The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Which, like a prophet or a shadow, brought

  90

  News of the terrors of the coming time.

  Like an accuser branded with the crime

  He would have cast on a belovèd friend,

  Whose dying eyes reproach not to the end

  The pale betrayer—he then with vain repentance

  95

  Would share, he cannot now avert, the sentence—

  Antonio stood and would have spoken, when

  The compound voice of women and of men

  Was heard approaching; he retired, while she

  Was led amid the admiring company

  100

  Back to the palace,—and her maidens soon

  Changed her attire for the afternoon,

  And left her at her own request to keep

  An hour of quiet and rest:—like one asleep

  With open eyes and folded hands she lay,

  105

  Pale in the light of the declining day.

  Meanwhile the day sinks fast, the sun is set,

  And in the lighted hall the guests are met;

  The beautiful looked lovelier in the light

  Of love, and admiration, and delight

  110

  Reflected from a thousand hearts and eyes,

  Kindling a momentary Paradise.

  This crowd is safer than the silent wood,

  Where love’s own doubts disturb the solitude;

  On frozen hearts the fiery rain of wine

  115

  Falls, and the dew of music more divine

  Tempers the deep emotions of the time

  To spirits cradled in a sunny clime:—

  How many meet, who never yet have met,

  To part too soon, but never to forget.

  120

  How many saw the beauty, power and wit

  Of looks and words which ne’er enchanted yet;

  But life’s familiar veil was now withdrawn,

  As the world leaps before an earthquake’s dawn,

  And unprophetic of the coming hours,

  125

  The matin winds from the expanded flowers

  Scatter their hoarded incense, and awaken

  The earth, until the dewy sleep is shaken

  From every living heart which it possesses,

  Through seas and winds, cities and wildernesses,

  130

  As if the future and the past were all

  Treasured i’ the instant;—so Gherardi’s hall

  Laughed in the mirth of its lord’s festival,

  Till some one asked—‘Where is the Bride?’ And then

  A bridesmaid went,—and ere she came again

  135

  A silence fell upon the guests—a pause

  Of expectation, as when beauty awes

  All hearts with its approach, though unbeheld,

  Then wonder, and then fear that wonder quelled;—

  For whispers passed from mouth to ear which drew

  140

  The colour from the hearer’s cheeks, and flew

  Louder and swifter round the company;

  And then Gherardi entered with an eye

  Of ostentatious trouble, and a crowd

  Surrounded him, and some were weeping loud.

  145

  They found Ginevra dead! if it be death

  To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath,

  With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,

  And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light

  Mocked at the speculation they had owned.

  150

  If it be death, when there is felt around

  A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,

  And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair

  From the scalp to the ankles, as it were

  Corruption from the spirit passing forth,

  155

  And giving all it shrouded to the earth,

  And leaving as swift lightning in its flight

  Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our night

  Of thought we know thus much of death,—no more

  Than the unborn dream of our life before

  160

  Their barks are wrecked on its inhospitable shore.

  The marriage feast and its solemnity

  Was turned to funeral pomp—the company,

  With heavy hearts and looks, broke up; nor they

  Who loved the dead went weeping on their way

  165

  Alone, but sorrow mixed with sad surprise

  Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes,

  On which that form, whose fate they weep in vain.

  Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again.

  The lamps which, half extinguished in their haste,

  170

  Gleamed few and faint o’er the abandoned feast,

  Showed as it were within the vaulted room

  A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom

  Had passed out of men’s minds into the air.

  Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,

  175

  Friends and relations of the dead,—and he,

  A loveless man, accepted torpidly

  The consolation that he wanted not;

  Awe in the place of grief within him wrought.

  Their whispers made the solemn silence seem

  180

  More still—some wept, …

  Some melted into tears without a sob,

  And some with hearts that might be heard to throb

  Leaned on the table, and at intervals

  Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls

  185

  And corridors the thrilling shrieks which came

  Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame

  Of every torch and taper as it swept

  From out the chamber where the women kept;—

  Their tears fell on the dear companion cold

  190

  Of pleasures now departed; then was knolled

  The bell of death, and soon the priests arrived,

  And finding Death their penitent had shrived,

  Returned like ravens from a corpse whereon

  A vulture has just feasted to the bone.

  195

  And then the mourning women came.—

  · · · · · · ·

  THE DIRGE

  Old winter was gone

  In his weakness back to the mountains hoar,

  And the spring came down

  From the planet that hovers upon the shore

  200

  Where the sea of sunlight encroaches

  On the limits of wintry night;—

  If the land, and the air, and the sea,

  Rejoice not when spring approaches,

  We did not rejoice in thee,

  205

  Ginevra!

  She is still, she is cold

  On the bridal couch,

  One step to the white deathbed,

  And one to the bier,

  210

  And one to the charnel—and one, oh where?

  The dark arrow fled

  In the noon.

  Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled,

  The rats in her heart

  215

  Will have made their nest,

  And the worms be alive in her golden hair,

  While the Spirit that guides the sun,

  Sits throned in his flaming chair,

  She shall sleep.

  EVENING: PONTE AL MARE, PISA

  I

  THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep;

  The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;

  The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,

  And evening’s breath, wandering here and there

  5

  Over the quivering surface of the stream,

  Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

  II

  There is no d
ew on the dry grass to-night,

  Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;

  The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

  10

  And in the inconstant motion of the breeze

  The dust and straws are driven up and down,

  And whirled about the pavement of the town.

