The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the History of a Six Weeks’ Tour, and Letters from Switzerland: ‘The poem entitled Mont Blanc is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.’
This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the Prometheus of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny’s Letters, the Annals and Germany of Tacitus. In French, the History of the French Revolution by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne’s Essays, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke’s Essay, Political Justice, and Coleridge’s Lay Sermon, form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, Paradise Lost, Spenser’s Faery Queen, and Don Quixote.
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817
MARIANNE’S DREAM
I
A PALE Dream came to a Lady fair,
And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!
I know the secrets of the air,
And things are lost in the glare of day,
5
Which I can make the sleeping see,
If they will put their trust in me.
II
And thou shalt know of things unknown,
If thou wilt let me rest between
The veiny lids, whose fringe is thrown
10
Over thine eyes so dark and sheen:
And half in hope, and half in fright,
The Lady closed her eyes so bright.
III
At first all deadly shapes were driven
Tumultuously across her sleep,
15
And o’er the vast cope of bending heaven
All ghastly-visaged clouds did sweep;
And the Lady ever looked to spy
If the golden sun shone forth on high.
IV
And as towards the east she turned,
She saw aloft in the morning air,
Which now with hues of sunrise burned,
A great black Anchor rising there;
And wherever the Lady turned her eyes,
It hung before her in the skies.
V
The sky was blue as the summer sea,
The depths were cloudless over head,
The air was calm as it could be,
There was no sight or sound of dread,
But that black Anchor floating still
30
Over the piny eastern hill.
VI
The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear
To see that Anchor ever hanging,
And veiled her eyes; she then did hear
The sound as of a dim low clanging,
35
And looked abroad if she might know
Was it aught else, or but the flow
Of the blood in her own veins, to and fro.
VII
There was a mist in the sunless air,
Which shook as it were with an earthquake’s shock,
40
But the very weeds that blossomed there
Were moveless, and each mighty rock
Stood on its basis steadfastly;
The Anchor was seen no more on high.
VIII
But piled around, with summits hid
45
In lines of cloud at intervals,
Stood many a mountain pyramid
Among whose everlasting walls
Two mighty cities shone, and ever
Through the red mist their domes did quiver.
IX
50
On two dread mountains, from whose crest,
Might seem, the eagle, for her brood,
Would ne’er have hung her dizzy nest,
Those tower-encircled cities stood.
A vision strange such towers to see,
55
Sculptured and wrought so gorgeously
Where human art could never be.
X
And columns framed of marble white,
And giant fanes, dome over dome
Piled, and triumphant gates, all bright
60
With workmanship, which could not come
From touch of mortal instrument,
Shot o’er the vales, or lustre lent
From its own shapes magnificent.
XI
But still the Lady heard that clang
65
Filling the wide air far away;
And still the mist whose light did hang
Among the mountains shook alway,
So that the Lady’s heart beat fast,
As half in joy, and half aghast,
70
On those high domes her look she cast
XII
Sudden, from out that city sprung
A light that made the earth grow red;
Two flames that each with quivering tongue
Licked its high domes, and overhead
75
Among those mighty towers and fanes
Dropped fire, as a volcano rains
Its sulphurous ruin on the plains.
XIII
And hark! a rush as if the deep
Had burst its bonds; she looked behind
80
And saw over the western steep
A raging flood descend, and wind
Through that wide vale; she felt no fear,
But said within herself, ’Tis clear
These towers are Nature’s own, and she
To save them has sent forth the sea.
XIV
And now those raging billows came
Where that fair Lady sate, and she
Was borne towards the showering flame
By the wild waves heaped tumultously,
90
And, on a little plank, the flow
Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro.
XV
The flames were fiercely vomited
From every tower and every dome,
And dreary light did widely shed
95
O’er that vast flood’s suspended foam,
Beneath the smoke which hung its night
On the stained cope of heaven’s light.
XVI
The plank whereon that Lady sate
Was driven through the chasms, about and about,
100
Between the peaks so desolate
Of the drowning mountains, in and out,
As the thistle-beard on a whirlwind sails—
While the flood was filling those hollow vales.
