Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

which pierces

      The Present, and the Past, and the To-come.

      Some say that this is he whom the great prophet

      Jesus, the son of Joseph, for his mockery,

      Mocked with the curse of immortality.

      Some feign that he is Enoch: others dream

      He was pre-adamite and has survived

      Cycles of generation and of ruin.

      The sage, in truth, by dreadful abstinence

      And conquering penance of the mutinous flesh,

      Deep contemplation, and unwearied study,

      In years outstretched beyond the date of man,

      May have attained to sovereignty and science

      Over those strong and secret things and thoughts

      Which others fear and know not.

      MAHMUD. I would talk

      With this old Jew.

      HASSAN. Thy will is even now

      Made known to him, where he dwells in a sea-cavern

      ’Mid the Demonesi, less accessible

      Than thou or God! He who would question him

      Must sail alone at sunset, where the stream

      Of Ocean sleeps around those foamless isles,

      When the young moon is westering as now,

      And evening airs wander upon the wave;

      And when the pines of that bee-pasturing isle,

      Green Erebinthus, quench the fiery shadow

      Of his gilt prow within the sapphire water,

      Then must the lonely helmsman cry aloud

      ‘Ahasuerus!’ and the caverns round

      Will answer ‘Ahasuerus!’ If his prayer

      Be granted, a faint meteor will arise

      Lighting him over Marmora, and a wind

      Will rush out of the sighing pine-forest,

      And with the wind a storm of harmony

      Unutterably sweet, and pilot him

      Through the soft twilight to the Bosphorus.

      Thence at the hour and place and circumstance

      Fit for the matter of their conference

      The Jew appears. Few dare, and few who dare

      Win the desired communion—but that shout [a shout within.

      Bodes—

      [A shout within.]

      MAHMUD. Evil, doubtless; Like all human sounds.

      Let me converse with spirits.

      HASSAN. That shout again.

      MAHMUD. This Jew whom thou hast summoned—

      HASSAN. Will be here—

      MAHMUD. When the omnipotent hour to which are yoked

      He, I, and all things shall compel—enough!

      Silence those mutineers—that drunken crew,

      That crowd about the pilot in the storm.

      Ay! strike the foremost shorter by a head!

      They weary me, and I have need of rest.

      Kinks are like stars—they rise and set, they have

      The worship of the world, but no repose.

      [Exeunt Severally.]

      CHORUS.

      Worlds on worlds are rolling ever

      From creation to decay,

      Like the bubbles on a river

      Sparkling, bursting, borne away.

      But they are still immortal

      Who, through birth’s orient portal

      And death’s dark chasm hurrying to and fro,

      Clothe their unceasing flight

      In the brief dust and light

      Gathered around their chariots as they go;

      New shapes they still may weave,

      New gods, new laws receive,

      Bright or dim are they as the robes they last

      On Death’s bare ribs had cast.

      A power from the unknown God,

      A Promethean conqueror, came;

      Like a triumphal path he trod

      The thorns of death and shame.

      A mortal shape to him

      Was like the vapour dim

      Which the orient planet animates with light;

      Hell, Sin, and Slavery came,

      Like bloodhounds mild and tame,

      Nor preyed, until their Lord had taken flight;

      The moon of Mahomet

      Arose, and it shall set.

      While blazoned as on Heaven’s immortal noon

      The cross leads generations on.

      Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep

      From one whose dreams are Paradise

      Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,

      And Day peers forth with her blank eyes;

      So fleet, so faint, so fair,

      The Powers of earth and air

      Fled from the folding-star of Bethlehem.

      Apollo, Pan, and Love,

      And even Olympian Jove

      Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them;

      Our hills and seas and streams,

      Dispeopled of their dreams,

      Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears,

      Wailed for the golden years.

      [Enter MAHMUD, HASSAN, DAOOD, and others.]

      MAHMUD. More gold? our ancestors bought gold with victory,

      And shall I sell it for defeat?

      DAOOD. The Janizars

      Clamour for pay—

      MAHMUD. Go! bid them pay themselves

      With Christian blood! Are there no Grecian virgins

      Whose shrieks and spasms and tears they may enjoy?

      No infidel children to impale on spears?

      No hoary priests after that Patriarch

      Who bent the curse against his country’s heart,

      Which clove his own at last? Go! bid them kill,

      Blood is the seed of gold.

      DAOOD. It has been sown,

      And yet the harvest to the sicklemen

      Is as a grain to each.

      MAHMUD. Then, take this signet,

      Unlock the seventh chamber in which lie

      The treasures of victorious