The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Complete in One Volume

Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain,
Can pierce its interwoven bowers,
Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew,
Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze,
Between the trunks of the hoar trees,

Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers
Of the green laurel, blown anew;
And bends, and then fades silently,
One frail and fair anemone:

Or when some star of many a one

That climbs and wanders through steep night,
Has found the cleft through which alone
Beams fall from high those depths upon
Ere it is borne away, away,

By the swift Heavens that cannot stay,
It scatters drops of golden light,
Like lines of rain that ne'er unite:
And the gloom divine is all around;
And underneath is the mossy ground.

SEMICHORUS II.

There the voluptuous nightingales,

Are awake through all the broad noon-day, When one with bliss or sadness fails,

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

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

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

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

SEMICHORUS 1.

There those enchanted eddies play
Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw,
By Demogorgon's mighty law,
With melting rapture, or sweet awe,
All spirits on that secret way;

As inland boats are driven to Ocean

Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw;
And first there comes a gentle sound
To those in talk or slumber bound,
And wakes the destined soft emotion,
Attracts, impels them: those who saw

Say from the breathing earth behind
There streams a plume-uplifting wind
Which drives them on their path, while they
Believe their own swift wings and feet
The sweet desires within obey:
And so they float upon their way,
Until, still sweet, but loud and strong,
The storm of sound is driven along,
Suck'd up and hurrying as they fleet
Behind, its gathering billows meet
And to the fatal mountain bear
Like clouds amid the yielding air.

FIRST FAUN.

Canst thou imagine where those spirits live

Which make such delicate music in the woods?
We haunt within the least frequented caves
And closest coverts, and we know these wilds,
Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft:
Where may they hide themselves?

SECOND FAUN.

"T is hard to tell:
I have heard those more skilled in spirits say,
The bubbles, which enchantment of the sun
Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave
The
oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,
Are the pavilions where such dwell and float
Under the green and golden atmosphere
Which noon-tide kindles through the woven leaves;
And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,
The which they breathed within those lucent domes,
Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,
They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed,
And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire
Under the waters of the earth again.
FIRST FAUN.

If such live thus, have others other lives,
Under pink blossoms or within the bells
Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep,
Or on their dying odours, when they die,
Or on the sunlight of the sphered dew?

SECOND FAUN.

Aye, many more which we may well divine.
But should we stay to speak, noontide would come,
And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn,
And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs
Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old,
And Love, and the chained Titan's woful dooms.
And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth
One brotherhood: delightful strains which cheer
Our solitary twilights, and which charm
To silence the unenvying nightingales.

SCENE III.

A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains. ASIA and

PANTHEA.

Hither the sound has borne us-to the realm
Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,
Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm,
Whence the oracular vapour is hurl'd up
Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,
And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,

That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain
To deep intoxication; and uplift,

Like Mænads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!
The voice which is contagion to the world.

ASIA.

Fit throne for such a Power! Magnificent!
How glorious art thou, Earth! And if thou be
The shadow of some spirit lovelier still,
Though evil stain its work, and it should be
Like its creation, weak yet beautiful,

I could fall down and worship that and thee.
Even now my heart adoreth: Wonderful!
Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain:
Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist,
As a lake, paving in the morning sky,
With azure waves which burst in silver light,
Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on

Under the curdling winds, and islanding
The peak whereon we stand, midway, around,
Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests,
Dim twilight-lawns, and stream-illumined caves,
And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist;
And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains
From icy spires of sun-like radiance fling
The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray,
From some Atlantic islet scatter'd up,
Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops,
The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl
Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines
Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast,
Awful as silence, Hark! the rushing snow!
The sun-awaken'd avalanche! whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gather'd there
Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosen'd, and the nations echo round,
Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now.

In the depth of the deep
Down, down!

Like veil'd lightning asleep,
Like the spark nursed in embers,
The last look Love remembers,
Like a diamond, which shines
On the dark wealth of mines,

A spell is treasured but for thee alone.
Down, down!

We have bound thee, we guide thee;
Down, down!

With the bright form beside thee;
Resist not the weakness,

Such strength is in meekness

That the Eternal, the Immortal,

Must unloose through life's portal

The snake-like Doom coil'd underneath his
throne

By that alone.

SCENE IV.

The Cave of DEMOGORGON, ASIA and PANTHEA.

PANTHEA.

What veiled form sits on that ebon throne?

The veil has fallen.

