Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

its petals pale

      Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale!

      But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom,

      And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.

      High, spirit-winged Heart! who dost for ever

      Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour,

      Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed

      It over-soared this low and worldly shade,

      Lie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast

      Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest!

      I weep vain tears: blood would less bitter be,

      Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee.

      Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human,

      Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman

      All that is insupportable in thee

      Of light, and love, and immortality!

      Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse!

      Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe!

      Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form

      Among the Dead! Thou Star above the Storm!

      Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror!

      Thou Harmony of Nature’s art! Thou Mirror

      In whom, as in the splendour of the Sun,

      All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on!

      Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now

      Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow;

      I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song

      All of its much mortality and wrong,

      With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew

      From the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through,

      Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy:

      Then smile on it, so that it may not die.

      I never thought before my death to see

      Youth’s vision thus made perfect. Emily,

      I love thee; though the world by no thin name

      Will hide that love from its unvalued shame.

      Would we two had been twins of the same mother!

      Or, that the name my heart lent to another

      Could be a sister’s bond for her and thee,

      Blending two beams of one eternity!

      Yet were one lawful and the other true,

      These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due.

      How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me!

      I am not thine: I am a part of thee.

      Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burned its wings

      Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,

      Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style,

      All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile,

      A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless?

      A well of sealed and secret happiness,

      Whose waters like blithe light and music are,

      Vanquishing dissonance and gloom? A Star

      Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone?

      A Smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone

      Amid rude voices? a beloved light?

      A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight?

      A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play

      Make music on, to soothe the roughest day

      And lull fond Grief asleep? a buried treasure?

      A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure?

      A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—I measure

      The world of fancies, seeking one like thee,

      And find—alas! mine own infirmity.

      She met me, Stranger, upon life’s rough way,

      And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day,

      Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,

      Led into light, life, peace. An antelope,

      In the suspended impulse of its lightness,

      Were less ethereally light: the brightness

      Of her divinest presence trembles through

      Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew

      Embodied in the windless heaven of June

      Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon

      Burns, inextinguishably beautiful:

      And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full

      Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops,

      Killing the sense with passion; sweet as stops

      Of planetary music heard in trance.

      In her mild lights the starry spirits dance,

      The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap

      Under the lightnings of the soul—too deep

      For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense.

      The glory of her being, issuing thence,

      Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade

      Of unentangled intermixture, made

      By Love, of light and motion: one intense

      Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence,

      Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing,

      Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing

      With the unintermitted blood, which there

      Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air

      The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,)

      Continuously prolonged, and ending never,

      Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled

      Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world;

      Scarce visible from extreme loveliness.

      Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress

      And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress

      The air of her own speed has disentwined,

      The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;

      And in the soul a wild odour is felt

      Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt

      Into the bosom of a frozen bud.—

      See where she stands! a mortal shape indued

      With love and life and light and deity,

      And motion which may change but cannot die;

      An image of some bright Eternity;

      A shadow of some golden dream; a Splendour

      Leaving the third sphere pilotless; a tender

      Reflection of the eternal Moon of Love

      Under whose motions life’s dull