Unde prius nulli
velarint
tempora musae.
Shelley copy
_120
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night. _125
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall; _135
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl--
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear? _140
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along. _145
NOTE:
_132 shattered]scattered Rossetti.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
'Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
NOTE:
_150 Urian]Urean editions 1824, 1839.
A VOICE:
Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone. _155
CHORUS:
Honour her, to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind, _160
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind--
A VOICE:
Which way comest thou?
A VOICE:
Over Ilsenstein;
The owl was awake in the white moonshine;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. _165
NOTE:
_165 eyne 1839, 2nd edition; eye 1822, 1824, 1839, 1st edition.
VOICES:
And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE:
She dropped poison upon me as I passed.
Here are the wounds--
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come away! come along!
The way is wide, the way is long, _170
But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands. --
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1:
We glide in
Like snails when the women are all away; _175
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2:
A thousand steps must a woman take,
Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE:
Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee. _180
NOTE:
_180 Felsensee 1862 ("Relics of Shelley", page 96);
Felumee 1822; Felunsee editions 1824, 1839.
VOICES BELOW:
With what joy would we fly through the upper sky!
We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we;
But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
NOTE:
_183 are editions 1839; is 1822, 1824.
BOTH CHORUSES:
The wind is still, the stars are fled, _185
The melancholy moon is dead;
The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW:
Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE:
Out of the crannies of the rocks _190
Who calls?
VOICES BELOW:
Oh, let me join your flocks!
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,--
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
With company akin to me! _195
BOTH CHORUSES:
Some on a ram and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW:
I have been tripping this many an hour:
Are the others already so far before? _200
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint--anoint--
Then every trough will be boat enough; _205
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES:
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. _210
[THEY DESCEND. ]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us; _215
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:--
Where are you?
NOTE:
_217 What! wanting, 1822.
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]:
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, an with one step _220
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light--
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225
FAUST:
Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on--
'Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time. _230
MEPHISTOPHELES:
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
FAUST:
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage! _240
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
'Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency. _245
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments--one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I'll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see, _250
As a fresh compact 'twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough--
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it--
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable: _255
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?
NOTE:
_254 An 1824; A editions 1839.
FAUST:
In introducing us, do you assume
The character of Wizard or of Devil? _260
MEPHISTOPHELES:
In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one's orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265
See you that snail there? --she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, we'll go about from fire to fire:
I'll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270
[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS. ]
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry--
But every one is best content at home.
NOTE:
_264 my wanting, 1822.
General.
Who dare confide in right or a just claim? _275
So much as I had done for them! and now--
With women and the people 'tis the same,
Youth will stand foremost ever,--age may go
To the dark grave unhonoured.
NOTE:
_275 right editions 1824, 1839; night 1822.
MINISTER:
Nowadays
People assert their rights: they go too far; _280
But as for me, the good old times I praise;
Then we were all in all--'twas something worth
One's while to be in place and wear a star;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.
PARVENU:
We too are active, and we did and do _285
What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.
NOTE:
_285 Parvenu: (Note) A sort of fundholder 1822, editions 1824, 1839.
AUTHOR:
Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume? 'tis impertinence _290
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.
NOTE:
_290 ponderous 1824; wonderous 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]:
I
find the people ripe for the last day,
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now, _295
So is the world drained to the dregs.
PEDLAR-WITCH:
Look here,
Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300
Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with fine malicious mischief--
There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl
From which consuming poison may be drained _305
By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,
The price of an abandoned maiden's shame;
No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back;
No--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Gossip, you know little of these times. _310
What has been, has been; what is done, is past,
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:
You think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315
FAUST:
What is that yonder?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Mark her well. It is
Lilith.
FAUST:
Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man's neck, _320
She will not ever set him free again.
FAUST:
There sit a girl and an old woman--they
Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
There is no rest to-night for any one:
When one dance ends another is begun; _325
Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND
MEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN. ]
FAUST:
I had once a lovely dream
In which I saw an apple-tree,
Where two fair apples with their gleam
To climb and taste attracted me. _330
NOTES:
_327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript ("Westminster Review", July, 1870);
wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:
She with apples you desired
From Paradise came long ago:
With you I feel that if required,
Such still within my garden grow.
. . .
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
What is this cursed multitude about? _335
Have we not long since proved to demonstration
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet?
But these are dancing just like men and women.
NOTE:
_335 Procto-Phantasmist]Brocto-Phantasmist editions 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:
What does he want then at our ball?
FAUST:
Oh! he
Is far above us all in his conceit: _340
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,
Is not to be considered as a step.
There are few things that scandalize him not: _345
And when you whirl round in the circle now,
As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
He says that you go wrong in all respects,
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
Fly! _350
Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, since you have been
Proved not to exist! --But this infernal brood
Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355
How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains! --it is a case
Unheard of!
NOTE:
_355 pond wanting in Boscombe manuscript.
THE GIRL:
Then leave off teasing us so.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance _365
To beat the poet and the devil together.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370
[TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE. ]
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
FAUST:
A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
That was all right, my friend:
Be it enough that the mouse was not gray. _375
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.
FAUST:
Then saw I--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What?
FAUST:
Seest thou not a pale,
Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
She drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Let it be--pass on--
No good can come of it--it is not well
To meet it--it is an enchanted phantom, _385
A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
FAUST:
Oh, too true!
Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390
Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me--
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
NOTE:
_392 breast editions 1839; heart 1822, 1824.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love. _395
FAUST:
Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ay, she can carry _400
Her head under her arm upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion. --Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a. . .
