The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 133

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of Oblivion's wave, There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built _5 Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave

For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt, Agitates the light flame of their hours, Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers _10 And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof, The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers

Of solitary wealth,--the tempest-proof Pavilions of the dark Italian air,-- Are by its presence dimmed--they stand aloof, _15

And are withdrawn--so that the world is bare; As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue, _20 The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error, Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.

NOTE: _7 For]With 1829.

AN ALLEGORY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]

1.

A portal as of shadowy adamant Stands yawning on the highway of the life Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt; Around it rages an unceasing strife Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt _5 The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

2.

And many pa.s.s it by with careless tread, Not knowing that a shadowy ...

Tracks every traveller even to where the dead _10 Wait peacefully for their companion new; But others, by more curious humour led, Pause to examine;--these are very few, And they learn little there, except to know That shadows follow them where'er they go. _15

NOTE: _8 pa.s.s Rossetti; pa.s.sed editions 1824, 1839.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]

1.

Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light Speed thee in thy fiery flight, In what cavern of the night Will thy pinions close now?

2.

Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray _5 Pilgrim of Heaven's homeless way, In what depth of night or day Seekest thou repose now?

3.

Weary Wind, who wanderest Like the world's rejected guest, _10 Hast thou still some secret nest On the tree or billow?

SONNET.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1823. There is a transcript amongst the Ollier ma.n.u.scripts, and another in the Harvard ma.n.u.script book.]

Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there, Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?

O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess All that pale Expectation feigneth fair! _5 Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go, And all that never yet was known would know-- Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press, With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, _10 Seeking, alike from happiness and woe, A refuge in the cavern of gray death?

O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below?

NOTE: _1 grave Ollier ma.n.u.script; dead Harvard ma.n.u.script, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.

_5 pale Expectation Ollier ma.n.u.script; antic.i.p.ation Harvard ma.n.u.script, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.

_7 must Harvard ma.n.u.script, 1823; mayst 1824; mayest editions 1839.

_8 all that Harvard ma.n.u.script, 1823; that which editions 1824, 1839.

would Harvard ma.n.u.script, 1823; wouldst editions 1839.

LINES TO A REVIEWER.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1823. These lines, and the "Sonnet" immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the "Literary Pocket-Book".]

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see In hating such a hateless thing as me?

There is no sport in hate where all the rage Is on one side: in vain would you a.s.suage Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, _5 In which not even contempt lurks to beguile Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.

Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!

For to your pa.s.sion I am far more coy Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy _10 In winter noon. Of your antipathy If I am the Narcissus, you are free To pine into a sound with hating me.

NOTE: _3 where editions 1824, 1839; when 1823.

FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE.

[Published by Edward Dowden, "Correspondence of Robert Southey and Caroline Bowles", 1880.]

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains, And racks of subtle torture, if the pains Of shame, of fiery h.e.l.l's tempestuous wave, Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave, Hurling the d.a.m.ned into the murky air _5 While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error, Are the true secrets of the commonweal To make men wise and just;... _10 And not the sophisms of revenge and fear, Bloodier than is revenge...

Then send the priests to every hearth and home To preach the burning wrath which is to come, In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw _15 The frozen tears...

If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds, The leprous scars of callous Infamy; If it could make the present not to be, _20 Or charm the dark past never to have been, Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen What Southey is and was, would not exclaim, 'Lash on!' ... be the keen verse dipped in flame; Follow his flight with winged words, and urge _25 The strokes of the inexorable scourge Until the heart be naked, till his soul See the contagion's spots ... foul; And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield, From which his Parthian arrow... _30 Flash on his sight the spectres of the past, Until his mind's eye paint thereon-- Let scorn like ... yawn below, And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.

This cannot be, it ought not, evil still-- _35 Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.

Rough words beget sad thoughts, ... and, beside, Men take a sullen and a stupid pride In being all they hate in others' shame, By a perverse antipathy of fame. _40 'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow These bitter waters; I will only say, If any friend would take Southey some day, And tell him, in a country walk alone, _45 Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone, How incorrect his public conduct is, And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.

Far better than to make innocent ink--

GOOD-NIGHT.

[Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1822. It is included in the Harvard ma.n.u.script book, and there is a transcript by Sh.e.l.ley in a copy of "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. (See "Love's Philosophy" and "Time Long Past".) Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard ma.n.u.script and "Posthumous Poems", 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey ma.n.u.script, 1820, are given in the footnotes.]

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