Percy Bysshe Shelley

The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies; All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night, Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day; Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou—and from thy sleep Then wake to weep.

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory— Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.

I The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom— Now lending splendour, where from secret springs The source of human thought its tribute brings Of waters—with a sound but half its own, Such as a feeble brook will oft assume, In the wild woods, among the mountains lone, Where waterfalls around it leap for ever, Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. II Thus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine— Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear—an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity; Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound— Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! III Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.—I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appears—still, snowy, and serene; Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there—how hideously Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high, Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.—Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply—all seems eternal now. The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. IV The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known. Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. V Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow. The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?

from the Purgatorio of Dante, Canto 28, lines 1-51 And earnest to explore within—around— The divine wood, whose thick green living woof Tempered the young day to the sight—I wound Up the green slope, beneath the forest’s roof, With slow, soft steps leaving the mountain’s steep, And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof Against the air, that in that stillness deep And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare, The slow, soft stroke of a continuous ... In which the ... leaves tremblingly were All bent towards that part where earliest The sacred hill obscures the morning air. Yet were they not so shaken from the rest, But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray, Incessantly renewing their blithe quest, With perfect joy received the early day, Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound Kept a low burden to their roundelay, Such as from bough to bough gathers around The pine forest on bleak Chiassi’s shore, When Aeolus Sirocco has unbound. My slow steps had already borne me o’er Such space within the antique wood, that I Perceived not where I entered any more,— When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by, Bending towards the left through grass that grew Upon its bank, impeded suddenly My going on. Water of purest hue On earth, would appear turbid and impure Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew, Dark, dark, yet clear, moved under the obscure Eternal shades, whose interwoven looms The rays of moon or sunlight ne’er endure. I moved not with my feet, but mid the glooms Pierced with my charmed eye, contemplating The mighty multitude of fresh May blooms Which starred that night, when, even as a thing That suddenly, for blank astonishment, Charms every sense, and makes all thought take wing,— A solitary woman! and she went Singing and gathering flower after flower, With which her way was painted and besprent. Bright lady, who, if looks had ever power To bear true witness of the heart within, Dost bask under the beams of love, come lower Towards this bank. I prithee let me win This much of thee, to come, that I may hear Thy song: like Proserpine, in Enna’s glen, Thou seemest to my fancy, singing here And gathering flowers, as that fair maiden when She lost the Spring, and Ceres her more dear.

The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the ocean, The winds of heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle. Why not I with thine?— See the mountains kiss high heaven And the waves clasp one another; No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth If thou kiss not me?

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!

Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind, the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep; And sinks down, down, like that sleep When the dreamer seems to be Weltering through eternity; And the dim low line before Of a dark and distant shore Still recedes, as ever still Longing with divided will, But no power to seek or shun, He is ever drifted on O'er the unreposing wave To the haven of the grave. What, if there no friends will greet; What, if there no heart will meet His with love's impatient beat; Wander wheresoe'er he may, Can he dream before that day To find refuge from distress In friendship's smile, in love's caress? Then 'twill wreak him little woe Whether such there be or no: Senseless is the breast and cold Which relenting love would fold; Bloodless are the veins and chill Which the pulse of pain did fill; Every little living nerve That from bitter words did swerve Round the tortur'd lips and brow, Are like sapless leaflets now Frozen upon December's bough. On the beach of a northern sea Which tempests shake eternally, As once the wretch there lay to sleep, Lies a solitary heap, One white skull and seven dry bones, On the margin of the stones, Where a few gray rushes stand, Boundaries of the sea and land: Nor is heard one voice of wail But the sea-mews, as they sail O'er the billows of the gale; Or the whirlwind up and down Howling, like a slaughter'd town, When a king in glory rides Through the pomp of fratricides: Those unburied bones around There is many a mournful sound; There is no lament for him, Like a sunless vapour, dim, Who once cloth'd with life and thought What now moves nor murmurs not. Ay, many flowering islands lie In the waters of wide Agony: To such a one this morn was led My bark, by soft winds piloted: 'Mid the mountains Euganean I stood listening to the paean With which the legion'd rooks did hail The sun's uprise majestical; Gathering round with wings all hoar, Through the dewy mist they soar Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, Fleck'd with fire and azure, lie In the unfathomable sky, So their plumes of purple grain, Starr'd with drops of golden rain, Gleam above the sunlight woods, As in silent multitudes On the morning's fitful gale Through the broken mist they sail, And the vapours cloven and gleaming Follow, down the dark steep streaming, Till all is bright, and clear, and still, Round the solitary hill. Beneath is spread like a green sea The waveless plain of Lombardy, Bounded by the vaporous air, Islanded by cities fair; Underneath Day's azure eyes Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destin'd halls, Which her hoary sire now paves With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclin'd On the level quivering line Of the water crystalline; And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold Where Apollo spoke of old. Sun-girt City, thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, If the power that rais'd thee here Hallow so thy watery bier. A less drear ruin then than now, With thy conquest-branded brow Stooping to the slave of slaves From thy throne, among the waves Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew Flies, as once before it flew, O'er thine isles depopulate, And all is in its ancient state, Save where many a palace gate With green sea-flowers overgrown Like a rock of Ocean's own, Topples o'er the abandon'd sea As the tides change sullenly. The fisher on his watery way, Wandering at the close of day, Will spread his sail and seize his oar Till he pass the gloomy shore, Lest thy dead should, from their sleep Bursting o'er the starlight deep, Lead a rapid masque of death O'er the waters of his path. Those who alone thy towers behold Quivering through a{:e}real gold, As I now behold them here, Would imagine not they were Sepulchres, where human forms, Like pollution-nourish'd worms, To the corpse of greatness cling, Murder'd, and now mouldering: But if Freedom should awake In her omnipotence, and shake From the Celtic Anarch's hold All the keys of dungeons cold, Where a hundred cities lie Chain'd like thee, ingloriously, Thou and all thy sister band Might adorn this sunny land, Twining memories of old time With new virtues more sublime; If not, perish thou and they, Clouds which stain truth's rising day By her sun consum'd away— Earth can spare ye! while like flowers, In the waste of years and hours, From your dust new nations spring With more kindly blossoming. Perish—let there only be Floating o'er thy hearthless sea As the garment of thy sky Clothes the world immortally, One remembrance, more sublime Than the tatter'd pall of time, Which scarce hides thy visage wan: That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the sons of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee; and Ocean Welcom'd him with such emotion That its joy grew his, and sprung From his lips like music flung O'er a mighty thunder-fit, Chastening terror: what though yet Poesy's unfailing river, Which through Albion winds forever Lashing with melodious wave Many a sacred Poet's grave, Mourn its latest nursling fled! What though thou with all thy dead Scarce can for this fame repay Aught thine own, oh, rather say Though thy sins and slaveries foul Overcloud a sunlike soul! As the ghost of Homer clings Round Scamander's wasting springs; As divinest Shakespeare's might Fills Avon and the world with light Like omniscient power which he Imag'd 'mid mortality; As the love