And if I am not mightily deceived, _405
I see a theatre. --What may this mean?
ATTENDANT:
Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis
The custom now to represent that number.
'Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
***
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB.
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.
[An edition (250 copies) of "Queen Mab" was printed at London in the
summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer,
appears on the title-page (see "Bibliographical List"). Of this edition
about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9
were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there
revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were
published by Shelley in the "Alastor" volume of 1816, under the title,
"The Daemon of the World". The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when
sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C. B. , from a
printed copy of "Queen Mab" with Shelley's manuscript corrections. See
"The Shelley Library", pages 36-44, for a description of this copy,
which is in Mr. Forman's possession. Sources of the text are (1) the
editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the "Poetical
Works" of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting)
in the 2nd edition of the "Poetical Works", 1839 (same editor).
"Queen Mab" was probably written during the year 1812--it is first heard
of at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 ("Shelley Memorials", page 39)--but the
text may be assumed to include earlier material. ]
ECRASEZ L'INFAME! --Correspondance de Voltaire.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;
Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.
. . .
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.
Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo. --Lucret. lib. 4.
Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso. --Archimedes.
TO HARRIET *****.
Whose is the love that gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue's most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul _5
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
HARRIET! on thine:--thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the inspiration of my song; _10
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each floweret gathered in my heart _15
It consecrates to thine.
QUEEN MAB.
1.
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
The other, rosy as the morn _5
When throned on ocean's wave
It blushes o'er the world:
Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy Power
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10
Seized on her sinless soul?
Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
Which steal like streams along a field of snow, _15
That lovely outline, which is fair
As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction's breath
Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
But loathsomeness and ruin? _20
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber
Stealing o'er sensation,
Which the breath of roseate morning _25
Chaseth into darkness?
Will Ianthe wake again,
And give that faithful bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
Light, life and rapture from her smile? _30
Yes! she will wake again,
Although her glowing limbs are motionless,
And silent those sweet lips,
Once breathing eloquence,
That might have soothed a tiger's rage, _35
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.
Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed: _40
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound? _45
'Tis like the wondrous strain
That round a lonely ruin swells,
Which, wandering on the echoing shore,
The enthusiast hears at evening:
'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh; _50
'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Of that strange lyre whose strings
The genii of the breezes sweep:
Those lines of rainbow light
Are like the moonbeams when they fall _55
Through some cathedral window, but the tints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the Queen of Spells drew in,
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65
Long did she gaze, and silently,
Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,
When silvery clouds float through the 'wildered brain,
When every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,
When fancy at a glance combines
The wondrous and the beautiful,--
So bright, so fair, so wild a shape
Hath ever yet beheld, _75
As that which reined the coursers of the air,
And poured the magic of her gaze
Upon the maiden's sleep.
The broad and yellow moon
Shone dimly through her form-- _80
That form of faultless symmetry;
The pearly and pellucid car
Moved not the moonlight's line:
'Twas not an earthly pageant:
Those who had looked upon the sight, _85
Passing all human glory,
Saw not the yellow moon,
Saw not the mortal scene,
Heard not the night-wind's rush,
Heard not an earthly sound, _90
Saw but the fairy pageant,
Heard but the heavenly strains
That filled the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy's frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,
That catches but the palest tinge of even, _95
And which the straining eye can hardly seize
When melting into eastern twilight's shadow,
Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star
That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100
As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form,
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
Yet with an undulating motion,
Swayed to her outline gracefully.
From her celestial car _105
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth:
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air, _110
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.
FAIRY:
'Stars! your balmiest influence shed!
Elements! your wrath suspend! _115
Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds
That circle thy domain!
Let not a breath be seen to stir
Around yon grass-grown ruin's height,
Let even the restless gossamer _120
Sleep on the moveless air!
Soul of Ianthe! thou,
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon,
That waits the good and the sincere; that waits
Those who have struggled, and with resolute will _125
Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains,
The icy chains of custom, and have shone
The day-stars of their age;--Soul of Ianthe!
Awake! arise! '
Sudden arose _130
Ianthe's Soul; it stood
All beautiful in naked purity,
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,
Each stain of earthliness _135
Had passed away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body lay
Wrapped in the depth of slumber: _140
Its features were fixed and meaningless,
Yet animal life was there,
And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions: 'twas a sight
Of wonder to behold the body and soul. _145
The self-same lineaments, the same
Marks of identity were there:
Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150
Wantons in endless being.
The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly:
Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155
Rots, perishes, and passes.
FAIRY:
'Spirit! who hast dived so deep;
Spirit! who hast soared so high;
Thou the fearless, thou the mild,
Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, _160
Ascend the car with me. '
SPIRIT:
'Do I dream? Is this new feeling
But a visioned ghost of slumber?
If indeed I am a soul,
A free, a disembodied soul, _165
Speak again to me. '
FAIRY:
'I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep:
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
In the unfailing consciences of men, _170
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:
The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather: not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:
And it is yet permitted me, to rend _180
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
That peace, which in the end all life will share. _185
This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,
Ascend the car with me! '
The chains of earth's immurement
Fell from Ianthe's spirit;
They shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190
Beneath a wakened giant's strength.
She knew her glorious change,
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled
New raptures opening round:
Each day-dream of her mortal life, _195
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers
That closed each well-spent day,
Seemed now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;
The silver clouds disparted; _200
And as the car of magic they ascended,
Again the speechless music swelled,
Again the coursers of the air
Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen
Shaking the beamy reins _205
Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on.
