PRINCE ATHANASE

PART I

THERE was a youth, who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and gray before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel

Which burned within him, withering up his prime And goading him, like fiends, from land to land. Not his the load of any secret crime,

For nought of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same;
Not his the thirst for glory or command,

Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame;
Nor evil joys, which fire the vulgar breast
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,

Had left within his soul their dark unrest;
Nor what religion fables of the grave
Feared he, Philosophy's accepted guest.

For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.

Prince Athanase. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Composed,

What sorrow strange, and shadowy, and unknown, Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind?

If with a human sadness he did groan,

He had a gentle yet aspiring mind;
Just, innocent, with varied learning fed;
And such a glorious consolation find

In others' joy, when all their own is dead.
He loved, and labored for his kind in grief,
And yet, unlike all others, it is said,

That from such toil he never found relief.
Although a child of fortune and of power,
Of an ancestral name the orphan chief,

His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower
Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate
Apart from men, as in a lonely tower,

Pitying the tumult of their dark estate.
Yet even in youth did he not e'er abuse
The strength of wealth or thought to consecrate

Those false opinions which the harsh rich use To blind the world they famish for their pride; Nor did he hold from any man his dues,

But, like a steward in honest dealings tried
With those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise,
His riches and his cares he did divide.

19 strange, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 | deep, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise;

What he dared do or think, though men might

start,

He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes;

Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,

And to his

friends many

all loved him well · Whate'er he knew or felt he would impart,

If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell

And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They passed like aimless arrows from his ear;
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close

To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere
May comprehend within its wide array.
What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?

He knew not. Though his life, day after day,
Was failing like an unreplenished stream,
Though in his eyes a cloud and burden lay,

Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beam
Piercing the chasms of ever rising clouds,
Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem

Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;
And through his sleep, and o'er each waking

hour,

Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,

Were driven within him by some secret power, Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar, Like lights and sounds from haunted tower to

tower

O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's

war

Is levied by the night-contending winds

And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;

Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends
Which wake and feed on ever living woe,
What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds

A mirror found, he knew not none could know;
But on whoe'er might question him he turned
The light of his frank eyes, as if to show

He knew not of the grief within that burned,
But asked forbearance with a mournful look;
Or spoke in words from which none ever learned

The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook

To stir his secret pain without avail;

For all who knew and loved him then perceived That there was drawn an adamantine veil

Between his heart and mind, - both unrelieved Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife. Some said that he was mad; others believed

That memories of an antenatal life
Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;
And others said that such mysterious grief

From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell
On souls like his which owned no higher law
Than love; love calm, steadfast, invincible

By mortal fear or supernatural awe;
And others," "Tis the shadow of a dream
Which the veiled eye of memory never saw,

"But through the soul's abyss, like some dark

stream

Through shattered mines and caverns underground, Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam

"Of joy may rise but it is quenched and drowned In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure; Soon its exhausted waters will have found

"A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,
O Athanase! - in one so good and great,
Evil or tumult cannot long endure.”

So spake they - idly of another's state
Babbling vain words and fond philosophy;
This was their consolation; such debate

Men held with one another; nor did he,
Like one who labors with a human woe,
Decline this talk; as if its theme might be