The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley
By thy false tears—those millstones braining men—
XIV
By all the hate which checks a father’s love—
By all the scorn which kills a father’s care—
55
By those most impious hands which dared remove
Nature’s high bounds—by thee—and by despair—
xv
Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,
And cry, ‘My children are no longer mine—
The blood within those veins may be mine own,
60
But—Tyrant—their polluted souls are thine;’—
XVI
I curse thee—though I hate thee not.—O slave!
If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell
Of which thou art a daemon, on thy grave
This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY
I
THE billows on the beach are leaping around it,
The bark is weak and frail,
The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale.
5
Come with me, thou delightful child,
Come with me, though the wave is wild,
And the winds are loose, we must not stay,
Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.
II
They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
10
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.
To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
15
And they will curse my name and thee
Because we fearless are and free.
III
Come thou, belovèd as thou art;
Another sleepeth still
Near thy sweet mother’s anxious heart,
20
Which thou with joy shalt fill.
With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be
The dearest playmate unto thee.
IV
25
Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
30
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
V
Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
35
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?—
There, sit between us two, thou dearest—
Me and thy mother—well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,
40
Less cruel than the savage slaves
Who hunt us o’er these sheltering waves.
VI
This hour will in thy memory
Be a dream of days forgotten long.
We soon shall dwell by the azure sea
45
Of serene and golden Italy,
Or Greece, the Mother of the free;
And I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old
In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame
Of Grecian lore, that by such name
A patriot’s birthright thou mayst claim!
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY
I
THE world is now our dwelling-place;
Where’er the earth one fading trace
Of what was great and free does keep,
That is our home! …
5
Mild thoughts of man’s ungentle race
Shall our contented exile reap;
For who that in some happy place
His own free thoughts can freely chase
By woods and waves can clothe his face
10
In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep.
II
This lament,
The memory of thy grievous wrong
Will fade …
But genius is omnipotent
15
To hallow …
ON FANNY GODWIN
HER voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
5
Misery—O Misery,
This world is all too wide for thee.
LINES
I
THAT time is dead for ever, child!
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past
And stare aghast
5
At the spectres wailing, pale and ghast,
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life’s dark river.
II
The stream we gazed on then rolled by;
Its waves are unreturning;
10
But we yet stand
In a lone land,
Like tombs to mark the memory
Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee
In the light of life’s dim morning.
DEATH
I
THEY die—the dead return not—Misery
Sits near an open grave and calls them over,
A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye–
They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,
Which he so feebly calls—they all are gone—
Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,
This most familiar scene, my pain—
These tombs—alone remain.
II
Misery, my sweetest friend—oh, weep no more!
10
Thou wilt not be consoled—I wonder not!
For I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s door
Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot
Was even as bright and calm, but transitory,
And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;
15
This most familiar scene, my pain—
These tombs—alone remain.
OTHO
I
THOU wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,
Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim
From Brutus his own glory—and on thee
Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame:
5
Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail
Amid his cowering senate with thy name,
Though thou and he were great—it will avail
To thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.
II
’Twill wrong thee not—thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,
10
Abjure such envious fame—great Otho died
Like thee—he sanctified his country’s steel,
At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,
In his own blood—a deed it was to bring
Tears from all men—though full of gentle pride,
15
Such pride as from impetuous love may spring,
That will not be refused its offering.
FRAGMENTS SUPPOSED TO BE PARTS OF OTHO
I
THOSE whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,
Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,
Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil
Of his own weakness, and with ear
nest mind
5
Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur
Chastened by deathful victory now, and find
Foundations in this foulest age, and stir
Me whom they cheer to be their minister.
II
Dark is the realm of grief: but human things
10
Those may not know who cannot weep for them.
· · · · · · ·
III
Once more descend
The shadows of my soul upon mankind,
For to those hearts with which they never blend,
Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind
15
From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire,
Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
· · · · · · ·
‘O THAT A CHARIOT OF CLOUD WERE MINE’
O THAT a chariot of cloud were mine!
Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,
When the moon over the ocean’s line
Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair.
5
O that a chariot of cloud were mine!