The night was fair, and countless stars
Studded Heaven's dark blue vault,--
Just o'er the eastern wave _210
Peeped the first faint smile of morn:--
The magic car moved on--
From the celestial hoofs
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,
And where the burning wheels _215
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak,
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now it flew far above a rock,
The utmost verge of earth,
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220
Lowered o'er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot's path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous Ocean lay.
The mirror of its stillness showed _225
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track,
And the gray light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That canopied the dawn. _230
Seemed it, that the chariot's way
Lay through the midst of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt _235
Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on.
As they approached their goal
The coursers seemed to gather speed;
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere;
The sun's unclouded orb
Rolled through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot's swifter course, _245
And fell, like ocean's feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel's prow.
The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared _250
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. _255
It was a sight of wonder: some
Were horned like the crescent moon;
Some shed a mild and silver beam
Like Hesperus o'er the western sea;
Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260
Like worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,
Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature! here!
In this interminable wilderness _265
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze _270
Is less instinct with thee:
Yet not the meanest worm
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature! thou! _275
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.
2.
If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild Ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
Until the sun's broad orb
Seemed resting on the burnished wave, _5
Thou must have marked the lines
Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds
Edged with intolerable radiancy _10
Towering like rocks of jet
Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point
Peeps like a star o'er Ocean's western edge, _15
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing _20
Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, _25
Nor the burnished Ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's aethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall! _30
As Heaven, low resting on the wave,it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea; _35
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved. _40
The Fairy and the Spirit
Entered the Hall of Spells:
Those golden clouds
That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy _45
With the aethereal footsteps trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,
Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling,
Yielded to every movement of the will. _50
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.
'Spirit! ' the Fairy said, _55
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
'This is a wondrous sight
And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell
In a celestial palace, all resigned _60
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
This is thine high reward:--the past shall rise; _65
Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future. '
The Fairy and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement. --
Below lay stretched the universe! _70
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In mazy motion intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably _75
Eternal Nature's law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony;
Each with undeviating aim, _80
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
None but a spirit's eye _85
Might ken that rolling orb;
None but a spirit's eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold
Each action of this earth's inhabitants. _90
But matter, space and time
In those aereal mansions cease to act;
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps
The harvest of its excellence, o'er-bounds
Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95
Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.
The Spirit's intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognized.
The thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100
Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch
That moves the finest nerve, _105
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of Nature.
'Behold,' the Fairy cried,
'Palmyra's ruined palaces! -- _110
Behold! where grandeur frowned;
Behold! where pleasure smiled;
What now remains? --the memory
Of senselessness and shame--
What is immortal there? _115
Nothing--it stands to tell
A melancholy tale, to give
An awful warning: soon
Oblivion will steal silently
The remnant of its fame. _120
Monarchs and conquerors there
Proud o'er prostrate millions trod--
The earthquakes of the human race;
Like them, forgotten when the ruin
That marks their shock is past. _125
'Beside the eternal Nile,
The Pyramids have risen.
Nile shall pursue his changeless way:
Those Pyramids shall fall;
Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130
The spot whereon they stood!
Their very site shall be forgotten,
As is their builder's name!
'Behold yon sterile spot;
Where now the wandering Arab's tent _135
Flaps in the desert-blast.
There once old Salem's haughty fane
Reared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes,
And in the blushing face of day
Exposed its shameful glory. _140
Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed
The building of that fane; and many a father;
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored
The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth,
And spare his children the detested task _145
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
The choicest days of life,
To soothe a dotard's vanity.
There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb
The unborn child,--old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:
But what was he who taught them that the God _155
Of nature and benevolence hath given
A special sanction to the trade of blood?
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing _160
Itself into forgetfulness.
'Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,
There is a moral desert now:
The mean and miserable huts,
The yet more wretched palaces, _165
Contrasted with those ancient fanes,
Now crumbling to oblivion;
The long and lonely colonnades,
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,
Seem like a well-known tune, _170
Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear,
Remembered now in sadness.
But, oh! how much more changed,
How gloomier is the contrast
Of human nature there! _175
Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave,
A coward and a fool, spreads death around--
Then, shuddering, meets his own.
Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,
A cowled and hypocritical monk _180
Prays, curses and deceives.
'Spirit, ten thousand years
Have scarcely passed away,
Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks
His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, _185
Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city,
Metropolis of the western continent:
There, now, the mossy column-stone,
Indented by Time's unrelaxing grasp, _190
Which once appeared to brave
All, save its country's ruin;
There the wide forest scene,
Rude in the uncultivated loveliness
Of gardens long run wild, _195
Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps
Chance in that desert has delayed,
Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.
Yet once it was the busiest haunt,
Whither, as to a common centre, flocked _200
Strangers, and ships, and merchandise:
Once peace and freedom blessed
The cultivated plain:
But wealth, that curse of man,
Blighted the bud of its prosperity: _205
Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,
Fled, to return not, until man shall know
That they alone can give the bliss
Worthy a soul that claims
Its kindred with eternity. _210
'There's not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins: _215
And from the burning plains
Where Libyan monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland's sunless clime,
To where the golden fields _220
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.
'How strange is human pride! _225
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass,
That springeth in the morn
And perisheth ere noon,
Is an unbounded world; _230
I tell thee that those viewless beings,
Whose mansion is the smallest particle
Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel and live like man;
That their affections and antipathies, _235
Like his, produce the laws
Ruling their moral state;
And the minutest throb
That through their frame diffuses
The slightest, faintest motion, _240
Is fixed and indispensable
As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs. '
The Fairy paused. The Spirit,
In ecstasy of admiration, felt _245
All knowledge of the past revived; the events
Of old and wondrous times,
Which dim tradition interruptedly
Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded
In just perspective to the view; _250
Yet dim from their infinitude.
