Beckons the sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought XIX Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing When the bolt has pierced its brain; rain; As a far taper fades with fading night, Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away To ΤΟ I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, ARETHUSA I ARETHUSA arose From her couch of snows In the Acroceraunian mountains, Shepherding her bright fountains. With her rainbow locks Her steps paved with green The downward ravine Which slopes to the western gleams; And gliding and springing, She went, ever singing, Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Arethusa. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated by her, Pisa, 1820. In murmurs as soft as sleep; The Earth seemed to love her, As she lingered towards the deep. II Then Alpheus bold, On his glacier cold, With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm In the rocks with the spasm All Erymanthus shook. And the black south wind It concealed behind The urns of the silent snow, And earthquake and thunder The bars of the springs below. The beard and the hair Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent's sweep, Of the fleet nymph's flight III "Oh, save me! Oh, guide me, For he grasps me now by the hair! To its blue depth stirred, And divided at her prayer; And under the water The Earth's white daughter Fled like a sunny beam; Behind her descended Her billows, unblended With the brackish Dorian stream. On the emerald main Alpheus rushed behind, As an eagle pursuing A dove to its ruin Down the streams of the cloudy wind. IV Under the bowers Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones; Over heaps of unvalued stones; Which amid the streams Weave a network of colored light; And under the caves, Where the shadowy waves Are as green as the forest's night; And the swordfish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts Of the mountain clifts They passed to their Dorian home. V And now from their fountains Down one vale where the morning basks, Like friends once parted Grown single-hearted, They ply their watery tasks. At sunrise they leap From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; And the meadows of asphodel; Beneath the Ortygian shore, In the azure sky When they love but live no more. SONG OF PROSERPINE WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA SACRED Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom If with mists of evening dew Thou dost nourish these young flowers Fairest children of the hours, Song of Proserpine, Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391. |