The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  120

  Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound.

  The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,

  Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;

  Not even the nightingale intrudes a note

  In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.

  FIORDISPINA

  THE season was the childhood of sweet June,

  Whose sunny hours from morning until noon

  Went creeping through the day with silent feet,

  Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;

  5

  Like the long years of blest Eternity

  Never to be developed. Joy to thee,

  Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,

  For thou the wonders of the depth canst know

  Of this unfathomable flood of hours,

  10

  Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers—

  · · · · · · ·

  They were two cousins, almost like to twins,

  Except that from the catalogue of sins

  Nature had rased their love—which could not be

  But by dissevering their nativity.

  15

  And so they grew together like two flowers

  Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers

  Lull or awaken in their purple prime,

  Which the same hand will gather—the same clime

  Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see

  20

  All those who love—and who e’er loved like thee,

  Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,

  Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow

  The ardours of a vision which obscure

  The very idol of its portraiture.

  25

  He faints, dissolved into a sea of love;

  But thou art as a planet sphered above;

  But thou art Love itself—ruling the motion

  Of his subjected spirit: such emotion

  Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May

  30

  Had not brought forth this morn—your wedding-day.

  · · · · · · ·

  ‘Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,

  Ye faint-eyed children of the Hours,’

  Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers

  Which she had from the breathing—

  · · · · · · ·

  35

  A table near of polished porphyry.

  They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye

  That looked on them—a fragrance from the touch

  Whose warmth checked their life; a light such

  As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love,

  40

  which did reprove

  The childish pity that she felt for them,

  And a remorse that from their stem

  She had divided such fair shapes made

  A feeling in the which was a shade

  45

  Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay

  All gems that make the earth’s dark bosom gay.

  rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,

  And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes

  The livery of unremembered snow—

  50

  Violets whose eyes have drunk—

  · · · · · · ·

  Fiordispina and her nurse are now

  Upon the steps of the high portico;

  Under the withered arm of Media

  She flings her glowing arm

  · · · · · · ·

  55

  step by step and stair by stair,

  That withered woman, gray and white and brown—

  More like a trunk by lichens overgrown

  Than anything which once could have been human.

  And ever as she goes the palsied woman

  · · · · · · ·

  60

  ‘How slow and painfully you seem to walk,

  Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.’

  ‘And well it may,

  Fiordispina, dearest—well-a-day!

  You are hastening to a marriage-bed;

  65

  I to the grave!’—‘And if my love were dead,

  Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie

  Beside him in my shroud as willingly

  As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.’

  ‘Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought

  70

  Not be remembered till it snows in June;

  Such fancies are a music out of tune

  With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.

  What! would you take all beauty and delight

  Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,

  75

  And leave to grosser mortals?—–

  And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet

  And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?

  Who knows whether the loving game is played,

  When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,

  80

  The naked soul goes wandering here and there

  Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?

  The violet dies not till it’—–

  TIME LONG PAST

  I

  LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead

  Is Time long past.

  A tone which is now forever fled,

  A hope which is now forever past,

  5

  A love so sweet it could not last,

  Was time long past.

  II

  There were sweet dreams in the night

  Of Time long past:

  And, was it sadness or delight,

  10

  Each day a shadow onward cast

  Which made us wish it yet might last—

  That Time long past.

  III

  There is regret, almost remorse,

  For Time long past.

  15

  ’Tis like a child’s belovèd corse

  A father watches, till at last

  Beauty is like remembrance, cast

  From Time long past.

  FRAGMENT: THE DESERTS OF DIM SLEEP

  I WENT into the deserts of dim sleep—

  That world which, like an unknown wilderness,

  Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep—

  FRAGMENT: ‘THE VIEWLESS AND INVISIBLE CONSEQUENCE’

  THE viewless and invisible Consequence

  Watches thy goings-out, and comings-in,

  And … hovers o’er thy guilty sleep,

  Unveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts

  5

  More ghastly than those deeds—

  FRAGMENT: A SERPENT-FACE

  HIS face was like a snake’s—wrinkled and loose

  And withered—

  FRAGMENT: DEATH IN LIFE

  MY head is heavy, my limbs are weary,

  And it is not life that makes me move.

  FRAGMENT: ‘SUCH HOPE, AS IS THE SICK DESPAIR OF GOOD’

  SUCH hope, as is the sick despair of good,

  Such fear, as is the certainty of ill,

  Such doubt, as is pale Expectation’s food

  Turned while she tastes to poison, when the will

  5

  Is powerless, and the spirit …

  FRAGMENT: ‘ALAS! THIS IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT LIFE WAS’

  ALAS! this is not what I thought life was.

  I knew that there were crimes and evil men,

  Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass

  Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.

  5

  In mine own heart I saw as in a glass

  The hearts of others And when

  I went among my kind, with triple brass

  Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,

  To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!

  FRAGMENT: MILTON’S SPIRIT

  I DREAMED that Milton’s spirit rose, and too
k

  From life’s green tree his Uranian lute;

  And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook

  All human things built in contempt of man,—

  5

  And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked,

  Prisons and citadels …

  FRAGMENT: ‘UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN’

  UNRISEN splendour of the brightest sun,

  To rise upon our darkness, if the star

  Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne

  Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war

  5

  With thy young brightness!

