Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck, another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
VIII
With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.
TO SIDMOUTH AND CASTLEREAGH
1
As from an ancestral oak
Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell, and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion:
II
As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly yew
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,
And the stars are none, or few:
To S[idmouth and C[astlerea]gh. Harvard MS. || Similes, Medwin, 1832. Similes, Mrs. Shelley, 18391. Similes. For Two Political Characters of 1819, Mrs. Shelley, 18392. Published by Medwin, The Athenæum, August 25, 1832.
ii. 2 yew, Medwin, 1832 || hue, Medwin, 1833.
4 moon, Rossetti || morn, Medwin, 1832.
As a shark and dog-fish wait,
Under an Atlantic isle,
For the negro-ship, whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while
IV
Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,
Two scorpions under one wet stone,
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Two vipers tangled into one.
AN old, mad, blind, despised and dying king; Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn-mud from a muddy
spring;
Rulers, who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow;
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled
field;
An army which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield;
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless-a book sealed;
A Senate-Time's worst statute unrepealed,
England in 1819. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391.
9 make, Rossetti.
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may Burst to illumine our tempestuous day.
I
GOD prosper, speed, and save,
God raise from England's grave
Her murdered Queen!
Pave with swift victory
The steps of Liberty,
Whom Britons own to be
Immortal Queen.
See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity,
God save the Queen!
Millions on millions wait
Firm, rapid, and elate,
On her majestic state!
God save the Queen!
III
She is thine own pure soul
Moulding the mighty whole,
God save the Queen!
She is thine own deep love
Rained down from heaven above,-
Wherever she rest or move,
God save our Queen!
National Anthem, Mrs. Shelley, 18392 || God save the Queen, Rossetti. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18392.
IV
Wilder her enemies
In their own dark disguise,
God save our Queen!
All earthly things that dare
Her sacred name to bear,
Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!
V
Be her eternal throne
Built in our hearts alone, -
God save the Queen!
Let the oppressor hold
Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old
O'er our hearts Queen.
VI
Lips touched by seraphim
Breathe out the choral hymn,
God save the Queen!
Sweet as if angels sang,
Loud as that trumpet's clang,
Wakening the world's dead gang,
God save the Queen!
ODE TO HEAVEN
CHORUS OF SPIRITS
PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then,
Of the present and the past,
Of the eternal where and when,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome
Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth's company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode
Of that power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Ode to Heaven. Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820.
Dated in the Harvard MS., Florence, December, 1819.
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