Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

lifted by the thing that dreamed below

      As smoke by fire, and in her beauty’s glow

      I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night

      Was penetrating me with living light:

      I knew it was the Vision veiled from me

      So many years—that it was Emily.

      Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth,

      This world of loves, this me; and into birth

      Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart

      Magnetic might into its central heart;

      And lift its billows and its mists, and guide

      By everlasting laws, each wind and tide

      To its fit cloud, and its appointed cave;

      And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave

      Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers

      The armies of the rainbow-winged showers;

      And, as those married lights, which from the towers

      Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe

      In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe;

      And all their many-mingled influence blend,

      If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end;—

      So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway

      Govern my sphere of being, night and day!

      Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might;

      Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light;

      And, through the shadow of the seasons three,

      From Spring to Autumn’s sere maturity,

      Light it into the Winter of the tomb,

      Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom.

      Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce,

      Who drew the heart of this frail Universe

      Towards thine own; till, wrecked in that convulsion,

      Alternating attraction and repulsion,

      Thine went astray and that was rent in twain;

      Oh, float into our azure heaven again!

      Be there Love’s folding-star at thy return;

      The living Sun will feed thee from its urn

      Of golden fire; the Moon will veil her horn

      In thy last smiles; adoring Even and Morn

      Will worship thee with incense of calm breath

      And lights and shadows; as the star of Death

      And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild

      Called Hope and Fear—upon the heart are piled

      Their offerings,—of this sacrifice divine

      A World shall be the altar.

      Lady mine,

      Scorn not these flowers of thought, the fading birth

      Which from its heart of hearts that plant puts forth

      Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes,

      Will be as of the trees of Paradise.

      The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me.

      To whatsoe’er of dull mortality

      Is mine, remain a vestal sister still;

      To the intense, the deep, the imperishable,

      Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united

      Even as a bride, delighting and delighted.

      The hour is come:—the destined Star has risen

      Which shall descend upon a vacant prison.

      The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set

      The sentinels—but true Love never yet

      Was thus constrained: it overleaps all fence:

      Like lightning, with invisible violence

      Piercing its continents; like Heaven’s free breath,

      Which he who grasps can hold not; liker Death,

      Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way

      Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array

      Of arms: more strength has Love than he or they;

      For it can burst his charnel, and make free

      The limbs in chains, the heart in agony,

      The soul in dust and chaos.

      Emily,

      A ship is floating in the harbour now,

      A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;

      There is a path on the sea’s azure floor,

      No keel has ever ploughed that path before;

      The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;

      The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;

      The merry mariners are bold and free:

      Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me?

      Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest

      Is a far Eden of the purple East;

      And we between her wings will sit, while Night,

      And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight,

      Our ministers, along the boundless Sea,

      Treading each other’s heels, unheededly.

      It is an isle under Ionian skies,

      Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise,

      And, for the harbours are not safe and good,

      This land would have remained a solitude

      But for some pastoral people native there,

      Who from the Elysian, clear, and golden air

      Draw the last spirit of the age of gold,

      Simple and spirited; innocent and bold.

      The blue Aegean girds this chosen home,

      With ever-changing sound and light and foam,

      Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar;

      And all the winds wandering along the shore

      Undulate with the undulating tide:

      There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide;

      And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond,

      As clear as elemental diamond,

      Or serene morning air; and far beyond,

      The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer

      (Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year)

      Pierce into glades, caverns, and bowers, and halls

      Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls

      Illumining, with sound that never fails

      Accompany the noonday nightingales;

      And all the place is peopled with sweet airs;

      The light clear element which the isle wears

      Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers,

      Which