The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 33

PANTHEA: Alas! I looked forth twice, but will no more.

IONE: What didst thou see?

PANTHEA: A woful sight: a youth With patient looks nailed to a crucifix. _585

IONE: What next?

PANTHEA: The heaven around, the earth below Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, All horrible, and wrought by human hands, And some appeared the work of human hearts, For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles: _590 And other sights too foul to speak and live Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear By looking forth: those groans are grief enough.

NOTE: _589 And 1820; Tho' B.

FURY: Behold an emblem: those who do endure Deep wrongs for man, and scorn, and chains, but heap _595 Thousand-fold torment on themselves and him.

PROMETHEUS: Remit the anguish of that lighted stare; Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!

Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death, _600 So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix, So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.

O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak, It hath become a curse. I see, I see The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, _605 Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee, Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home, An early-chosen, late-lamented home; As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind; Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells: _610 Some--Hear I not the mult.i.tude laugh loud?-- Impaled in lingering fire: and mighty realms Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles, Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood By the red light of their own burning homes. _615

FURY: Blood thou canst see, and fire; and canst hear groans; Worse things unheard, unseen, remain behind.

PROMETHEUS: Worse?

FURY: In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: _620 Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn.

They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare.

The good want power, but to weep barren tears. _625 The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.

The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom; And all best things are thus confused to ill.

Many are strong and rich, and would be just, But live among their suffering fellow-men _630 As if none felt: they know not what they do.

NOTE: _619 ravin B, edition 1839; ruin 1820.

PROMETHEUS: Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes; And yet I pity those they torture not.

FURY: Thou pitiest them? I speak no more!

[VANISHES.]

PROMETHEUS: Ah woe!

Ah woe! Alas! pain, pain ever, for ever! _635 I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear Thy works within my woe-illumed mind, Thou subtle tyrant! Peace is in the grave.

The grave hides all things beautiful and good: I am a G.o.d and cannot find it there, _640 Nor would I seek it: for, though dread revenge, This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.

The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul With new endurance, till the hour arrives When they shall be no types of things which are. _645

PANTHEA: Alas! what sawest thou more?

NOTE: _646 thou more? B; thou? 1820.

PROMETHEUS: There are two woes: To speak, and to behold; thou spare me one.

Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry; The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, _650 As with one voice, Truth, liberty, and love!

Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven Among them: there was strife, deceit, and fear: Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil.

This was the shadow of the truth I saw. _655

THE EARTH: I felt thy torture, son; with such mixed joy As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits, Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought, And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, _660 Its world-surrounding aether: they behold Beyond that twilight realm, as in a gla.s.s, The future: may they speak comfort to thee!

PANTHEA: Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather, _665 Thronging in the blue air!

IONE: And see! more come, Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb, That climb up the ravine in scattered lines.

And, hark! is it the music of the pines?

Is it the lake? Is it the waterfall? _670

PANTHEA: 'Tis something sadder, sweeter far than all.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: From unremembered ages we Gentle guides and guardians be Of heaven-oppressed mortality; And we breathe, and sicken not, _675 The atmosphere of human thought: Be it dim, and dank, and gray, Like a storm-extinguished day, Travelled o'er by dying gleams; Be it bright as all between _680 Cloudless skies and windless streams, Silent, liquid, and serene; As the birds within the wind, As the fish within the wave, As the thoughts of man's own mind _685 Float through all above the grave; We make there our liquid lair, Voyaging cloudlike and unpent Through the boundless element: Thence we bear the prophecy _690 Which begins and ends in thee!

NOTE: _687 there B, edition 1839; these 1820.

IONE: More yet come, one by one: the air around them Looks radiant as the air around a star.

FIRST SPIRIT: On a battle-trumpet's blast I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, _695 'Mid the darkness upward cast.

From the dust of creeds outworn, From the tyrant's banner torn, Gathering 'round me, onward borne, There was mingled many a cry-- _700 Freedom! Hope! Death! Victory!

Till they faded through the sky; And one sound, above, around, One sound beneath, around, above, Was moving; 'twas the soul of Love; _705 'Twas the hope, the prophecy, Which begins and ends in thee.

SECOND SPIRIT: A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, Which rocked beneath, immovably; And the triumphant storm did flee, _710 Like a conqueror, swift and proud, Between, with many a captive cloud, A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd, Each by lightning riven in half: I heard the thunder hoa.r.s.ely laugh: _715 Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff And spread beneath a h.e.l.l of death O'er the white waters. I alit On a great ship lightning-split, And speeded hither on the sigh _720 Of one who gave an enemy His plank, then plunged aside to die.

THIRD SPIRIT: I sate beside a sage's bed, And the lamp was burning red Near the book where he had fed, _725 When a Dream with plumes of flame, To his pillow hovering came, And I knew it was the same Which had kindled long ago Pity, eloquence, and woe; _730 And the world awhile below Wore the shade, its l.u.s.tre made.

It has borne me here as fleet As Desire's lightning feet: I must ride it back ere morrow, _735 Or the sage will wake in sorrow.

FOURTH SPIRIT: On a poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, _740 But feeds on the aereal kisses Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses.

He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, _745 Nor heed nor see, what things they be; But from these create he can Forms more real than living man, Nurslings of immortality!

One of these awakened me, _750 And I sped to succour thee.

IONE: Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere? _755 And, hark! their sweet sad voices! 'tis despair Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound.

PANTHEA: Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned.

IONE: Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float On their sustaining wings of skiey grain, _760 Orange and azure deepening into gold: Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire.

CHORUS OF SPIRITS: Hast thou beheld the form of Love?

FIFTH SPIRIT: As over wide dominions I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's wildernesses, That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided pinions, _765 Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses: His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I pa.s.sed 'twas fading, And hollow Ruin yawned behind: great sages bound in madness, And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, unupbraiding, Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O King of sadness, _770 Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness.

SIXTH SPIRIT: Ah, sister! Desolation is a delicate thing: It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air, But treads with lulling footstep, and fans with silent wing The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and gentlest bear; _775 Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet, Dream visions of aereal joy, and call the monster, Love, And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we greet.

NOTE: _774 lulling B; silent 1820.

CHORUS: Though Ruin now Love's shadow be, _780 Following him, destroyingly, On Death's white and winged steed, Which the fleetest cannot flee, Trampling down both flower and weed, Man and beast, and foul and fair, _785 Like a tempest through the air; Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, Woundless though in heart or limb.

PROMETHEUS: Spirits! how know ye this shall be?

CHORUS: In the atmosphere we breathe, _790 As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee, From Spring gathering up beneath, Whose mild winds shake the elder-brake, And the wandering herdsmen know That the white-thorn soon will blow: _795 Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, When they struggle to increase, Are to us as soft winds be To shepherd boys, the prophecy Which begins and ends in thee. _800

IONE: Where are the Spirits fled?