LAST CHORUS OF 'HELLAS.' The world's great age begins anew, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam A brighter Hellas rears its mountains A new Peneus rolls his fountains Against the morning star; Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Oh write no more the tale of Troy, Another Athens shall arise, And to remoter time Bequeath, like sunset to the skies, The splendour of its prime; And leave, if nought so bright may live, Saturn and Love their long repose Shall burst, more bright and good Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, Oh cease! must hate and death return? The world is weary of the past,— Oh might it die or rest at last! LINES. I. When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead; When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow's glory is shed; When the lute is broken, Sweet notes are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. II. As music and splendour No song when the spirit is mute :- Or the mournful surges That ring the dead seaman's knell. (1822.) III. When hearts have once mingled, To endure what it once possessed. Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier? IV. Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high; Like the sun from a wintry sky. Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter When leaves fall and cold winds come. TO JANE--THE RECOLLECTION. I. We wandered to the pine-forest That skirts the ocean's foam; The lightest wind was in its nest, The whispering waves were half asleep, And on the bosom of the deep The smile of heaven lay; It seemed as if the hour were one Which scattered from above the sun (1822.) II. We paused amid the pines that stood, The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude And soothed, by every azure breath Now all the tree-tops lay asleep As still as in the silent deep III. How calm it was!-The silence there By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller with her sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less There seemed, from the remotest seat To the soft flower beneath our feet, A spirit interfused around, To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature's strife. And still, I felt, the centre of The magic circle there Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere. IV. We paused beside the pools that lie Each seemed as 't were a little sky A firmament of purple light Which in the dark earth lay, In which the lovely forests grew More perfect both in shape and hue There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn, Sweet views which in our world above Were imaged by the water's love And all was interfused beneath An atmosphere without a breath, Like one beloved, the scene had lent To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament With more than truth expressed; Until an envious wind crept by,- Which from the mind's too faithful eye Though thou art ever fair and kind, And forests ever green, Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind (February 2, 1822.) |