from Petrarch's urn Yet amid yon hills doth burn, A quenchless lamp by which the heart Sees things unearthly; so thou art, Mighty spirit: so shall be The City that did refuge thee. Lo, the sun floats up the sky Like thought-winged Liberty, Till the universal light Seems to level plain and height; From the sea a mist has spread, And the beams of morn lie dead On the towers of Venice now, Like its glory long ago. By the skirts of that gray cloud Many-domed Padua proud Stands, a peopled solitude, 'Mid the harvest-shining plain, Where the peasant heaps his grain In the garner of his foe, And the milk-white oxen slow With the purple vintage strain, Heap'd upon the creaking wain, That the brutal Celt may swill Drunken sleep with savage will; And the sickle to the sword Lies unchang'd though many a lord, Like a weed whose shade is poison, Overgrows this region's foison, Sheaves of whom are ripe to come To destruction's harvest-home: Men must reap the things they sow, Force from force must ever flow, Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe That love or reason cannot change The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. Padua, thou within whose walls Those mute guests at festivals, Son and Mother, Death and Sin, Play'd at dice for Ezzelin, Till Death cried, 'I win, I win!' And Sin curs'd to lose the wager, But Death promis'd, to assuage her, That he would petition for Her to be made Vice-Emperor, When the destin'd years were o'er, Over all between the Po And the eastern Alpine snow, Under the mighty Austrian. Sin smil'd so as Sin only can, And since that time, ay, long before, Both have rul'd from shore to shore, That incestuous pair, who follow Tyrants as the sun the swallow, As Repentance follows Crime, And as changes follow Time. In thine halls the lamp of learning, Padua, now no more is burning; Like a meteor, whose wild way Is lost over the grave of day, It gleams betray'd and to betray: Once remotest nations came To adore that sacred flame, When it lit not many a hearth On this cold and gloomy earth: Now new fires from antique light Spring beneath the wide world's might; But their spark lies dead in thee, Trampled out by Tyranny. As the Norway woodman quells, In the depth of piny dells, One light flame among the brakes, While the boundless forest shakes, And its mighty trunks are torn By the fire thus lowly born: The spark beneath his feet is dead, He starts to see the flames it fed Howling through the darken'd sky With myriad tongues victoriously, And sinks down in fear: so thou, O Tyranny, beholdest now Light around thee, and thou hearest The loud flames ascend, and fearest: Grovel on the earth; ay, hide In the dust thy purple pride! Noon descends around me now: 'Tis the noon of autumn's glow, When a soft and purple mist Like a vaporous amethyst, Or an air-dissolved star Mingling light and fragrance, far From the curv'd horizon's bound To the point of Heaven's profound, Fills the overflowing sky; And the plains that silent lie Underneath, the leaves unsodden Where the infant Frost has trodden With his morning-winged feet, Whose bright print is gleaming yet; And the red and golden vines, Piercing with their trellis'd lines The rough, dark-skirted wilderness; The dun and bladed grass no less, Pointing from his hoary tower In the windless air; the flower Glimmering at my feet; the line Of the olive-sandall'd Apennine In the south dimly islanded; And the Alps, whose snows are spread High between the clouds and sun; And of living things each one; And my spirit which so long Darken'd this swift stream of song, Interpenetrated lie By the glory of the sky: Be it love, light, harmony, Odour, or the soul of all Which from Heaven like dew doth fall, Or the mind which feeds this verse Peopling the lone universe. Noon descends, and after noon Autumn's evening meets me soon, Leading the infantine moon, And that one star, which to her Almost seems to minister Half the crimson light she brings From the sunset's radiant springs: And the soft dreams of the morn (Which like winged winds had borne To that silent isle, which lies Mid remember'd agonies, The frail bark of this lone being) Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, And its ancient pilot, Pain, Sits beside the helm again. Other flowering isles must be In the sea of Life and Agony: Other spirits float and flee O'er that gulf: even now, perhaps, On some rock the wild wave wraps, With folded wings they waiting sit For my bark, to pilot it To some calm and blooming cove, Where for me, and those I love, May a windless bower be built, Far from passion, pain and guilt, In a dell mid lawny hills, Which the wild sea-murmur fills, And soft sunshine, and the sound Of old forests echoing round, And the light and smell divine Of all flowers that breathe and shine: We may live so happy there, That the Spirits of the Air, Envying us, may even entice To our healing paradise The polluting multitude; But their rage would be subdu'd By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm On the uplifted soul, and leaves Under which the bright sea heaves; While each breathless interval In their whisperings musical The inspired soul supplies With its own deep melodies, And the love which heals all strife Circling, like the breath of life, All things in that sweet abode With its own mild brotherhood: They, not it, would change; and soon Every sprite beneath the moon Would repent its envy vain, And the earth grow young again.

