this story shall not excite in the reader a generous impulse, an ardent thirst for excellence, an interest profound and strong such as belongs to no meaner desires, let not the failure be imputed to a natural unfitness for human sympathy in these sublime and animating themes. It is the business of the Poet to communicate to others the pleasure and the enthusiasm arising out of those images and feelings in the vivid presence of which within his own mind consists at once his inspiration and his reward.

  The panic which, like an epidemic transport, seized upon all classes of men during the excesses consequent upon the French Revolution, is gradually giving place to sanity. It has ceased to be believed that whole generations of mankind ought to consign themselves to a hopeless inheritance of ignorance and misery, becaus
e a nation of men who had been dupes and slaves for centuries were incapable of conducting themselves with the wisdom and tranquillity of freemen so soon as some of their fetters were partially loosened. That their conduct could not have been marked by any other characters than ferocity and thoughtlessness is the historical fact from which liberty derives all its recommendations, and falsehood the worst features of its deformity. There is a reflux in the tide of human things which bears the shipwrecked hopes of men into a secure haven after the storms are past. Methinks, those who now live have survived an age of despair.

  The French Revolution may be considered as one of those manifestations of a general state of feeling among civilised mankind produced by a defect of correspondence between the knowledge existing in society and the improvement or gradual abolition of political institutions. The year 1788 may be assumed as the epoch of one of the most important crises produced by this feeling. The sympathies connected with that event extended to every bosom. The most generous and amiable natures were those which participated the most extensively in these sympathies. But such a degree of unmingled good was expected as it was impossible to realise. If the Revolution had been in every respect prosperous, then misrule and superstition would lose half their claims to our abhorrence, as fetters which the captive can unlock with the slightest motion of his fingers, and which do not eat with poisonous rust into the soul. The revulsion occasioned by the atrocities of the demagogues, and the re-establishment of successive tyrannies in France, was terrible, and felt in the remotest corner of the civilised world. Could they listen to the plea of reason who had groaned under the calamities of a social state according to the provisions of which one man riots in luxury whilst another famishes for want of bread? Can he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become liberal-minded, forbearing, and independent? This is the consequence of the habits of a state of society to be produced by resolute perseverance and indefatigable hope, and long-suffering and long-believing courage, and the systematic efforts of generations of men of intellect and virtue. Such is the lesson which experience teaches now. But, on the first reverses of hope in the progress of French liberty, the sanguine eagerness for good overleaped the solution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the unexpectedness of their result. Thus, many of the most ardent and tender-hearted of the worshippers of public good have been morally ruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored appeared to show as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes. Hence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age in which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously finds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This influence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness of the minds from which it flows. Metaphysics,1 and inquiries into moral and political science, have become little else than vain attempts to revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those2 of Mr. Malthus, calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind into a security of everlasting triumph. Our works of fiction and poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But mankind appear to me to be emerging from their trance. I am aware, methinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have composed the following Poem.