The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 131

FIRST SPIRIT: But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain; See, the bounds of the air are shaken-- Night is coming! _20 The red swift clouds of the hurricane Yon declining sun have overtaken, The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain-- Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT: I see the light, and I hear the sound; _25 I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark With the calm within and the light around Which makes night day: And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, _30 My moon-like flight thou then mayst mark On high, far away.

Some say there is a precipice Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice _35 Mid Alpine mountains; And that the languid storm pursuing That winged shape, for ever flies Round those h.o.a.r branches, aye renewing Its aery fountains. _40

Some say when nights are dry and clear, And the death-dews sleep on the mora.s.s, Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, Which make night day: And a silver shape like his early love doth pa.s.s _45 Upborne by her wild and glittering hair, And when he awakes on the fragrant gra.s.s, He finds night day.

NOTES: _2 Wouldst 1839; Would 1824.

_31 moon-like 1824; moonlight 1839.

_44 make]makes 1824, 1839.

ODE TO NAPLES.

(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 Const.i.tutional 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.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

[Composed at San Juliano di Pisa, August 17-25, 1820; published in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. There is a copy, 'for the most part neat and legible,' amongst the Sh.e.l.ley ma.n.u.scripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Loc.o.c.k's "Examination", etc., 1903, pages 14-18.]

EPODE 1a.

I stood within the City disinterred; And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits pa.s.sing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless halls; _5 The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke-- I felt, but heard not:--through white columns glowed The isle-sustaining ocean-flood, _10 A plane of light between two heavens of azure!

Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure Were to spare Death, had never made erasure; But every living lineament was clear _15 As in the sculptor's thought; and there The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine, Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, Seemed only not to move and grow Because the crystal silence of the air _20 Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.

NOTE: _1 Pompeii.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

EPODE 2a.

Then gentle winds arose With many a mingled close Of wild Aeolian sound, and mountain-odours keen; _25 And where the Baian ocean Welters with airlike motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves, Even as the ever stormless atmosphere _30 Floats o'er the Elysian realm, It bore me, like an Angel, o'er the waves Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air No storm can overwhelm.

I sailed, where ever flows _35 Under the calm Serene A spirit of deep emotion From the unknown graves Of the dead Kings of Melody.

Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm _40 The horizontal aether; Heaven stripped bare Its depth over Elysium, where the prow Made the invisible water white as snow; From that Typhaean mount, Inarime, There streamed a sunbright vapour, like the standard _45 Of some aethereal host; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate-- They seize me--I must speak them!--be they fate! _50

NOTES: _25 odours B.; odour 1824.

_42 depth B.; depths 1824.

_45 sun-bright B.; sunlit 1824.

_39 Homer and Virgil.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

STROPHE 1.

Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!

Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55 As sleep round Love, are driven!

Metropolis of a ruined Paradise Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained!

Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice Which armed Victory offers up unstained _60 To Love, the flower-enchained!

Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,-- Hail, hail, all hail! _65

STROPHE 2.

Thou youngest giant birth Which from the groaning earth Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!

Last of the Intercessors!

Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70 Pleadest before G.o.d's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail, Wave thy lightning lance in mirth Nor let thy high heart fail, Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors With hurried legions move! _75 Hail, hail, all hail!

ANTISTROPHE 1a.

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme Freedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80 A new Actaeon's error Shall theirs have been--devoured by their own hounds!

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!

Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85 Aghast she pa.s.s from the Earth's disk: Fear not, but gaze--for freemen mightier grow, And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:-- If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail, Thou shalt be great--All hail! _90

ANTISTROPHE 2a.

From Freedom's form divine, From Nature's inmost shrine, Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil; O'er Ruin desolate, O'er Falsehood's fallen state, _95 Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!

And equal laws be thine, And winged words let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne of G.o.d: That wealth, surviving fate, _100 Be thine.--All hail!

NOTE: _100 wealth-surviving cj. A.C. Bradley.

ANTISTROPHE 1b.

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paean From land to land re-echoed solemnly, Till silence became music? From the Aeaean To the cold Alps, eternal Italy _105 Starts to hear thine! The Sea Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs In light, and music; widowed Genoa wan By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs, Murmuring, 'Where is Doria?' fair Milan, _110 Within whose veins long ran The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel To bruise his head. The signal and the seal (If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail) Art thou of all these hopes.--O hail! _115

NOTES: _104 Aeaea, the island of Circe.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

_112 The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.]

ANTISTROPHE 2b.

Florence! beneath the sun, Of cities fairest one, Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation: From eyes of quenchless hope Rome tears the priestly cope, _120 As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,-- An athlete stripped to run From a remoter station For the high prize lost on Philippi's sh.o.r.e:-- As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, _125 So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail!

EPODE 1b.

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms Arrayed against the ever-living G.o.ds?

The crash and darkness of a thousand storms Bursting their inaccessible abodes _130 Of crags and thunder-clouds?

See ye the banners blazoned to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride?

Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide _135 With iron light is dyed; The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating; An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions And lawless slaveries,--down the aereal regions _140 Of the white Alps, desolating, Famished wolves that bide no waiting, Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, Trampling our columned cities into dust, Their dull and savage l.u.s.t _145 On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating-- They come! The fields they tread look black and h.o.a.ry With fire--from their red feet the streams run gory!

EPODE 2b.

Great Spirit, deepest Love!

Which rulest and dost move _150 All things which live and are, within the Italian sh.o.r.e; Who spreadest Heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor; Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command _155 The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison From the Earth's bosom chill; Oh, bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison!

Bid the Earth's plenty kill! _160 Bid thy bright Heaven above, Whilst light and darkness bound it, Be their tomb who planned To make it ours and thine!

Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill _165 And raise thy sons, as o'er the p.r.o.ne horizon Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire-- Be man's high hope and unextinct desire The instrument to work thy will divine!

Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, _170 And frowns and fears from thee, Would not more swiftly flee Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.-- Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine Thou yieldest or withholdest, oh, let be _175 This city of thy worship ever free!

NOTES: _143 old 1824; lost B.

_147 black 1824; blue B.