The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone; And all around, With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon. The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare thorn’s breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Had bound their folds o’er many a crack Which the frost had made between. Thine eyes glow’d in the glare Of the moon’s dying light; As a fen-fire’s beam On a sluggish stream Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there, And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair, That shook in the wind of night. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved; The wind made thy bosom chill; The night did shed On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky Might visit thee at will.

To Mary — — 1. So now my summer task is ended, Mary, And I return to thee, mine own heart's home; As to his Queen some victor Knight of Fa ë ry, Earning bright spoils for her inchanted dome; Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become A star among the stars of mortal night, If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom, Its doubtful promise thus I would unite With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light. 2. The toil which stole from thee so many an hour Is ended,—and the fruit is at thy feet! No longer where the woods to frame a bower With interlaced branches mix and meet, Or where with sound like many voices sweet, Water-falls leap among wild islands green, Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen: But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been. 3. Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. I do remember well the hour which burst My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was, When I walked forth upon the glittering grass, And wept, I knew not why; until there rose From the near school-room, voices, that, alas! Were but one echo from a world of woes— The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 4. And then I clasped my hands and looked around— —But none was near to mock my streaming eyes, Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground— So without shame, I spake:—"I will be wise, And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies Such power, for I grow weary to behold The selfish and the strong still tyrannise Without reproach or check." I then controuled My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold. 5. And from that hour did I with earnest thought Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore, Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught I cared to learn, but from that secret store Wrought linked armour for my soul, before It might walk forth to war among mankind; Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more Within me, till there came upon my mind A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined. 6. Alas, that love should be a blight and snare To those who seek all sympathies in one!— Such once I sought in vain; then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone:— Yet never found I one not false to me, Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee. 7. Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain; How beautiful and calm and free thou wert In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain, And walked as free as light the clouds among, Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long. 8. No more alone through the world's wilderness, Although I trod the paths of high intent, I journeyed now: no more companionless, Where solitude is like despair, I went.— There is the wisdom of a stern content When Poverty can blight the just and good, When Infamy dares mock the innocent, And cherished friends turn with the multitude To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood! 9. Now has descended a serener hour, And with inconstant fortune, friends return; Though suffering leaves the knowledge and the power Which says:—Let scorn be not repaid with scorn. And from thy side two gentle babes are born To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn; And these delights, and thou, have been to me The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee. 10. Is it, that now my inexperienced fingers But strike the prelude of a loftier strain? Or, must the lyre on which my spirit lingers Soon pause in silence, ne'er to sound again, Though it might shake the Anarch Custom's reign, And charm the minds of men to Truth's own sway Holier than was Amphion's? I would fain Reply in hope—but I am worn away, And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey. 11. And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak: Time may interpret to his silent years. Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek, And in the light thine ample forehead wears, And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears, And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy Is whispered, to subdue my fondest fears: And through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see A lamp of vestal fire burning internally. 12. They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth, Of glorious parents, thou aspiring Child. I wonder not—for One then left this earth Whose life was like a setting planet mild Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled Of its departing glory; still her fame Shines on thee, through the tempests dark and wild Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name. 13. One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit, Which was the echo of three thousand years; And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it, As some lone man who in a desart hears The music of his home:—unwonted fears Fell on the pale oppressors of our race, And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted cares, Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place. 14. Truth's deathless voice pauses among mankind! If there must be no response to my cry— If men must rise and stamp with fury blind On his pure name who loves them,—thou and I, Sweet Friend! can look from our tranquillity Like lamps into the world's tempestuous night,— Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by Which wrap them from the foundering seaman's sight, That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.

O world! O life! O time! On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before; When will return the glory of your prime? No more—Oh, never more! Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more—Oh, never more!