The Spirit seemed to stand
High on an isolated pinnacle;
The flood of ages combating below,
The depth of the unbounded universe _255
Above, and all around
Nature's unchanging harmony.
3.
'Fairy! ' the Spirit said,
And on the Queen of Spells
Fixed her aethereal eyes,
'I thank thee. Thou hast given
A boon which I will not resign, and taught _5
A lesson not to be unlearned. I know
The past, and thence I will essay to glean
A warning for the future, so that man
May profit by his errors, and derive
Experience from his folly: _10
For, when the power of imparting joy
Is equal to the will, the human soul
Requires no other Heaven. '
MAB:
'Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!
Much yet remains unscanned. _15
Thou knowest how great is man,
Thou knowest his imbecility:
Yet learn thou what he is:
Yet learn the lofty destiny
Which restless time prepares _20
For every living soul.
'Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid
Yon populous city rears its thousand towers
And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops
Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25
Encompass it around: the dweller there
Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not
The curses of the fatherless, the groans
Of those who have no friend? He passes on:
The King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30
That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool
Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave
Even to the basest appetites--that man
Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles
At the deep curses which the destitute _35
Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy
Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan
But for those morsels which his wantonness
Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save
All that they love from famine: when he hears _40
The tale of horror, to some ready-made face
Of hypocritical assent he turns,
Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,
Flushes his bloated cheek.
Now to the meal
Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45
His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,
Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled
From every clime, could force the loathing sense
To overcome satiety,--if wealth
The spring it draws from poisons not,--or vice, _50
Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not
Its food to deadliest venom; then that king
Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils
His unforced task, when he returns at even,
And by the blazing faggot meets again _55
Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,
Tastes not a sweeter meal.
Behold him now
Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain
Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon
The slumber of intemperance subsides, _60
And conscience, that undying serpent, calls
Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task.
Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye--
Oh! mark that deadly visage. '
KING:
'No cessation!
Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65
I wish, yet fear to clasp thee! --Not one moment
Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!
Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity
In penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest
With danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn'st _70
The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!
Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed
One drop of balm upon my withered soul. '
THE FAIRY:
'Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,
And Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75
In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;
His slumbers are but varied agonies,
They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.
There needeth not the hell that bigots frame
To punish those who err: earth in itself _80
Contains at once the evil and the cure;
And all-sufficing Nature can chastise
Those who transgress her law,--she only knows
How justly to proportion to the fault
The punishment it merits.
Is it strange _85
That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?
Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug
The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange
That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,
Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90
Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds
Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth,
His soul asserts not its humanity?
That man's mild nature rises not in war
Against a king's employ? No--'tis not strange. _95
He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a KING and virtue. Stranger yet,
To those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100
The future from the present, it may seem,
That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes
Of this unnatural being; not one wretch,
Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed
Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm
To dash him from his throne! _105
Those gilded flies
That, basking in the sunshine of a court,
Fatten on its corruption! --what are they?
--The drones of the community; they feed
On the mechanic's labour: the starved hind _110
For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield
Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,
Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes
A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,
Drags out in labour a protracted death, _115
To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,
That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
'Whence, think'st thou, kings and parasites arose?
Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap
Toil and unvanquishable penury _120
On those who build their palaces, and bring
Their daily bread? --From vice, black loathsome vice;
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;
From all that 'genders misery, and makes
Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125
Revenge, and murder. . . And when Reason's voice,
Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked
The nations; and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue
Is peace, and happiness and harmony; _130
When man's maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood;--kingly glare
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority
Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne
Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable
As that of truth is now.
Where is the fame
Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth
Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140
From Time's light footfall, the minutest wave
That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing
The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today
Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze
That flashes desolation, strong the arm _145
That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!
That mandate is a thunder-peal that died
In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash
On which the midnight closed, and on that arm
The worm has made his meal.
The virtuous man, _150
Who, great in his humility, as kings
Are little in their grandeur; he who leads
Invincibly a life of resolute good,
And stands amid the silent dungeon depths
More free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155
Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove
To bind the impassive spirit;--when he falls,
His mild eye beams benevolence no more:
Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve;
Sunk Reason's simple eloquence, that rolled _160
But to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave
Hath quenched that eye, and Death's relentless frost
Withered that arm: but the unfading fame
Which Virtue hangs upon its votary's tomb;
The deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165
Call to their mind and tremble; the remembrance
With which the happy spirit contemplates
Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth,
Shall never pass away.
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night. _125
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; _130
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blast's unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall; _135
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl--
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear? _140
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along. _145
NOTE:
_132 shattered]scattered Rossetti.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; _150
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
'Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
NOTE:
_150 Urian]Urean editions 1824, 1839.
A VOICE:
Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone. _155
CHORUS:
Honour her, to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind, _160
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind--
A VOICE:
Which way comest thou?
A VOICE:
Over Ilsenstein;
The owl was awake in the white moonshine;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. _165
NOTE:
_165 eyne 1839, 2nd edition; eye 1822, 1824, 1839, 1st edition.
VOICES:
And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE:
She dropped poison upon me as I passed.
Here are the wounds--
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come away! come along!
The way is wide, the way is long, _170
But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands. --
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1:
We glide in
Like snails when the women are all away; _175
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2:
A thousand steps must a woman take,
Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE:
Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee. _180
NOTE:
_180 Felsensee 1862 ("Relics of Shelley", page 96);
Felumee 1822; Felunsee editions 1824, 1839.
