The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 125

("PROMETHEUS UNBOUND", ACT 4.)

As a violet's gentle eye Gazes on the azure sky Until its hue grows like what it beholds; As a gray and empty mist Lies like solid amethyst _5 Over the western mountain it enfolds, When the sunset sleeps Upon its snow; As a strain of sweetest sound Wraps itself the wind around _10 Until the voiceless wind be music too; As aught dark, vain, and dull, Basking in what is beautiful, Is full of light and love--

CANCELLED STANZA OF THE MASK OF ANARCHY.

[Published by H. Buxton Forman, "The Mask of Anarchy" ("Facsimile of Sh.e.l.ley's ma.n.u.script"), 1887.]

(FOR WHICH STANZAS 68, 69 HAVE BEEN SUBSt.i.tUTED.)

From the cities where from caves, Like the dead from putrid graves, Troops of starvelings gliding come, Living Tenants of a tomb.

NOTE ON POEMS OF 1819, BY MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY.

Sh.e.l.ley loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two cla.s.ses of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circ.u.mstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heart-felt compa.s.sion he went home to the direct point of injury--that oppression is detestable as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compa.s.sion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the scope of the "Ode to the a.s.sertors of Liberty". He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

[Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated 'March, 1820,' in Harvard ma.n.u.script), and published, with "Prometheus Unbound", the same year: included in the Harvard College ma.n.u.script book. Reprinted in the "Poetical Works", 1839, both editions.]

PART 1.

A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.

And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair, _5 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere; And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, _10 Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent _15 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, And narcissi, the fairest among them all, Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess, Till they die of their own dear loveliness; _20

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and pa.s.sion so pale That the light of its tremulous bells is seen Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, _25 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, _30 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; _35

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, The sweetest flower for scent that blows; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime. _40

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom, With golden and green light, slanting through Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, _45 And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, _50 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells As fair as the fabulous asphodels, And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too, _55 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue, To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet _60 Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one _65 Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;

For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.

But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit _70 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root, Received more than all, it loved more than ever, Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,--

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; Radiance and odour are not its dower; _75 It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!

The light winds which from unsustaining wings Shed the music of many murmurings; The beams which dart from many a star _80 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;

The plumed insects swift and free, Like golden boats on a sunny sea, Laden with light and odour, which pa.s.s Over the gleam of the living gra.s.s; _85

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, Then wander like spirits among the spheres, Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noontide, _90 Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, In which every sound, and odour, and beam, Move, as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, _95 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from Heaven above, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, _100 And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; _105

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And s.n.a.t.c.hes of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);--

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest _110 Upgathered into the bosom of rest; A sweet child weary of its delight, The feeblest and yet the favourite, Cradled within the embrace of Night.

NOTES: _6 Like the Spirit of Love felt 1820; And the Spirit of Love felt 1839, 1st edition; And the Spirit of Love fell 1839, 2nd edition.

_49 and of moss]and moss Harvard ma.n.u.script.

_82 The]And the Harvard ma.n.u.script.

PART 2.

There was a Power in this sweet place, An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, Was as G.o.d is to the starry scheme.