BY P. B. SHELLEY
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): An English poet. His poems are often wild protests against the existing order of things, but are marked by melody and great beauty of imagery. Among his longer poems are "Queen Mab," "Alastor," "The Revolt of Islam," "The Cenci," and "Adonais." He is best known by his exquisite lyrics, "Ode to the West Wind," "The Cloud," and the following ode.
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert,That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated1 art.
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest,Like a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun,
O"er which clouds are brightening,
1 Unpremeditated: unplanned; unthought of beforehand.
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even1 Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight,Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere,Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear,Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloudThe moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see,As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
1 Even: a poetic form of the word evening.
Like a poet hidden In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial1 hueAmong the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view;Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves,By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
1 Aerial: airy.
Sound of vernal1 showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers,All that ever wasJoyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine!
I have never heard Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal2
Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine, would be allBut an empty vaunt3,-A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain?
What fields or waves or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
1Vernal: spring.
2Hymeneal: of a marriage song. 3 Vaunt: boast.
With thy clear keen joyance1 Languor2 cannot be; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee;Thou lovest, but ne"er knew love"s sad satiety3.
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deepThan we mortals dream,Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught4;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate and pride and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
1 Joyance: a poetical word for joyfulness. 2 Languor: weariness.
3 Satiety: excess of gratification;surfeit 4 Fraught: freighted; filled.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found,Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow,The world should listen then, as I am listening now!