The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 115

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824, where it is dated 'December, 1818.' A draft of stanza 1 is amongst the Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.scripts. (Garnett).]

1.

The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, _5 Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

2.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor _10 With green and purple seaweeds strown; I see the waves upon the sh.o.r.e, Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown: I sit upon the sands alone,-- The lightning of the noontide ocean _15 Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

3.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, _20 Nor that content surpa.s.sing wealth The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned-- Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.

Others I see whom these surround-- _25 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;-- To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

4.

Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; I could lie down like a tired child, _30 And weep away the life of care Which I have borne and yet must bear, Till death like sleep might steal on me, And I might feel in the warm air My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea _35 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

5.

Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan; _40 They might lament--for I am one Whom men love not,--and yet regret, Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. _45

NOTES: _4 might Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script, Medwin 1847; light 1824, 1839.

_5 The...light Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script, 1839, Medwin 1847; omitted, 1824. moist earth Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script; moist air 1839; west wind Medwin 1847.

_17 measured 1824; mingled 1847.

_18 did any heart now 1824; if any heart could Medwin 1847.

_31 the 1824; this Medwin 1847.

_36 dying 1824; outworn Medwin 1847.

THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE.

[Published in part (1-67) by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; the remainder (68-70) by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Sh.e.l.ley", 1862.]

A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,

One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;-- _5 And as a vale is watered by a flood,

Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness--as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie

Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, _10 The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close

Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale _15

Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness

Of the circ.u.mfluous waters,--every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, _20 And every wind of the mute atmosphere,

And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave

Which is its cradle--ever from below _25 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow

Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, _30

Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish!--and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night

Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, _35 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm

Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love In every soul but one.

And so this man returned with axe and saw _40 At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature's gentle law

Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene _45

With jagged leaves,--and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep--or weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops

Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, Nature's pure tears which have no bitterness;-- _50 Around the cradles of the birds aloft

They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:--or, where high branches kiss,

Make a green s.p.a.ce among the silent bowers, _55 Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers

All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion--and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, _60

Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,

Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has pa.s.sed To such brief unison as on the brain _65 One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again.

The world is full of Woodmen who expel Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, And vex the nightingales in every dell. _70

NOTE: _8 --or as a tuberose cj. A.C. Bradley.

MARENGHI. (This fragment refers to an event told in Sismondi's "Histoire des Republiques Italiennes", which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province.--[MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE, 1824.])

[Published in part (stanzas 7-15.) by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824; stanzas 1-28 by W.M. Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B.

S.", 1870. The Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script--evidently a first draft--from which (through Dr. Garnett) Rossetti derived the text of 1870 is now at the Bodleian, and has recently been collated by Mr. C.D. Loc.o.c.k, to whom the enlarged and amended text here printed is owing. The subst.i.tution, in t.i.tle and text, of "Marenghi" for "Mazenghi" (1824) is due to Rossetti. Here as elsewhere in the footnotes B. = the Bodleian ma.n.u.script.]

1.

Let those who pine in pride or in revenge, Or think that ill for ill should be repaid, Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade, Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn _5 Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.