  III

  Within the surface of the fleeting river

  The wrinkled image of the city lay,

  15

  Immovably unquiet, and forever

  It trembles, but it never fades away;

  Go to the …

  You, being changed, will find it then as now.

  IV

  The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut

  20

  By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,

  Like mountain over mountain huddled—but

  Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,

  And over it a space of watery blue,

  Which the keen evening star is shining through.

  THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO

  OUR boat is asleep on Serchio’s stream,

  Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,

  The helm sways idly, hither and thither;

  Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,

  5

  And the oars, and the sails; but ’tis sleeping fast,

  Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

  The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,

  And the thin white moon lay withering there;

  To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,

  10

  The owl and the bat fled drowsily.

  Day had kindled the dewy woods,

  And the rocks above and the stream below,

  And the vapours in their multitudes,

  And the Apennine’s shroud of summer snow,

  15

  And clothed with light of aëry gold

  The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

  Day had awakened all things that be,

  The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,

  And the milkmaid’s song and the mower’s scythe,

  20

  And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:

  Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,

  Glow-worms went out on the river’s brim,

  Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:

  The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

  25

  The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:

  Like a flock of rooks at a farmer’s gun

  Night’s dreams and terrors, every one,

  Fled from the brains which are their prey

  From the lamp’s death to the morning ray.

  30

  All rose to do the task He set to each,

  Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;

  The million rose to learn, and one to teach

  What none yet ever knew or can be known.

  And many rose

  35

  Whose woe was such that fear became desire;—

  Melchior and Lionel were not among those;

  They from the throng of men had stepped aside,

  And made their home under the green hill-side.

  It was that hill, whose intervening brow

  40

  Screens Lucca from the Pisan’s envious eye,

  Which the circumfluous plain waving below,

  Like a wide lake of green fertility,

  With streams and fields and marshes bare,

  Divides from the far Apennines—which lie

  45

  Islanded in the immeasurable air.

  ‘What think you, as she lies in her green cove,

  Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?’

  ‘If morning dreams are true, why I should guess

  That she was dreaming of our idleness,

  50

  And of the miles of watery way

  We should have led her by this time of day.’—

  ‘Never mind,’ said Lionel,

  ‘Give care to the winds, they can bear it well

  About yon poplar-tops; and see

  55

  The white clouds are driving merrily,

  And the stars we miss this morn will light

  More willingly our return to-night.—

  How it whistles, Dominic’s long black hair!

  List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:

  60

  Hear how it sings into the air—’

  —‘Of us and of our lazy motions,’

  Impatiently said Melchior,

  ‘If I can guess a boat’s emotions;

  And how we ought, two hours before,

  65

  To have been the devil knows where.’

  And then, in such transalpine Tuscan

  As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

  · · · · · · ·

  So, Lionel according to his art

  Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:

  70

  ‘She dreams that we are not yet out of bed;

  We’ll put a soul into her, and a heart

  Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat.’

  · · · · · · ·

  ‘Ay, heave the ballast overboard,

  And stow the eatables in the aft locker.’

  75

  ‘Would not this keg be best a little lowered?’

  ‘No, now all’s right.’ ‘Those bottles of warm tea—

  (Give me some straw)—must be stowed tenderly;

  Such as we used, in summer after six,

  To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix

  80

  Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,

  And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours

  Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours,

  Would feast till eight.’

  · · · · · · ·

  With a bottle in one hand,

  85

  As if his very soul were at a stand,

  Lionel stood—when Melchior brought him steady:—

  ‘Sit at the helm—fasten this sheet—all ready!’

  The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,

  The living breath is fresh behind,

  90

  As, with dews and sunrise fed,

  Comes the laughing morning wind;—

  The sails are full, the boat makes head

  Against the Serchio’s torrent fierce,

  Then flags with intermitting course,

  95

  And hangs upon the wave, and stems

  The tempest of the …

  Which fervid from its mountain source

  Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,—

  Swift as fire, tempestuously

  100

  It sweeps into the affrighted sea

  In morning’s smile its eddies coil,

  Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,

  Torturing all its quiet light

  Into columns fierce and bright.

  105

  The Serchio, twisting forth

  Between the marble barriers which it clove

  At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm

  The wave that died the death which lovers love,

  Living in what it sought; as if this spasm

  110

  Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling,

  But the clear stream in full enthusiasm

  Pours itself on the plain, then wandering

  Down one clear path of effluence crystalline

  Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling

  115

  At Arno’s feet tribute of corn and wine;

  Then, through the pestilential deserts wild

  Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine,

  It rushes to the Ocean.

  MUSIC

  I

  I PANT for the music which is divine,

  My heart in its
thirst is a dying flower;

  Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,

  Loosen the notes in a silver shower;

  5

  Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,

  I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

  II

  Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,

  More, oh more,—I am thirsting yet;

  It loosens the serpent which care has bound

  10

  Upon my heart to stifle it;

  The dissolving strain, through every vein,

  Passes into my heart and brain.

  III

  As the scent of a violet withered up,

  Which grew by the brink of a silver lake,

  15

  When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,

  And mist there was none its thirst to slake—

  And the violet lay dead while the odour flew

  On the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue—

  IV

  As one who drinks from a charmèd cup

  20

  Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine

  Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,

  Invites to love with her kiss divine …

  SONNET TO BYRON

  [I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but]

  If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill

  Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair

  The ministration of the thoughts that fill

  The mind which, like a worm whose life may share

  5

  A portion of the unapproachable,

  Marks your creations rise as fast and fair

  As perfect worlds at the Creator’s will.

  But such is my regard that nor your power

  To soar above the heights where others [climb],