The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 16

39.

'Above me was the sky, beneath the sea: I stood upon a point of shattered stone, And heard loose rocks rus.h.i.+ng tumultuously With splash and shock into the deep--anon _3175 All ceased, and there was silence wide and lone.

I felt that I was free! The Ocean-spray Quivered beneath my feet, the broad Heaven shone Around, and in my hair the winds did play Lingering as they pursued their unimpeded way. _3180

40.

'My spirit moved upon the sea like wind Which round some thymy cape will lag and hover, Though it can wake the still cloud, and unbind The strength of tempest: day was almost over, When through the fading light I could discover _3185 A s.h.i.+p approaching--its white sails were fed With the north wind--its moving shade did cover The twilight deep; the mariners in dread Cast anchor when they saw new rocks around them spread.

41.

'And when they saw one sitting on a crag, _3190 They sent a boat to me;--the Sailors rowed In awe through many a new and fearful jag Of overhanging rock, through which there flowed The foam of streams that cannot make abode.

They came and questioned me, but when they heard _3195 My voice, they became silent, and they stood And moved as men in whom new love had stirred Deep thoughts: so to the s.h.i.+p we pa.s.sed without a word.

NOTES: _2877 dreams edition 1818.

_2994 opprest edition 1818.

_3115 lone solitude edition 1818.

CANTO 8.

1.

'I sate beside the Steersman then, and gazing Upon the west, cried, "Spread the sails! Behold! _3200 The sinking moon is like a watch-tower blazing Over the mountains yet;--the City of Gold Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold; The stream is fleet--the north breathes steadily Beneath the stars; they tremble with the cold! _3205 Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea!-- Haste, haste to the warm home of happier destiny!"

2.

'The Mariners obeyed--the Captain stood Aloof, and, whispering to the Pilot, said, "Alas, alas! I fear we are pursued _3210 By wicked ghosts; a Phantom of the Dead, The night before we sailed, came to my bed In dream, like that!" The Pilot then replied, "It cannot be--she is a human Maid-- Her low voice makes you weep--she is some bride, _3215 Or daughter of high birth--she can be nought beside."

3.

'We pa.s.sed the islets, borne by wind and stream, And as we sailed, the Mariners came near And thronged around to listen;--in the gleam Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear _3220 May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear; "Ye are all human--yon broad moon gives light To millions who the selfsame likeness wear, Even while I speak--beneath this very night, Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight. _3225

4.

'"What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home, Even for yourselves on a beloved sh.o.r.e: For some, fond eyes are pining till they come, How they will greet him when his toils are o'er, And laughing babes rush from the well-known door! _3230 Is this your care? ye toil for your own good-- Ye feel and think--has some immortal power Such purposes? or in a human mood, Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?

5.

'"What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give _3235 A human heart to what ye cannot know: As if the cause of life could think and live!

'Twere as if man's own works should feel, and show The hopes, and fears, and thoughts from which they flow, And he be like to them! Lo! Plague is free _3240 To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow, Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny!

6.

'"What is that Power? Some moon-struck sophist stood Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown _3245 Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood The Form he saw and wors.h.i.+pped was his own, His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown; And 'twere an innocent dream, but that a faith Nursed by fear's dew of poison, grows thereon, _3250 And that men say, that Power has chosen Death On all who scorn its laws, to wreak immortal wrath.

7.

'"Men say that they themselves have heard and seen, Or known from others who have known such things, A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between _3255 Wields an invisible rod--that Priests and Kings, Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel, Are his strong ministers, and that the stings Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel, _3260 Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

8.

'"And it is said, this Power will punish wrong; Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!

And deepest h.e.l.l, and deathless snakes among, Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain, _3265 Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane, Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate, Virtue and vice, they say are difference vain-- The will of strength is right--this human state Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate. _3270

9.

'"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail To hide the orb of truth--and every throne Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon, _3275 One shape of many names:--for this ye plough The barren waves of ocean, hence each one Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow, Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak, or suffer woe.

10.

'"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy _3280 All power--ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade Of power--l.u.s.t, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly; The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made, A law to which mankind has been betrayed; And human love, is as the name well known _3285 Of a dear mother, whom the murderer laid In b.l.o.o.d.y grave, and into darkness thrown, Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

11.

'"O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves! _3290 Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can From slavery and religion's labyrinth caves Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.

To give to all an equal share of good, To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves _3295 She pa.s.s, to suffer all in patient mood, To weep for crime, though stained with thy friend's dearest blood,--

12.

'"To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot, To own all sympathies, and outrage none, And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought, _3300 Until life's sunny day is quite gone down, To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone, To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe; To live, as if to love and live were one,-- This is not faith or law, nor those who bow _3305 To thrones on Heaven or Earth, such destiny may know.

