"I never saw the sun? We will walk here To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me." That night the youth and lady mingled lay by year That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, Woven by some subtlest bard to make hard hearts Her eyes were black and lustreless and wan, Her lips and cheeks were like things dead - so pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins And weak articulations might be seen Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits, night and day, Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee! "Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep, but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, 22 sunrise? We will wake, Forman conj. 37 Hunt, 1823 || omit, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; Oh, that, like thine, mine epitaph were - Peace!" This was the only moan she ever made. HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY I THE awful shadow of some unseen Power Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Like aught that for its grace may be II Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away, and leave our state, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. Published by Hunt, Examiner, January 19, 1817, and with Rosalind and Helen, 1819. Com posed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer. i. 2 among, Shelley, 1819 || amongst, Shelley, 1817. ii. 1 dost, Shelley, 1819 || doth, Shelley, 1817. This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Ask why the sunlight not forever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river; Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown; Why fear and dream and death and birth Such gloom; why man has such a scope III No voice from some sublimer world hath ever Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost and Remain the records of their vain endeavorFrail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance and mutability. Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, IV Love, Hope and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart, And come, for some uncertain moments lent. Man were immortal and omnipotent, Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, ii. 9 fear and dream || care and pain, Boscombe MS. Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart. Thou messenger of sympathies That wax and wane in lovers' eyes! Thou, that to human thought art nourishment, Depart not as thy shadow came! Depart not, lest the grave should be, While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed dead; I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed. I was not heard I saw them not When, musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing All vital things that wake to bring Į shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! VI I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine -have I not kept the vow? now iv. 8 art, Shelley, 1817 || are, Shelley, 1819. I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou, O awful Loveliness, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express. VII The day becomes more solemn and serene Which through the summer is not heard or seen, As if it could not be, as if it had not been! Thus let thy power, which like the truth Descended, to my onward life supply Its calm, to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind To fear himself, and love all humankind. MONT BLANC LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI I The everlasting universe of things Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, Mont Blanc. Published in the History of a Six Weeks' Tour, 1817. Composed in Switzerland, in July. |