Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

      I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,

      With their ethereal colors; the Moon’s globe,

      And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,

      Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;

      Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,

      Are portions of one power, which is mine.

      V.

      I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;

      Then with unwilling steps I wander down

      Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;

      For grief that I depart they weep and frown:

      What look is more delightful than the smile

      With which I soothe them from the western isle?

      VI.

      I am the eye with which the Universe

      Beholds itself, and knows it is divine;

      All harmony of instrument or verse,

      All prophecy, all medicine, is mine,

      All light of art or nature; - to my song

      Victory and praise in its own right belong.

      HYMN OF PAN

      From the forests and highlands

      We come, we come;

      From the river-girt islands,

      Where loud waves are dumb

      Listening to my sweet pipings.

      The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

      The bees on the bells of thyme,

      The birds on the myrtle bushes,

      The cicale above in the lime,

      And the lizards below in the grass,

      Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

      Listening to my sweet pipings.

      Liquid Peneus was flowing,

      And all dark Tempe lay

      In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing

      The light of the dying day,

      Speeded by my sweet pipings.

      The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

      And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,

      To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

      And the brink of the dewy caves,

      And all that did then attend and follow,

      Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

      With envy of my sweet pipings.

      I sang of the dancing stars,

      I sang of the daedal Earth,

      And of Heaven—and the giant wars,

      And Love, and Death, and Birth,—

      And then I changed my pipings,—

      Singing how down the vale of Maenalus

      I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.

      Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

      It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:

      All wept, as I think both ye now would,

      If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

      At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

      HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY

      I.

      The awful shadow of some unseen Power

      Floats though unseen among us; visiting

      This various world with as inconstant wing

      As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;

      Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,

      It visits with inconstant glance

      Each human heart and countenance;

      Like hues and harmonies of evening,

      Like clouds in starlight widely spread,

      Like memory of music fled,

      Like aught that for its grace may be

      Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

      II.

      Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate

      With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon

      Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?

      Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,

      This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?

      Ask why the sunlight not for ever

      Weaves rainbows o’er yon mountain-river,

      Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,

      Why fear and dream and death and birth

      Cast on the daylight of this earth

      Such gloom, why man has such a scope

      For love and hate, despondency and hope?

      III.

      No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

      To sage or poet these responses given:

      Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,

      Remain the records of their vain endeavour:

      Frail spells whose utter’d charm might not avail to sever,

      From all we hear and all we see,

      Doubt, chance and mutability.

      Thy light alone like mist o’er mountains driven,

      Or music by the night-wind sent

      Through strings of some still instrument,

      Or moonlight on a midnight stream,

      Gives grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream.

      IV.

      Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart

      And come, for some uncertain moments lent.

      Man were immortal and omnipotent,

      Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,

      Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

      Thou messenger of sympathies,

      That wax and wane in lovers’ eyes;

      Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,

      Like darkness to a dying flame!

      Depart not as thy shadow came,

      Depart not—lest the grave should be,

      Like life and fear, a dark reality.

      V.

      While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped

      Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,

      And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing

      Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.

      I