XVII
At last her plank an eddy crossed,
And bore her to the city’s wall,
Which now the flood had reached almost;
It might the stoutest heart appal
To hear the fire roar and hiss
Through the domes of those mighty palaces.
XVIII
110
The eddy whirled her round and round
Before a gorgeous gate, which stood
Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound
Its aëry arch with light like blood;
She looked on that gate of marble clear,
115
With wonder that extinguished fear.
XIX
For it was filled with sculptures rarest,
Of form
s most beautiful and strange,
Like nothing human, but the fairest
Of wingèd shapes, whose legions range
120
Throughout the sleep of those that are,
Like this same Lady, good and fair,
XX
And as she looked, still lovelier grew
Those marble forms;—the sculptor sure
Was a strong spirit, and the hue
Of his own mind did there endure
After the touch, whose power had braided
Such grace, was in some sad change faded.
XXI
She looked, the flames were dim, the flood
Grew tranquil as a woodland river
Winding through hills in solitude;
Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver,
And their fair limbs to float in motion,
Like weeds unfolding in the ocean.
XXII
And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
135
When suddenly the mountains cracked,
And through the chasm the flood did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract:
The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin Dream
140
Lifted the Lady from the stream.
XXIII
The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
And she arose, while from the veil
Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep,
145
And she walked about as one who knew
That sleep has sights as clear and true
As any waking eyes can view.
TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING
I
THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
5
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet,
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
II
10
A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
15
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond the mighty moons that wane
Upon the verge of Nature’s utmost sphere,
20
Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear.
III
Her voice is hovering o’er my soul—it lingers
O’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
25
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick—
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes;
My heart is quivering like a flame;
30
As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
IV
I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody.—
35
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o’er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.
Now ’tis the breath of summer night,
Which when the starry waters sleep,
40
Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright,
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
TO CONSTANTIA
I
THE rose that drinks the fountain dew
In the pleasant air of noon,
Grows pale and blue with altered hue—
In the gaze of the nightly moon;
5
For the planet of frost, so cold and bright,
Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
II
Such is my heart—roses are fair,
And that at best a withered blossom;
But thy false care did idly wear
10
Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom;
And fed with love, like air and dew,
Its growth—–
FRAGMENT: TO ONE SINGING
MY spirit like a charmed bark doth swim
Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,
Far far away into the regions dim
Of rapture—as a boat, with swift sails winging
5
Its way adown some many-winding river,
Speeds through dark forests o’er the waters swinging …
A FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC
SILVER key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
5
Is laid asleep in flowers.
ANOTHER FRAGMENT TO MUSIC
No, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love,’
Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self,
Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.
‘MIGHTY EAGLE’
SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN
MIGHTY eagle! thou that soarest
O’er the misty mountain forest,
And amid the light of morning
Like a cloud of glory hiest,
5
And when night descends defiest
The embattled tempests’ warning!
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR
I
THY country’s curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother’s bosom—Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
II
5
Thy country’s curse is on thee! Justice sold,
Truth trampled, Nature’s landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction’s throne.
III
And, whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
10
Watching the beck of Mutability
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee.
IV
Oh, let a father’s curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter’s hope be on thy tomb;
15
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom!
V
I curse thee by a parent’s outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
20
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed;
VI
By those infantine smiles of happy light,
Which were a fire within a stranger’s hearth,
Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night
Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:
VII
25
By those unpractised accents of young speech,
Which he who is a father thought to frame
&
nbsp; To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach—
Thou strike the lyre of mind!—oh, grief and shame!
VIII
By all the happy see in children’s growth—
30
That undeveloped flower of budding years—
Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,
Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears—
IX
By all the days, under an hireling’s care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,—
35
O wretched ye if ever any were,—
Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
X
By the false cant which on their innocent lips
Must hang like poison on an opening bloom,
By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse
40
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb—
XI
By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;
By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt
Of thine impostures, which must be their error—
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—
XII
45
By thy complicity with lust and hate—
Thy thirst for tears—thy hunger after gold—
The ready frauds which ever on thee wait—
The servile arts in which thou hast grown old—
XIII
By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile—
50
By all the arts and snares of thy black den,
And—for thou canst outweep the crocodile—