Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

      Fallen to such deep reverse. His melody

      Is interrupted; now—we hear the din

      Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin.

      Let us now visit him; after this strain

      He ever communes with himself again,

      And sees nor hears not any.’ Having said

      These words, we called the keeper, and he led

      To an apartment opening on the sea—

      There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully

      Near a piano, his pale fingers twined

      One with the other, and the ooze and wind

      Rushed through an open casement, and did sway

      His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;

      His head was leaning on a music-book,

      And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;

      His lips were pressed against a folded leaf,

      In hue too beautiful for health, and grief

      Smiled in their motions as they lay apart—

      As one who wrought from his own fervid heart

      The eloquence of passion, soon he raised

      His sad meek face, and eyes lustrous and glazed,

      And spoke—sometimes as one who wrote, and thought

      His words might move some heart that heeded not,

      If sent to distant lands; and then as one

      Reproaching deeds never to be undone

      With wondering self-compassion; then his speech

      Was lost in grief, and then his words came each

      Unmodulated, cold, expressionless,

      But that from one jarred accent you might guess

      It was despair made them so uniform;

      And all the while the loud and gusty storm

      Hissed through the window, and we stood behind

      Stealing his accents from the envious wind

      Unseen. I yet remember what he said

      Distinctly; such impression his words made.

      ‘Month after month,’ he cried, ‘to bear this load,

      And, as a jade urged by the whip and goad,

      To drag life on—which like a heavy chain

      Lengthens behind with many a link of pain!—

      And not to speak my grief—oh, not to dare

      To give a human voice to my despair,

      But live, and move, and, wretched thing! smile on

      As if I never went aside to groan;

      And wear this mask of falsehood even to those

      Who are most dear—not for my own repose—

      Alas, no scorn or pain or hate could be

      So heavy as that falsehood is to me—

      But that I cannot bear more altered faces

      Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,

      More misery, disappointment and mistrust

      To own me for their father…Would the dust

      Were covered in upon my body now!

      That the life ceased to toil within my brow!

      And then these thoughts would at the least be fled;

      Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.

      ‘What Power delights to torture us? I know

      That to myself I do not wholly owe

      What now I suffer, though in part I may.

      Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way

      Where, wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain,

      My shadow, which will leave me not again—

      If I have erred, there was no joy in error,

      But pain and insult and unrest and terror;

      I have not, as some do, bought penitence

      With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence;

      For then,—if love and tenderness and truth

      Had overlived hope’s momentary youth,

      My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;

      But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting

      Met love excited by far other seeming

      Until the end was gained; as one from dreaming

      Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state

      Such as it is.——

      ‘O Thou my spirit’s mate!

      Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,

      Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes

      If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see—

      My secret groans must be unheard by thee;

      Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know

      Thy lost friend’s incommunicable woe.

      ‘Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed

      In friendship, let me not that name degrade

      By placing on your hearts the secret load

      Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road

      To peace, and that is truth, which follow ye!

      Love sometimes leads astray to misery.

      Yet think not, though subdued—and I may well

      Say that I am subdued—that the full hell

      Within me would infect the untainted breast

      Of sacred Nature with its own unrest;

      As some perverted beings think to find

      In soorn or hate a medicine for the mind

      Which soorn or hate have wounded—Oh how vain!

      The dagger heals not, but may rend again!

      Believe that I am ever still the same

      In creed as in resolve; and what may tame

      My heart must leave the understanding free,

      Or all would sink in this keen agony—

      Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;

      Or with my silence sanction tyranny;

      Or seek a moment’s shelter from my pain

      In any madness which the world calls gain,

      Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern

      As those which make me what I am; or turn

      To avarice or misanthropy or lust…

      Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!

      Till then the dungeon may demand its prey,

      And Poverty and Shame may meet and say,

      Halting beside me on the public way—

      “That love-devoted youth is ours—let’s sit

      Beside