ASIA.

PANTHEA.

I see a mighty darkness
Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom
Dart round, as light from the meridian sun,
Ungazed upon and shapeless; neither limb,
Nor form, nor outline; yet we feel it is
A living Spirit.

DEMOGORGON.

Ask what thou wouldst know.
ASIA.

What canst thou tell?

DEMOGORGON.

Who reigns? There was the Heaven and Earth at first,
And Light and Love; then Saturn, from whose throne
Time fell, an envious shadow: such the state
Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway,
As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves
Before the wind or sun has wither'd them
And semi-vital worms; but he refused
The birthright of their being, knowledge, power,
The skill which wields the elements, the thought
Which pierces this dim universe like light,
Self-empire, and the majesty of love;

For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus
Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter,
And with this law alone, Let man be free,
Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven.
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign;

And Jove now reign'd; for on the race of man
First famine, and then toil, and then disease,
Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,
Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove,
With alternating shafts of frost and fire,

All things thou darest demand. Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves :

Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring And he tamed fire which, like some beast of prey, In rarest visitation, or the voice

Of one beloved heard in youth alone,
Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim
The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers,
And leaves this peopled earth a solitude
When it returns no more?

DEMOGORGON.

Merciful God.

ASIA.

And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse,
Which from the links of the great chain of things,
To every thought within the mind of man

Most terrible, but lovely play'd beneath
The frown of man; and tortured to his will
Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power,
And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms
Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves.
He gave man speech, and speech created thought,
Which is the measure of the universe;

And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven,
Which shook, but fell not; and the harmonious mind
Pour'd itself forth in all-prophetic song;

And music lifted up the listening spirit

Until it walk'd, exempt from mortal care,

Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimick'd and then mock'd,
With moulded limbs more lovely than its own,
The human form, till marble grew divine;
And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see
Reflected in their race, behold, and perish.

He told the hidden power of herbs and springs,

And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep.
He taught the implicated orbits woven

Of the wide-wandering stars; and how the sun
Changes his lair, and by what secret spell

The pale moon is transform'd, when her broad eye
Gazes not on the interlunar sea :

He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs,

The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean,
And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then

And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,

As if the thing they loved fled on before,

And now, even now, they clasp'd it. Their bright locks
Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all
Sweep onward.

DEMOGORGON.

These are the immortal Hours,

Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.

ASIA.

A spirit with a dreadful countenance

Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf.

Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer,

Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak!

SPIRIT.

Were built, and through their snow-like columns flow'd I am the shadow of a destiny
The warm winds, and the azure æther shone,
And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.
Such, the alleviations of his state,
Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs
Withering in destined pain: but who rains down
Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while
Man looks on his creation like a God
And sees that it is glorious, drives him on

More dread than is my aspect : ere yon planet

Hlas set, the darkness which ascends with me
Shall wrap in lasting night heaven's kingless throne.

The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth,

The outcast, the abandon'd, the alone?

What meanest thou?

ASIA.

PANTHEA.

That terrible shadow floats

Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke
Of earthquake-ruin'd cities o'er the sea.
Lo! it ascends the car; the coursers fly

Not Jove while yet his frown shook heaven, aye when Terrified: watch its path among the stars

Blackening the night!

How thou art changed! I dare not look on thee;
I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure
The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change
Is working in the elements, which suffer
Thy presence thus unveil'd. The Nereids tell
That on the day when the clear hyaline
Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand
Within a veined shell, which floated on
Over the calm floor of the crystal sea,
Among the Egean isles, and by the shores
Which bear thy name; love, like the atmosphere
Of the sun's fire filling the living world,
Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven
And the deep ocean and the sunless caves
And all that dwells within them; till grief cast
Eclipse upon the soul from which it came :
Such art thou now; nor is it I alone,

Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one,
But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy.
Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love
Of all articulate beings? Feelest thou not
The inanimate winds enamour'd of thee?

ASIA.

List!

[Music.

Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his
Whose echoes they are: yet all love is sweet,
Given or return'd. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,
It makes the reptile equal to the God:
They who inspire it most are fortunate,
As I am now; but those who feel it most
Are happier still, after long sufferings,
As I shall soon become.

PANTHEA.

List! Spirits, speak.

VOICE (in the air, singing).

Life of Life! thy lips enkindle

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

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

My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside the helm conducting it,

Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,

Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!

Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions

In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets

By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,

The boat of my desire is guided:

Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.

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