I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind
To the mountain peak and the rocky lake,
And the …
FRAGMENT: TO A FRIEND RELEASED FROM PRISON
FOR me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble
In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast
With feelings which make rapture pain resemble,
Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast,
5
I thank thee—let the tyrant keep
His chains and tears, yea, let him weep
With rage to see thee freshly risen,
Like strength from slumber, from the prison,
In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind
10
Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind.
FRAGMENT: SATAN BROKEN LOOSE
A GOLDEN-WINGED Angel stood
Before the Eternal Judgement-seat:
His looks were wild, and Devil’s blood
Stained his dainty hands and feet.
5
The Father and the Son
Knew that strife was now begun.
They knew that Satan had broken his chain,
And with millions of daemons in his train,
Was ranging over the world again.
10
Before the Angel had told his tale,
A sweet and a creeping sound
Like the rushing of wings was beard around;
And suddenly the lamps grew pale—
The lamps, before the Archangels seven,
15
That burn continually in Heaven.
FRAGMENT: IGNICULUS DESIDERII
To thirst and find no fill—to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps—to pause and ponder—
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
5
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick …
FRAGMENT: AMOR AETERNUS
WEALTH and dominion fade into the mass
Of the great sea of human right and wrong,
When once from our possession they must pass;
But love, though misdirected, is among
5
The things which are immortal, and surpass
All that frail stuff which will be—or which was.
FRAGMENT: THOUGHTS COME AND GO IN SOLITUDE
MY thoughts arise and fade in solitude,
The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
5
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!
A HATE-SONG
A HATER he came and sat by a ditch,
And he took an old cracked lute;
And he sang a song that was more of a screech
’Gainst a woman that was a brute.
LINES TO A CRITIC
I
HONEY from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.
II
5
Hate men who cant, and men who pray,
And men who rail like thee;
An equal passion to repay
They are not coy like me.
III
Or seek some slave of power and gold
10
To be thy dear heart’s mate;
Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me, thy hate.
IV
A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;
I hate thy want of truth and love,
How should I then hate thee?
OZYMANDIAS
I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
10
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817, BY MRS. SHELLEY
THE very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The Revolt of Islam, written and printed, was a great effort—Rosalind and Helen was begun—and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.
In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.
He projected also translating the Hymns of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remains, as well as that to Mercury already published in the Posthumous Poems. His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the Hymns of Homer and the Iliad, he read the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles, the Symposium of Plato, and Arrian’s Historia Indica. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings I find also mentioned the Faerie Queen; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore, and Byron.
His life was now spent more in thought than action—he had lost the eager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the benefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was far from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy or politics or taste were the subjects of conversation. He was playful; and indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others—not in bitterness, but in sport. The author of Nightmare Abbey seized on some points of his character and so
me habits of his life when he painted Scythrop. He was not addicted to ‘port or madeira,’ but in youth he had read of ‘Illuminati and Eleutherarchs,’ and believed that he possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of men and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and adversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did with physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats, and watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness—or repeating with wild energy The Ancient Mariner, and Southey’s Old Woman of Berkeley; but those who do will recollect that it was in such, and in the creations of his own fancy when that was most daring and ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and disappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life
No words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were torn from him. In his first resentment against the Chancellor, on the passing of the decree, he had written a curse, in which there breathes, besides haughty indignation, all the tenderness of a father’s love, which could imagine and fondly dwell upon its loss and the consequences.
At one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had said some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be permitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared that our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to resolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything, and to escape with his child; and I find some unfinished stanzas addressed to this son, whom afterwards we lost at Rome, written under the idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to preserve him. This poem, as well as the one previously quoted, were not written to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the spontaneous outbursts of a man who brooded over his wrongs and woes, and was impelled to shed the grace of his genius over the uncontrollable emotions of his heart. I ought to observe that the fourth verse of this effusion is introduced in Rosalind and Helen. When afterwards this child died at Rome, he wrote, à propos of the English burying-ground in that city: This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent’s heart are now prophetic; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body, the other crushes the affections.’