VOICES BELOW:
With what joy would we fly through the upper sky!
We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we;
But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
NOTE:
_183 are editions 1839; is 1822, 1824.
BOTH CHORUSES:
The wind is still, the stars are fled, _185
The melancholy moon is dead;
The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW:
Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE:
Out of the crannies of the rocks _190
Who calls?
VOICES BELOW:
Oh, let me join your flocks!
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven,--
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
With company akin to me! _195
BOTH CHORUSES:
Some on a ram and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW:
I have been tripping this many an hour:
Are the others already so far before? _200
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint--anoint--
Then every trough will be boat enough; _205
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES:
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. _210
[THEY DESCEND. ]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us; _215
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:--
Where are you?
NOTE:
_217 What! wanting, 1822.
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]:
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, an with one step _220
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light--
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225
FAUST:
Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on--
'Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time. _230
MEPHISTOPHELES:
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
FAUST:
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage! _240
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
'Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency. _245
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments--one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I'll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see, _250
As a fresh compact 'twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough--
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it--
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable: _255
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?
NOTE:
_254 An 1824; A editions 1839.
FAUST:
In introducing us, do you assume
The character of Wizard or of Devil? _260
MEPHISTOPHELES:
In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one's orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265
See you that snail there? --she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, we'll go about from fire to fire:
I'll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270
[TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS. ]
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry--
But every one is best content at home.
NOTE:
_264 my wanting, 1822.
General.
Who dare confide in right or a just claim? _275
So much as I had done for them! and now--
With women and the people 'tis the same,
Youth will stand foremost ever,--age may go
To the dark grave unhonoured.
NOTE:
_275 right editions 1824, 1839; night 1822.
MINISTER:
Nowadays
People assert their rights: they go too far; _280
But as for me, the good old times I praise;
Then we were all in all--'twas something worth
One's while to be in place and wear a star;
That was indeed the golden age on earth.
PARVENU:
We too are active, and we did and do _285
What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now
Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round,
A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.
NOTE:
_285 Parvenu: (Note) A sort of fundholder 1822, editions 1824, 1839.
AUTHOR:
Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense
And ponderous volume? 'tis impertinence _290
To write what none will read, therefore will I
To please the young and thoughtless people try.
NOTE:
_290 ponderous 1824; wonderous 1822.
MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]:
I
find the people ripe for the last day,
Since I last came up to the wizard mountain;
And as my little cask runs turbid now, _295
So is the world drained to the dregs.
PEDLAR-WITCH:
Look here,
Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast;
And lose the chance of a good pennyworth.
I have a pack full of the choicest wares
Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300
Is nothing like what may be found on earth;
Nothing that in a moment will make rich
Men and the world with fine malicious mischief--
There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl
From which consuming poison may be drained _305
By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel,
The price of an abandoned maiden's shame;
No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose,
Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back;
No--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Gossip, you know little of these times. _310
What has been, has been; what is done, is past,
They shape themselves into the innovations
They breed, and innovation drags us with it.
The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us:
You think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315
FAUST:
What is that yonder?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Mark her well. It is
Lilith.
FAUST:
Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Lilith, the first wife of Adam.
Beware of her fair hair, for she excels
All women in the magic of her locks;
And when she winds them round a young man's neck, _320
She will not ever set him free again.
FAUST:
There sit a girl and an old woman--they
Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
There is no rest to-night for any one:
When one dance ends another is begun; _325
Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.
[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND
MEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN. ]
FAUST:
I had once a lovely dream
In which I saw an apple-tree,
Where two fair apples with their gleam
To climb and taste attracted me. _330
NOTES:
_327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript ("Westminster Review", July, 1870);
wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:
She with apples you desired
From Paradise came long ago:
With you I feel that if required,
Such still within my garden grow.
. . .
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
What is this cursed multitude about? _335
Have we not long since proved to demonstration
That ghosts move not on ordinary feet?
But these are dancing just like men and women.
NOTE:
_335 Procto-Phantasmist]Brocto-Phantasmist editions 1824, 1839.
THE GIRL:
What does he want then at our ball?
FAUST:
Oh! he
Is far above us all in his conceit: _340
Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment;
And any step which in our dance we tread,
If it be left out of his reckoning,
Is not to be considered as a step.
There are few things that scandalize him not: _345
And when you whirl round in the circle now,
As he went round the wheel in his old mill,
He says that you go wrong in all respects,
Especially if you congratulate him
Upon the strength of the resemblance.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
Fly! _350
Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there!
In this enlightened age too, since you have been
Proved not to exist! --But this infernal brood
Will hear no reason and endure no rule.
Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355
How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish
Of superstition, and the world will not
Come clean with all my pains! --it is a case
Unheard of!
NOTE:
_355 pond wanting in Boscombe manuscript.
THE GIRL:
Then leave off teasing us so.
PROCTO-PHANTASMIST:
I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360
That I should not regret this despotism
Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it,
Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance _365
To beat the poet and the devil together.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
At last he will sit down in some foul puddle;
That is his way of solacing himself;
Until some leech, diverted with his gravity,
Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370
[TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE. ]
Why do you let that fair girl pass from you,
Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?
FAUST:
A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprung from her mouth.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
That was all right, my friend:
Be it enough that the mouse was not gray. _375
Do not disturb your hour of happiness
With close consideration of such trifles.
FAUST:
Then saw I--
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What?
FAUST:
Seest thou not a pale,
Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away?
She drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:
I cannot overcome the thought that she
Is like poor Margaret.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Let it be--pass on--
No good can come of it--it is not well
To meet it--it is an enchanted phantom, _385
A lifeless idol; with its numbing look,
It freezes up the blood of man; and they
Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone,
Like those who saw Medusa.
FAUST:
Oh, too true!
Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390
Which no beloved hand has closed, alas!
That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me--
Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!
NOTE:
_392 breast editions 1839; heart 1822, 1824.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love. _395
FAUST:
Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single blood-red line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,
Adorn her lovely neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ay, she can carry _400
Her head under her arm upon occasion;
Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures
End in delusion. --Gain this rising ground,
It is as airy here as in a. . .
And if I am not mightily deceived, _405
I see a theatre. --What may this mean?
ATTENDANT:
Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis
The custom now to represent that number.
'Tis written by a Dilettante, and
The actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410
Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish.
I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.
***
JUVENILIA.
QUEEN MAB.
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.
[An edition (250 copies) of "Queen Mab" was printed at London in the
summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer,
appears on the title-page (see "Bibliographical List"). Of this edition
about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9
were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there
revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were
published by Shelley in the "Alastor" volume of 1816, under the title,
"The Daemon of the World". The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when
sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C. B. , from a
printed copy of "Queen Mab" with Shelley's manuscript corrections. See
"The Shelley Library", pages 36-44, for a description of this copy,
which is in Mr. Forman's possession. Sources of the text are (1) the
editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the "Poetical
Works" of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting)
in the 2nd edition of the "Poetical Works", 1839 (same editor).
"Queen Mab" was probably written during the year 1812--it is first heard
of at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 ("Shelley Memorials", page 39)--but the
text may be assumed to include earlier material. ]
ECRASEZ L'INFAME! --Correspondance de Voltaire.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;
Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.
. . .
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.
Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo. --Lucret. lib. 4.
Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso. --Archimedes.
TO HARRIET *****.
Whose is the love that gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue's most sweet reward?
Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul _5
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
HARRIET! on thine:--thou wert my purer mind;
Thou wert the inspiration of my song; _10
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press into thy breast this pledge of love;
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
Each floweret gathered in my heart _15
It consecrates to thine.
QUEEN MAB.
1.
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
The other, rosy as the morn _5
When throned on ocean's wave
It blushes o'er the world:
Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy Power
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10
Seized on her sinless soul?
Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
Which steal like streams along a field of snow, _15
That lovely outline, which is fair
As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction's breath
Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
But loathsomeness and ruin? _20
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber
Stealing o'er sensation,
Which the breath of roseate morning _25
Chaseth into darkness?
Will Ianthe wake again,
And give that faithful bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
Light, life and rapture from her smile? _30
Yes! she will wake again,
Although her glowing limbs are motionless,
And silent those sweet lips,
Once breathing eloquence,
That might have soothed a tiger's rage, _35
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.
Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed: _40
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound? _45
'Tis like the wondrous strain
That round a lonely ruin swells,
Which, wandering on the echoing shore,
The enthusiast hears at evening:
'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh; _50
'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Of that strange lyre whose strings
The genii of the breezes sweep:
Those lines of rainbow light
Are like the moonbeams when they fall _55
Through some cathedral window, but the tints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the Queen of Spells drew in,
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65
Long did she gaze, and silently,
Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,
When silvery clouds float through the 'wildered brain,
When every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,
When fancy at a glance combines
The wondrous and the beautiful,--
So bright, so fair, so wild a shape
Hath ever yet beheld, _75
As that which reined the coursers of the air,
And poured the magic of her gaze
Upon the maiden's sleep.
The broad and yellow moon
Shone dimly through her form-- _80
That form of faultless symmetry;
The pearly and pellucid car
Moved not the moonlight's line:
'Twas not an earthly pageant:
Those who had looked upon the sight, _85
Passing all human glory,
Saw not the yellow moon,
Saw not the mortal scene,
Heard not the night-wind's rush,
Heard not an earthly sound, _90
Saw but the fairy pageant,
Heard but the heavenly strains
That filled the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy's frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,
That catches but the palest tinge of even, _95
And which the straining eye can hardly seize
When melting into eastern twilight's shadow,
Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star
That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100
As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form,
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
Yet with an undulating motion,
Swayed to her outline gracefully.
From her celestial car _105
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth:
Her thin and misty form
Moved with the moving air, _110
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.
FAIRY:
'Stars! your balmiest influence shed!
Elements! your wrath suspend! _115
Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds
That circle thy domain!
Let not a breath be seen to stir
Around yon grass-grown ruin's height,
Let even the restless gossamer _120
Sleep on the moveless air!
Soul of Ianthe! thou,
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon,
That waits the good and the sincere; that waits
Those who have struggled, and with resolute will _125
Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains,
The icy chains of custom, and have shone
The day-stars of their age;--Soul of Ianthe!
Awake! arise! '
Sudden arose _130
Ianthe's Soul; it stood
All beautiful in naked purity,
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame.
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,
Each stain of earthliness _135
Had passed away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body lay
Wrapped in the depth of slumber: _140
Its features were fixed and meaningless,
Yet animal life was there,
And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions: 'twas a sight
Of wonder to behold the body and soul. _145
The self-same lineaments, the same
Marks of identity were there:
Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150
Wantons in endless being.
The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly:
Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155
Rots, perishes, and passes.
FAIRY:
'Spirit! who hast dived so deep;
Spirit! who hast soared so high;
Thou the fearless, thou the mild,
Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, _160
Ascend the car with me. '
SPIRIT:
'Do I dream? Is this new feeling
But a visioned ghost of slumber?
