Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

sons are as stones in the way—

      They are masses of senseless clay—

      They are trodden, and move not away,—

      The abortion with which she travaileth,

      Is Liberty, smitten to death.

      III.

      Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor!

      For thy victim is no redresser;

      Thou art sole lord and possessor

      Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions—they pave

      Thy path to the grave.

      IV.

      Hearest thou the festival din

      Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin,

      And Wealth crying ‘Havoc!’ within?

      ’Tis the bacchanal triumph that makes Truth dumb,

      Thine Epithalamium.

      V.

      Ay, marry thy ghastly wife!

      Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife

      Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life!

      Marry Ruin, thou Tyrant! and Hell be thy guide

      To the bed of the bride!

      LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI

      She left me at the silent time

      When the moon had ceas’d to climb

      The azure path of Heaven’s steep,

      And like an albatross asleep,

      Balanc’d on her wings of light,

      Hover’d in the purple night,

      Ere she sought her ocean nest

      In the chambers of the West.

      She left me, and I stay’d alone

      Thinking over every tone

      Which, though silent to the ear,

      The enchanted heart could hear,

      Like notes which die when born, but still

      Haunt the echoes of the hill;

      And feeling ever—oh, too much!—

      The soft vibration of her touch,

      As if her gentle hand, even now,

      Lightly trembled on my brow;

      And thus, although she absent were,

      Memory gave me all of her

      That even Fancy dares to claim:

      Her presence had made weak and tame

      All passions, and I lived alone

      In the time which is our own;

      The past and future were forgot,

      As they had been, and would be, not.

      But soon, the guardian angel gone,

      The daemon reassum’d his throne

      In my faint heart. I dare not speak

      My thoughts, but thus disturb’d and weak

      I sat and saw the vessels glide

      Over the ocean bright and wide,

      Like spirit-winged chariots sent

      O’er some serenest element

      For ministrations strange and far,

      As if to some Elysian star

      Sailed for drink to medicine

      Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.

      And the wind that wing’d their flight

      From the land came fresh and light,

      And the scent of winged flowers,

      And the coolness of the hours

      Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,

      Were scatter’d o’er the twinkling bay.

      And the fisher with his lamp

      And spear about the low rocks damp

      Crept, and struck the fish which came

      To worship the delusive flame.

      Too happy they, whose pleasure sought

      Extinguishes all sense and thought

      Of the regret that pleasure leaves,

      Destroying life alone, not peace!

      LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON

      I.

      What! alive and so bold, O Earth?

      Art thou not overbold?

      What! leapest thou forth as of old

      In the light of thy morning mirth,

      The last of the flock of the starry fold?

      Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

      Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,

      And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

      II.

      How! is not thy quick heart cold?

      What spark is alive on thy hearth?

      How! is not his death-knell knolled?

      And livest thou still, Mother Earth?

      Thou wert warming thy fingers old

      O’er the embers covered and cold

      Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled—

      What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

      III.

      ‘Who has known me of old,’ replied Earth,

      ‘Or who has my story told?

      It is thou who art overbold.’

      And the lightning of scorn laughed forth

      As she sung, ‘To my bosom I fold

      All my sons when their knell is knolled,

      And so with living motion all are fed,

      And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

      IV.

      ‘Still alive and still bold,’ shouted Earth,

      ‘I grow bolder and still more bold.

      The dead fill me ten thousandfold

      Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth.

      I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,

      Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

      Till by the spirit of the mighty dead

      My heart grew warm. I feed on whom I fed.

      V.

      ‘Ay, alive and still bold.’ muttered Earth,

      ‘Napoleon’s fierce spirit rolled,

      In terror and blood and gold,

      A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.

      Leave the millions who follow to mould

      The metal before