Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

the innocent deer, and beasts their prey,

      Why should not we rouse with the spirit’s blast

      Out of the forest of the pathless past

      These recollected pleasures?

      You are now

      In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow

      At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore

      Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more.

      Yet in its depth what treasures! You will see

      That which was Godwin,—greater none than he

      Though fallen—and fallen on evil times—to stand

      Among the spirits of our age and land,

      Before the dread tribunal of to come

      The foremost,—while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.

      You will see Coleridge—he who sits obscure

      In the exceeding lustre and the pure

      Intense irradiation of a mind,

      Which, with its own internal lightning blind,

      Flags wearily through darkness and despair—

      A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,

      A hooded eagle among blinking owls.—

      You will see Hunt—one of those happy souls

      Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom

      This world would smell like what it is—a tomb;

      Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt

      Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,

      With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;

      And coronals of bay from ribbons hung,

      And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;

      The gifts of the most learned among some dozens

      Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.

      And there is he with his eternal puns,

      Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns

      Thundering for money at a poet’s door;

      Alas! it is no use to say, ‘I’m poor!’

      Or oft in graver mood, when he will look

      Things wiser than were ever read in book,

      Except in Shakespeare’s wisest tenderness.—

      You will see Hogg,—and I cannot express

      His virtues,—though I know that they are great,

      Because he locks, then barricades the gate

      Within which they inhabit;—of his wit

      And wisdom, you’ll cry out when you are bit.

      He is a pearl within an oyster shell.

      One of the richest of the deep;—and there

      Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,

      Turned into a Flamingo;—that shy bird

      That gleams i’ the Indian air—have you not heard

      When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,

      His best friends hear no more of him?—but you

      Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,

      With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope

      Matched with this cameleopard—his fine wit

      Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;

      A strain too learned for a shallow age,

      Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page,

      Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,

      Fold itself up for the serener clime

      Of years to come, and find its recompense

      In that just expectation.—Wit and sense,

      Virtue and human knowledge; all that might

      Make this dull world a business of delight,

      Are all combined in Horace Smith.—And these.

      With some exceptions, which I need not tease

      Your patience by descanting on,—are all

      You and I know in London.

      I recall

      My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.

      As water does a sponge, so the moonlight

      Fills the void, hollow, universal air—

      What see you?—unpavilioned Heaven is fair,

      Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,

      Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan

      Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep;

      Or whether clouds sail o’er the inverse deep,

      Piloted by the many-wandering blast,

      And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:—

      All this is beautiful in every land.—

      But what see you beside?—a shabby stand

      Of Hackney coaches—a brick house or wall

      Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl

      Of our unhappy politics;—or worse—

      A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse

      Mixed with the watchman’s, partner of her trade,

      You must accept in place of serenade—

      Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring

      To Henry, some unutterable thing.

      I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit

      Built round dark caverns, even to the root

      Of the living stems that feed them—in whose bowers

      There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;

      Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn

      Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne

      In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance,

      Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,

      Pale in the open moonshine, but each one

      Under the dark trees seems a little sun,

      A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray

      From the silver regions of the milky way;—

      Afar the Contadino’s song is heard,

      Rude, but made sweet by distance—and a bird

      Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet

      I know none else that sings so sweet as it

      At this late hour;—and then all is still—

      Now—Italy or London, which you will!

      Next winter you must pass with me; I’ll have

      My house by that time turned into a grave

      Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,

      And all the dreams which our tormentors are;

      Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,

      With