The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 95

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the mult.i.tude, and so

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky _50 One of the million leaves of summer's bier; Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear, Some flying from the thing they feared, and some Seeking the object of another's fear; _55

And others, as with steps towards the tomb, Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath, And others mournfully within the gloom

Of their own shadow walked, and called it death; And some fled from it as it were a ghost, _60 Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:

But more, with motions which each other crossed, Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw, Or birds within the noonday aether lost,

Upon that path where flowers never grew,-- And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst, Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

Out of their mossy cells forever burst; Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told Of gra.s.sy paths and wood-lawns interspersed _70

With overarching elms and caverns cold, And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they Pursued their serious folly as of old.

And as I gazed, methought that in the way The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June _75 When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,

And a cold glare, intenser than the noon, But icy cold, obscured with blinding light The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon--

When on the sunlit limits of the night _80 Her white sh.e.l.l trembles amid crimson air, And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might--

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form Bends in dark aether from her infant's chair,-- _85

So came a chariot on the silent storm Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape So sate within, as one whom years deform,

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape, Crouching within the shadow of a tomb; _90 And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like c.r.a.pe

Was bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloom Tempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam A Ja.n.u.s-visaged Shadow did a.s.sume

The guidance of that wonder-winged team; _95 The shapes which drew it in thick lightenings Were lost:--I heard alone on the air's soft stream

The music of their ever-moving wings.

All the four faces of that Charioteer Had their eyes banded; little profit brings _100

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun,-- Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

Of all that is, has been or will be done; So ill was the car guided--but it pa.s.sed _105 With solemn speed majestically on.

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast, Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,

The million with fierce song and maniac dance _110 Raging around--such seemed the jubilee As when to greet some conqueror's advance

Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea From senate-house, and forum, and theatre, When ... upon the free _115

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear.

Nor wanted here the just similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er

The chariot rolled, a captive mult.i.tude Was driven;--all those who had grown old in power _120 Or misery,--all who had their age subdued

By action or by suffering, and whose hour Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe, So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;--

All those whose fame or infamy must grow _125 Till the great winter lay the form and name Of this green earth with them for ever low;--

All but the sacred few who could not tame Their spirits to the conquerors--but as soon As they had touched the world with living flame, _130

Fled back like eagles to their native noon, Or those who put aside the diadem Of earthly thrones or gems...

Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem.

Were neither mid the mighty captives seen, _135 Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene.

The wild dance maddens in the van, and those Who lead it--fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose _140 Mix with each other in tempestuous measure To savage music, wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure, Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure _145

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun, Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair; And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now _150 Bending within each other's atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly--and as they glow, Like moths by light attracted and repelled, Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled, _155 That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle And die in rain--the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps--while the shock still may tingle One falls and then another in the path Senseless--nor is the desolation single, _160

Yet ere I can say WHERE--the chariot hath Pa.s.sed over them--nor other trace I find But as of foam after the ocean's wrath

Is spent upon the desert sh.o.r.e;--behind, Old men and women foully disarrayed, _165 Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed, Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of will _170 They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose Round them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie, And past in these performs what ... in those. _175

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry, Half to myself I said--'And what is this?

Whose shape is that within the car? And why--'

I would have added--'is all here amiss?--'

But a voice answered--'Life!'--I turned, and knew _180 (O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)

That what I thought was an old root which grew To strange distortion out of the hill side, Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the gra.s.s, which methought hung so wide _185 And white, was but his thin discoloured hair, And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,