The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 169

[A TEMPEST.]

ALL EXCLAIM [WITHIN]: We are all lost!

DAEMON [WITHIN]: Now from this plank will I Pa.s.s to the land and thus fulfil my scheme.

CYPRIAN: As in contempt of the elemental rage A man comes forth in safety, while the ship's _65 Great form is in a watery eclipse Obliterated from the Oceans page, And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit, A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave Is heaped over its carcase, like a grave. _70

[THE DAEMON ENTERS, AS ESCAPED FROM THE SEA.]

DAEMON [ASIDE]: It was essential to my purposes To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean, That in this unknown form I might at length Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture Sustained upon the mountain, and a.s.sail _75 With a new war the soul of Cyprian, Forging the instruments of his destruction Even from his love and from his wisdom.--O Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom I seek a refuge from the monster who _80 Precipitates itself upon me.

CYPRIAN: Friend, Collect thyself; and be the memory Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow But as a shadow of the past,--for nothing Beneath the circle of the moon, but flows _85 And changes, and can never know repose.

DAEMON: And who art thou, before whose feet my fate Has prostrated me?

CYPRIAN: One who, moved with pity, Would soothe its stings.

DAEMON: Oh, that can never be!

No solace can my lasting sorrows find. _90

CYPRIAN: Wherefore?

DAEMON: Because my happiness is lost.

Yet I lament what has long ceased to be The object of desire or memory, And my life is not life.

CYPRIAN: Now, since the fury Of this earthquaking hurricane is still, _95 And the crystalline Heaven has rea.s.sumed Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems As if its heavy wrath had been awakened Only to overwhelm that vessel,--speak, Who art thou, and whence comest thou?

DAEMON: Far more _100 My coming hither cost, than thou hast seen Or I can tell. Among my misadventures This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear?

CYPRIAN: Speak.

DAEMON: Since thou desirest, I will then unveil Myself to thee;--for in myself I am _105 A world of happiness and misery; This I have lost, and that I must lament Forever. In my attributes I stood So high and so heroically great, In lineage so supreme, and with a genius _110 Which penetrated with a glance the world Beneath my feet, that, won by my high merit, A king--whom I may call the King of kings, Because all others tremble in their pride Before the terrors of His countenance, _115 In His high palace roofed with brightest gems Of living light--call them the stars of Heaven-- Named me His counsellor. But the high praise Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose In mighty compet.i.tion, to ascend _120 His seat and place my foot triumphantly Upon His subject thrones. Chastised, I know The depth to which ambition falls; too mad Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now Repentance of the irrevocable deed:-- _125 Therefore I chose this ruin, with the glory Of not to be subdued, before the shame Of reconciling me with Him who reigns By coward cession.--Nor was I alone, Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone; _130 And there was hope, and there may still be hope, For many suffrages among His va.s.sals Hailed me their lord and king, and many still Are mine, and many more, perchance shall be.

Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, _135 I left His seat of empire, from mine eye Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven, Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong, And imprecating on His prostrate slaves _140 Rapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed Over the mighty fabric of the world,-- A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands, A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves And craggy sh.o.r.es; and I have wandered over _145 The expanse of these wide wildernesses In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved In the light breathings of the invisible wind, And which the sea has made a dustless ruin, Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests _150 I seek a man, whom I must now compel To keep his word with me. I came arrayed In tempest, and although my power could well Bridle the forest winds in their career, For other causes I forbore to soothe _155 Their fury to Favonian gentleness; I could and would not; [ASIDE.]

(thus I wake in him A love of magic art). Let not this tempest, Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder; For by my art the sun would turn as pale _160 As his weak sister with unwonted fear; And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven Written as in a record; I have pierced The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres And know them as thou knowest every corner _165 Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work A charm over this waste and savage wood, This Babylon of crags and aged trees, Filling its leafy coverts with a horror _170 Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest Of these wild oaks and pines--and as from thee I have received the hospitality Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit Of years of toil in recompense; whate'er _175 Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought As object of desire, that shall be thine.