If indeed I am a soul,
A free, a disembodied soul, _165
Speak again to me. '
FAIRY:
'I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep:
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
In the unfailing consciences of men, _170
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:
The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather: not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
In the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175
Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb
Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:
And it is yet permitted me, to rend _180
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
That peace, which in the end all life will share. _185
This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,
Ascend the car with me! '
The chains of earth's immurement
Fell from Ianthe's spirit;
They shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190
Beneath a wakened giant's strength.
She knew her glorious change,
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled
New raptures opening round:
Each day-dream of her mortal life, _195
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers
That closed each well-spent day,
Seemed now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;
The silver clouds disparted; _200
And as the car of magic they ascended,
Again the speechless music swelled,
Again the coursers of the air
Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen
Shaking the beamy reins _205
Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on.
The night was fair, and countless stars
Studded Heaven's dark blue vault,--
Just o'er the eastern wave _210
Peeped the first faint smile of morn:--
The magic car moved on--
From the celestial hoofs
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,
And where the burning wheels _215
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak,
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now it flew far above a rock,
The utmost verge of earth,
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220
Lowered o'er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot's path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous Ocean lay.
The mirror of its stillness showed _225
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track,
And the gray light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That canopied the dawn. _230
Seemed it, that the chariot's way
Lay through the midst of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt _235
Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on.
As they approached their goal
The coursers seemed to gather speed;
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere;
The sun's unclouded orb
Rolled through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot's swifter course, _245
And fell, like ocean's feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel's prow.
The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared _250
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. _255
It was a sight of wonder: some
Were horned like the crescent moon;
Some shed a mild and silver beam
Like Hesperus o'er the western sea;
Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260
Like worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,
Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature! here!
In this interminable wilderness _265
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze _270
Is less instinct with thee:
Yet not the meanest worm
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature! thou! _275
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.
2.
If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild Ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
Until the sun's broad orb
Seemed resting on the burnished wave, _5
Thou must have marked the lines
Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds
Edged with intolerable radiancy _10
Towering like rocks of jet
Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point
Peeps like a star o'er Ocean's western edge, _15
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing _20
Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, _25
Nor the burnished Ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab's aethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall! _30
As Heaven, low resting on the wave,it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea; _35
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved. _40
The Fairy and the Spirit
Entered the Hall of Spells:
Those golden clouds
That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy _45
With the aethereal footsteps trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,
Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling,
Yielded to every movement of the will. _50
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.
'Spirit! ' the Fairy said, _55
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
'This is a wondrous sight
And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell
In a celestial palace, all resigned _60
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
This is thine high reward:--the past shall rise; _65
Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future. '
The Fairy and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement. --
Below lay stretched the universe! _70
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In mazy motion intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably _75
Eternal Nature's law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony;
Each with undeviating aim, _80
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
None but a spirit's eye _85
Might ken that rolling orb;
None but a spirit's eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold
Each action of this earth's inhabitants. _90
But matter, space and time
In those aereal mansions cease to act;
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps
The harvest of its excellence, o'er-bounds
Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95
Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.
The Spirit's intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognized.
The thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100
Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch
That moves the finest nerve, _105
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of Nature.
'Behold,' the Fairy cried,
'Palmyra's ruined palaces! -- _110
Behold! where grandeur frowned;
Behold! where pleasure smiled;
What now remains? --the memory
Of senselessness and shame--
What is immortal there? _115
Nothing--it stands to tell
A melancholy tale, to give
An awful warning: soon
Oblivion will steal silently
The remnant of its fame. _120
Monarchs and conquerors there
Proud o'er prostrate millions trod--
The earthquakes of the human race;
Like them, forgotten when the ruin
That marks their shock is past. _125
'Beside the eternal Nile,
The Pyramids have risen.
Nile shall pursue his changeless way:
Those Pyramids shall fall;
Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130
The spot whereon they stood!
Their very site shall be forgotten,
As is their builder's name!
'Behold yon sterile spot;
Where now the wandering Arab's tent _135
Flaps in the desert-blast.
There once old Salem's haughty fane
Reared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes,
And in the blushing face of day
Exposed its shameful glory. _140
Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed
The building of that fane; and many a father;
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored
The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth,
And spare his children the detested task _145
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
The choicest days of life,
To soothe a dotard's vanity.
There an inhuman and uncultured race
Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150
They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb
The unborn child,--old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:
But what was he who taught them that the God _155
Of nature and benevolence hath given
A special sanction to the trade of blood?
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture
Recites till terror credits, are pursuing _160
Itself into forgetfulness.
'Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,
There is a moral desert now:
The mean and miserable huts,
The yet more wretched palaces, _165
Contrasted with those ancient fanes,
Now crumbling to oblivion;
The long and lonely colonnades,
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,
Seem like a well-known tune, _170
Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear,
Remembered now in sadness.
But, oh! how much more changed,
How gloomier is the contrast
Of human nature there! _175
Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave,
A coward and a fool, spreads death around--
Then, shuddering, meets his own.
Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,
A cowled and hypocritical monk _180
Prays, curses and deceives.
'Spirit, ten thousand years
Have scarcely passed away,
Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks
His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, _185
Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city,
Metropolis of the western continent:
There, now, the mossy column-stone,
Indented by Time's unrelaxing grasp, _190
Which once appeared to brave
All, save its country's ruin;
There the wide forest scene,
Rude in the uncultivated loveliness
Of gardens long run wild, _195
Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps
Chance in that desert has delayed,
Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.
