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IV.

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even

I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision,-I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee-tameless, and swift, and proud.

V.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth.
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

(1819.)

FROM 'PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.'

Semichorus I. of Spirits (as Asia and Panthea pass into the forest)

The path through which that lovely twain
Have passed, by cedar, pine, and yew,
And each dark tree that ever grew,

Is curtained out from heaven's wide blue.
Nor sun nor moon nor wind nor rain
Can pierce its interwoven bowers;

Nor aught save where some cloud of dew,
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze
Between the trunks of the hoar trees,
Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers
Of the green laurel blown anew,
And bends, and then fades silently,
One frail and fair anemone.

Or, when some star, of many a one

That climbs and wanders through steep night,

Has found the cleft through which alone

Beams fall from high those depths upon,

Ere it is borne away, away,

By the swift heavens that cannot stay,-
It scatters drops of golden light,
Like lines of rain that ne'er unite:

And the gloom divine is all around,
And underneath is the mossy ground.

Semichorus II.

There the voluptuous nightingales

Are awake through all the broad noonday.

When one with bliss or sadness fails,

And through the windless ivy-boughs,

Sick with sweet love, droops dying away
On its mate's music-panting bosom;
Another, from the swinging blossom

Watching to catch the languid close
Of the last strain, then lifts on high
The wings of the weak melody,-
Till some new strain of feeling bear

The song, and all the woods are mute;
When there is heard through the dim air
The rush of wings, and, rising there

Like many a lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener's brain So sweet that joy is almost pain.

[From the same.]

VOICE in the air, singing.

Life of Life! thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them; And thy smiles, before they dwindle,

Make the cold air fire,-then screen them In those looks where whoso gazes Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them, As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds, ere they divide them;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest.

Fair are others; none beholds thee

(But thy voice sounds low and tender,

Like the fairest), for it folds thee

From the sight-that liquid splendour;
And all feel, yet see thee never,
As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest,

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest
Walk upon the winds with lightness,
Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

(1820)

HYMN OF PAN.

From, the forests and highlands
We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle-bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and waves.

To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love,-as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the dædal earth,

And of heaven, and the Giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings,-
Singing how down the vale of Mænalus

I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ;

It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.

All wept as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood-

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

(1820.)

THE CLOUD..

I.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.

II.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the Blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits.

Over earth and ocean with gentle motion
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the Genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream under mountain or stream
The Spirit he loves remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

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