13.

'"But children near their parents tremble now, Because they must obey--one rules another, And as one Power rules both high and low, So man is made the captive of his brother, _3310 And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother, Above the Highest--and those fountain-cells, Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other, Are darkened--Woman as the bond-slave dwells Of man, a slave; and life is poisoned in its wells. _3315

14.

'"Man seeks for gold in mines, that he may weave A lasting chain for his own slavery;-- In fear and restless care that he may live He toils for others, who must ever be The joyless thralls of like captivity; _3320 He murders, for his chiefs delight in ruin; He builds the altar, that its idol's fee May be his very blood; he is pursuing-- O, blind and willing wretch!--his own obscure undoing.

15.

'"Woman!--she is his slave, she has become _3325 A thing I weep to speak--the child of scorn, The outcast of a desolated home; Falsehood, and fear, and toil, like waves have worn Channels upon her cheek, which smiles adorn, As calm decks the false Ocean:--well ye know _3330 What Woman is, for none of Woman born Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe, Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow.

16.

'"This need not be; ye might arise, and will That gold should lose its power, and thrones their glory; _3335 That love, which none may bind, be free to fill The world, like light; and evil faith, grown h.o.a.ry With crime, be quenched and die.--Yon promontory Even now eclipses the descending moon!-- Dungeons and palaces are transitory-- _3340 High temples fade like vapour--Man alone Remains, whose will has power when all beside is gone.

17.

'"Let all be free and equal!--From your hearts I feel an echo; through my inmost frame Like sweetest sound, seeking its mate, it darts-- _3345 Whence come ye, friends? Alas, I cannot name All that I read of sorrow, toil, and shame, On your worn faces; as in legends old Which make immortal the disastrous fame Of conquerors and impostors false and bold, _3350 The discord of your hearts, I in your looks behold.

18.

'"Whence come ye, friends? from pouring human blood Forth on the earth? Or bring ye steel and gold, That Kings may dupe and slay the mult.i.tude?

Or from the famished poor, pale, weak and cold, _3355 Bear ye the earnings of their toil? Unfold!

Speak! Are your hands in slaughter's sanguine hue Stained freshly? have your hearts in guile grown old?

Know yourselves thus! ye shall be pure as dew, And I will be a friend and sister unto you. _3360

19.

'"Disguise it not--we have one human heart-- All mortal thoughts confess a common home: Blush not for what may to thyself impart Stains of inevitable crime: the doom Is this, which has, or may, or must become _3365 Thine, and all humankind's. Ye are the spoil Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb-- Thou and thy thoughts and they, and all the toil Wherewith ye twine the rings of life's perpetual coil.

20.

'"Disguise it not--ye blush for what ye hate, _3370 And Enmity is sister unto Shame; Look on your mind--it is the book of fate-- Ah! it is dark with many a blazoned name Of misery--all are mirrors of the same; But the dark fiend who with his iron pen _3375 Dipped in scorn's fiery poison, makes his fame Enduring there, would o'er the heads of men Pa.s.s harmless, if they scorned to make their hearts his den.

21.

'"Yes, it is Hate, that shapeless fiendly thing Of many names, all evil, some divine, _3380 Whom self-contempt arms with a mortal sting; Which, when the heart its snaky folds entwine Is wasted quite, and when it doth repine To gorge such bitter prey, on all beside It turns with ninefold rage, as with its twine _3385 When Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied, Soon o'er the putrid ma.s.s he threats on every side.

22.

'"Reproach not thine own soul, but know thyself, Nor hate another's crime, nor loathe thine own.

It is the dark idolatry of self, _3390 Which, when our thoughts and actions once are gone, Demands that man should weep, and bleed, and groan; Oh, vacant expiation! Be at rest.-- The past is Death's, the future is thine own; And love and joy can make the foulest breast _3395 A paradise of flowers, where peace might build her nest.

23.

'"Speak thou! whence come ye?"--A Youth made reply: "Wearily, wearily o'er the boundless deep We sail;--thou readest well the misery Told in these faded eyes, but much doth sleep _3400 Within, which there the poor heart loves to keep, Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow; Even from our childhood have we learned to steep The bread of slavery in the tears of woe, And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now. _3405

24.

'"Yes--I must speak--my secret should have perished Even with the heart it wasted, as a brand Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished, But that no human bosom can withstand Thee, wondrous Lady, and the mild command _3410 Of thy keen eyes:--yes, we are wretched slaves, Who from their wonted loves and native land Are reft, and bear o'er the dividing waves The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves.

25.