And thenceforth shall so firm an amity 'Twixt thee and me be, that neither Fortune, The monstrous phantom which pursues success, _180 That careful miser, that free prodigal, Who ever alternates, with changeful hand, Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time, That lodestar of the ages, to whose beam The winged years speed o'er the intervals _185 Of their unequal revolutions; nor Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars Rule and adorn the world, can ever make The least division between thee and me, Since now I find a refuge in thy favour. _190

NOTES: _146 wide gla.s.sy wildernesses Rossetti.

_150 Seeking forever cj. Forman.

_154 forest]fiercest cj. Rossetti.

SCENE 3.

THE DAEMON TEMPTS JUSTINA, WHO IS A CHRISTIAN.

DAEMON: Abyss of h.e.l.l! I call on thee, Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy!

From thy prison-house set free The spirits of voluptuous death, That with their mighty breath _5 They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts; Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Be peopled from thy shadowy deep, Till her guiltless fantasy Full to overflowing be! _10 And with sweetest harmony, Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move To love, only to love.

Let nothing meet her eyes But signs of Love's soft victories; _15 Let nothing meet her ear But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow, So that from faith no succour she may borrow, But, guided by my spirit blind And in a magic snare entwined, _20 She may now seek Cyprian.

Begin, while I in silence bind My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast began.

NOTE: _18 she may]may she 1824.

A VOICE [WITHIN]: What is the glory far above All else in human life?

ALL: Love! love! _25

[WHILE THESE WORDS ARE SUNG, THE DAEMON GOES OUT AT ONE DOOR, AND JUSTINA ENTERS AT ANOTHER.]

THE FIRST VOICE: There is no form in which the fire Of love its traces has impressed not.

Man lives far more in love's desire Than by life's breath, soon possessed not.

If all that lives must love or die, _30 All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky, With one consent to Heaven cry That the glory far above All else in life is--

ALL: Love! oh, Love!

JUSTINA: Thou melancholy Thought which art _35 So flattering and so sweet, to thee When did I give the liberty Thus to afflict my heart?

What is the cause of this new Power Which doth my fevered being move, _40 Momently raging more and more?

What subtle Pain is kindled now Which from my heart doth overflow Into my senses?--

NOTE: _36 flattering Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script; fluttering 1824.

ALL: Love! oh, Love!

JUSTINA: 'Tis that enamoured Nightingale _45 Who gives me the reply; He ever tells the same soft tale Of pa.s.sion and of constancy To his mate, who rapt and fond, Listening sits, a bough beyond. _50

Be silent, Nightingale--no more Make me think, in hearing thee Thus tenderly thy love deplore, If a bird can feel his so, What a man would feel for me. _55 And, voluptuous Vine, O thou Who seekest most when least pursuing,-- To the trunk thou interlacest Art the verdure which embracest, And the weight which is its ruin,-- _60 No more, with green embraces, Vine, Make me think on what thou lovest,-- For whilst thus thy boughs entwine I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist, How arms might be entangled too. _65

Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou Who gazest ever true and tender On the sun's revolving splendour!

Follow not his faithless glance With thy faded countenance, _70 Nor teach my beating heart to fear, If leaves can mourn without a tear, How eyes must weep! O Nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale,-- Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, _75 Restless Sunflower, cease to move,-- Or tell me all, what poisonous Power Ye use against me--

NOTES: _58 To]Who to cj. Rossetti.

_63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.

ALL: Love! Love! Love!

JUSTINA: It cannot be!--Whom have I ever loved?

Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, _80 Floro and Lelio did I not reject?

And Cyprian?-- [SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.]

Did I not requite him With such severity, that he has fled Where none has ever heard of him again?-- Alas! I now begin to fear that this _85 May be the occasion whence desire grows bold, As if there were no danger. From the moment That I p.r.o.nounced to my own listening heart, 'Cyprian is absent!'--O me miserable!

I know not what I feel!

[MORE CALMLY.]

It must be pity _90 To think that such a man, whom all the world Admired, should be forgot by all the world, And I the cause.

[SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.]

And yet if it were pity, Floro and Lelio might have equal share, For they are both imprisoned for my sake. _95 [CALMLY.]

Alas! what reasonings are these? it is Enough I pity him, and that, in vain, Without this ceremonious subtlety.

And, woe is me! I know not where to find him now, Even should I seek him through this wide world. _100