  FRAGMENT: PATER OMNIPOTENS

  SERENE in his unconquerable might

  Endued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne

  Encompassed unapproachably with power

  And darkness and deep solitude and awe

  5

  Stood like a black cloud on some aëry cliff

  Embosoming its lightning—in his sight

  Unnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood

  Like slaves before their Lord—prostrate around

  Heaven’s multitudes hymned everlasting praise.

  FRAGMENT: TO THE MIND OF MAN

  THOU living light that in thy rainbow hues

  Clothest this naked world; and over Sea

  And Earth and air, and all the shapes that be

  In peopled darkness of this wondrous world

  5

  The Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse

  truth thou Vital Flame

  Mysterious thought that in this mortal frame

  Of things, with unextinguished lustre burnest

  Now pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled

  10

  That eer as thou dost languish still returnest

  And ever

  Before the before the Pyramids

  So soon as from the Earth formless and rude

  One living step had chased drear Solitude

  15

  Thou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids

  Of the vast snake Eternity, who kept

  The tree of good and evil.—

  NOTE ON POEMS OF 1820, BY MRS. SHELLEY

  WE spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on its ancient works of art. His thoughts were a good deal taken up also by the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to ply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of money. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly disappointed when it was thrown aside.

  There was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his health, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we left it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we had some friends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vaccà as to the cause of Shelley’s sufferings. He, like every other medical man, could only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he enjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave his complaint to Nature. As he had vainly consulted medical men of the highest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this advice. Pain and ill-health followed him to the end; but the residence at Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence we remained.

  In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house, which was hers: he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity. As a favourite friend of my father, we had sought her with eagerness; and the most open and cordial friendship was established between us.

  Our stay at the Baths of San Giuliano was shortened by an accident. At the foot of our garden ran the canal that communicated between the Serchio and the Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks, and, breaking its bounds, this canal also overflowed; all this part of the country is below the level of its rivers, and the consequence was that it was speedily flooded. The rising waters filled the Square of the Baths, in the lower part of which our house was situated. The canal overflowed in the garden behind; the rising waters on either side at last burst open the doors, and, meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet. It was a picturesque sight at night to see the peasants driving the cattle from the plains below to the hills above the Baths. A fire was kept up to guide them across the ford; and the forms of the men and the animals showed in dark relief against the red glare of the flame, which was reflected again in the waters that filled the Square.

  We then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter. The extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude was enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends. Chance cast us strangely enough on this quiet half-unpeopled town; but its very peace suited Shelley. Its river, the near mountains, and not distant sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many delightful excursions. We feared the south of Italy, and a hotter climate, on account of our child; our former bereavement inspiring us with terror. We seemed to take root here, and moved little afterwards; often, indeed, entertaining projects for visiting other parts of Italy, but still delaying. But for our fears on account of our child, I believe we should have wandered over the world, both being passionately fond of travelling. But human life, besides its great unalterable necessities, is ruled by a thousand lilliputian ties that shackle at the time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for their influence over our destiny.

  * * *

  1 See the Bacchae of Euripides.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  2 The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  3 Pompeii.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  4 Homer and Virgil.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  5 Aeaea, the island of Circe.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  6 The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]

  POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821

  DIRGE FOR THE YEAR

  I

  ORPHAN Hours, the Year is dead,

  Come and sigh, come and weep!

  Merry Hours, smile instead,

  For the Year is but asleep.

  5

  See, it smiles as it is sleeping,

  Mocking your untimely weeping.

  II

  As an earthquake rocks a corse

  In its coffin in the clay,

  So White Winter, that rough nurse,

  10

  Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;

  Solemn Hours! wail aloud

  For your mother in her shroud.

  III

  As the wild air stirs and sways

  The tree-swung cradle of a child,

  15

  So the breath of these rude days

  Rocks the Year:—be calm and mild,

  Trembling Hours, she will arise

  With new love within her eyes.

  IV

  January gray is here,

  20

  Like a sexton by her grave;

  February bears the bier,

  March with grief doth howl and ra
ve,

  And April weeps—but, O ye Hours!

  Follow with May’s fairest flowers.

  TO NIGHT

  I

  SWIFTLY walk o’er the western wave,

  Spirit of Night!

  Out of the misty eastern cave,

  Where, all the long and lone daylight,

  5

  Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,

  Which make thee terrible and dear,—

  Swift be thy flight!

  II

  Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,

  Star-inwrought!

  10

  Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;

  Kiss her until she be wearied out,

  Then wander o’er city, and sea, and land,

  Touching all with thine opiate wand—

  Come, long-sought!

  III

  15

  When I arose and saw the dawn,

  I sighed for thee;

  When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

  And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

  And the weary Day turned to his rest,

  20

  Lingering like an unloved guest,

  I sighed for thee.

  IV

  Thy brother Death came, and cried,

  Wouldst thou me?

  Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,

  25

  Murmured like a noontide bee,

  Shall I nestle near thy side?

  Wouldst thou me?—And I replied,

  No, not thee!

  V

  Death will come when thou art dead,