Yet once it was the busiest haunt,
Whither, as to a common centre, flocked _200
Strangers, and ships, and merchandise:
Once peace and freedom blessed
The cultivated plain:
But wealth, that curse of man,
Blighted the bud of its prosperity: _205
Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,
Fled, to return not, until man shall know
That they alone can give the bliss
Worthy a soul that claims
Its kindred with eternity. _210
'There's not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
But flowed in human veins: _215
And from the burning plains
Where Libyan monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland's sunless clime,
To where the golden fields _220
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.
'How strange is human pride! _225
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass,
That springeth in the morn
And perisheth ere noon,
Is an unbounded world; _230
I tell thee that those viewless beings,
Whose mansion is the smallest particle
Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel and live like man;
That their affections and antipathies, _235
Like his, produce the laws
Ruling their moral state;
And the minutest throb
That through their frame diffuses
The slightest, faintest motion, _240
Is fixed and indispensable
As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs. '
The Fairy paused. The Spirit,
In ecstasy of admiration, felt _245
All knowledge of the past revived; the events
Of old and wondrous times,
Which dim tradition interruptedly
Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded
In just perspective to the view; _250
Yet dim from their infinitude.
The Spirit seemed to stand
High on an isolated pinnacle;
The flood of ages combating below,
The depth of the unbounded universe _255
Above, and all around
Nature's unchanging harmony.
3.
'Fairy! ' the Spirit said,
And on the Queen of Spells
Fixed her aethereal eyes,
'I thank thee. Thou hast given
A boon which I will not resign, and taught _5
A lesson not to be unlearned. I know
The past, and thence I will essay to glean
A warning for the future, so that man
May profit by his errors, and derive
Experience from his folly: _10
For, when the power of imparting joy
Is equal to the will, the human soul
Requires no other Heaven. '
MAB:
'Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!
Much yet remains unscanned. _15
Thou knowest how great is man,
Thou knowest his imbecility:
Yet learn thou what he is:
Yet learn the lofty destiny
Which restless time prepares _20
For every living soul.
'Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid
Yon populous city rears its thousand towers
And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops
Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25
Encompass it around: the dweller there
Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not
The curses of the fatherless, the groans
Of those who have no friend? He passes on:
The King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30
That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool
Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave
Even to the basest appetites--that man
Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles
At the deep curses which the destitute _35
Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy
Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan
But for those morsels which his wantonness
Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save
All that they love from famine: when he hears _40
The tale of horror, to some ready-made face
Of hypocritical assent he turns,
Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,
Flushes his bloated cheek.
Now to the meal
Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45
His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,
Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled
From every clime, could force the loathing sense
To overcome satiety,--if wealth
The spring it draws from poisons not,--or vice, _50
Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not
Its food to deadliest venom; then that king
Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils
His unforced task, when he returns at even,
And by the blazing faggot meets again _55
Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,
Tastes not a sweeter meal.
Behold him now
Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain
Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon
The slumber of intemperance subsides, _60
And conscience, that undying serpent, calls
Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task.
Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye--
Oh! mark that deadly visage. '
KING:
'No cessation!
Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65
I wish, yet fear to clasp thee! --Not one moment
Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!
Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity
In penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest
With danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn'st _70
The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!
Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed
One drop of balm upon my withered soul. '
THE FAIRY:
'Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,
And Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75
In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;
His slumbers are but varied agonies,
They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.
There needeth not the hell that bigots frame
To punish those who err: earth in itself _80
Contains at once the evil and the cure;
And all-sufficing Nature can chastise
Those who transgress her law,--she only knows
How justly to proportion to the fault
The punishment it merits.
Is it strange _85
That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?
Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug
The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange
That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,
Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90
Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds
Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth,
His soul asserts not its humanity?
That man's mild nature rises not in war
Against a king's employ? No--'tis not strange. _95
He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a KING and virtue. Stranger yet,
To those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100
The future from the present, it may seem,
That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes
Of this unnatural being; not one wretch,
Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed
Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm
To dash him from his throne! _105
Those gilded flies
That, basking in the sunshine of a court,
Fatten on its corruption! --what are they?
--The drones of the community; they feed
On the mechanic's labour: the starved hind _110
For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield
Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,
Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes
A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,
Drags out in labour a protracted death, _115
To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,
That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
'Whence, think'st thou, kings and parasites arose?
Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap
Toil and unvanquishable penury _120
On those who build their palaces, and bring
Their daily bread? --From vice, black loathsome vice;
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;
From all that 'genders misery, and makes
Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125
Revenge, and murder. . . And when Reason's voice,
Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked
The nations; and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue
Is peace, and happiness and harmony; _130
When man's maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood;--kingly glare
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority
Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne
Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable
As that of truth is now.
Where is the fame
Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth
Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140
From Time's light footfall, the minutest wave
That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing
The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today
Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze
That flashes desolation, strong the arm _145
That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!
That mandate is a thunder-peal that died
In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash
On which the midnight closed, and on that arm
The worm has made his meal.
The virtuous man, _150
Who, great in his humility, as kings
Are little in their grandeur; he who leads
Invincibly a life of resolute good,
And stands amid the silent dungeon depths
More free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155
Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove
To bind the impassive spirit;--when he falls,
His mild eye beams benevolence no more:
Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve;
Sunk Reason's simple eloquence, that rolled _160
But to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave
Hath quenched that eye, and Death's relentless frost
Withered that arm: but the unfading fame
Which Virtue hangs upon its votary's tomb;
The deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165
Call to their mind and tremble; the remembrance
With which the happy spirit contemplates
Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth,
Shall never pass away.
