The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited, with an introductory memoir and illustrations, by W. B. Scott

Front matter

THE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. The friend whose falsehood she had mourned Sat with her on that seat of stone : Silent they sat. Rosalind and Helen. THE POETICAL WORKS OF Percy Bysshe Shelley EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM B. SCOTT LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET LONDON : BRADBURY, AGNBW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. CONTENTS. Page Introductory Memoir xy Queen Mab (1813} : — To Harriett Shelley 1 Queen Mab, Section I J II 7 III 12 IV 17 V 22 VI 27 VII 32 „ VIII 38 IX . 42 Alastor ; or the Spirit of Solitude (1815) :— Preface . . 48 Alastor 48 The Revolt of Islam (1817): — Dedication 63 Canto 1 66 II 77 III So IV 92 V 98 VI I!I VII -***1 „ VIII "8 IX **34 X '4i Contents. Page The Revolt of Islam (1817)— continued.

Canto XI . ■ . •M9 XII I54 Rosalind and Helen (181S) : • 1C2 Advertisement Rosalind and Helen ' 2 Julian and Maddalo (181 8) : — Prefatory Note l89 Julian and Maddalo l8_ Prometheus Unbound (1819) *.— Act 1 203 II 221 III 236 IV 247 The Sensitive Plant (1820) :— Part I . 261 II =63 III =65 Conclusion a6-* The Cenci (1819) :— Act I =68 II -It III 28S IV 296 V 308 Peter Bell the Third (1819) :— Dedication 322 Prologue 323 Part I.— Death 324 II.— The Devil 325 ,, III. — Hell 327 IV.— Sin 330 V.— Grace 332 VI.— Damnation 334 „ VII.— Double Damnation Contents. IX Page Œoiri's Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant (1820): — Advertisement 341 Act I. 341 II 35* The Witch of Atlas (1820) ;*jo Epipsychidion (1820' Advertisement 374 Epipsychidion 374 Adonais; an Elegy on the Death of John Keats (1821) . 387 Hell-\s. A Lyrical Drama (1821): — Preface 398 Hellas 399 EARLY TOEMS To Coleridge 424 Stanzas April, 1814) 425 On Death (The pale, the cold, and the moony smile) . . . 425 MUTABILITY (WE ARE AS CLOUDS THAT VEIL THE MIDNIGHT MOON') . 4-6 To Wordsworth 426 Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte . . .427 A Summer-Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire 427 Lines (The cold earth slept relow) 428 The Sunset. in 1816J 429 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816) 430 Mont Blanc.

Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni 1S16) . 432 Marianne's Dream. (Written in 1817) 435 Death [They die— the dead return not. Misery) 1817 . . 438 TO CONSTANTIA, SlNGING (1817) 438 Sonnet.— Ozymandias ;i8i7) 439 Lines 'That time is dead for ever, child) 1817 \+o On Fanny Godwin (1817, 440 Lines to a Critic .1817) Contents. X Page Passage of the Apennines. (Written in 1818. 441 On a Dead Violet (i3i8) 441 The Past (1818) 441 Sonnet (Lift not the painted veil which those who live) 1818 . 442 Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818) 442 Stanzas. Written in Dejection near Naples .1818) . . 450 Misery (1818) 451 Lines written during the Castlereagh Administration (1819) . 453 Song— To the Men of England (1819) 453 Similes for two Political Characters of 1819 454 England in 1819 God Save the Queen (1819) .-_ An Ode to the Asserters of Liberty (1819) 456 Ode to Heaven (1819) .-_ Ode to the West Wind (1819) ±& An Exhortation (1819) .go The Indian Serenade (1819) 46o Lines written for Miss Sophia Stacey(i8i9) 46i Love's Philosophy.

Preface

. The poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius, led forth, by an imagination inflamed and puri fied through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous and tranquil and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened, and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself.

He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the subhmest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful or wise or beautiful which the poet, the philo sopher, or the lover, could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of cor responding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave. The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the Furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin.

But that power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sud den darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious, as their de linquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no gene rous error, instigated by no sacred thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes be yond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; these, and such as thev, have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their common nature. They are morally dead.

They are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish, through the intensity and passion of their search after its communities when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those unsoreseeing multitudes who constitute, together with their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave. Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood ! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine ; If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, And solemn midnight's tingling silentness ; If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, Alastor. 49 >J And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs — If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes Her first sweet kisses — have been dear to me ; If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast, I consciously have injured, but still loved And cherished these my kindred ; — then forgive This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw No portion of your wonted favour now !

Mother of this unfathomable world, Favour my solemn song ! for I have loved Thee ever, and thee only ; I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes on the depth Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black Death Keeps record of the trophies won from thee ; Hoping to still these obstinate questionings Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost, Thy messenger, to render up the tale Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, Like an inspired and desperate alchemist Staking his very life on some dark hope, Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks With my most innocent love ; until strange tears, Uniting with those breathless kisses, made Such magic as compels the charmed night To render up thy charge.

And, though ne'er yet Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, Enough from incommunicable dream, And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, Has shone within me, that serenely now And moveless (as a long-forgotten lyre Suspended in the solitary dome Of some mysterious and deserted fane) I wait thy breath, Great Parent ; that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air, And motions of the forests and the sea, And voice of living beings, and woven hymns Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. There was a poet whose untimely tomb No human hand with pious reverence reared. But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness. A lovely youth, no mourning maiden decked With weeping flowers or votive cypress wreath The lone couch of his everlasting sleep : Gentle and brave and generous, no lorn bard Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh : E Alastor. 50 He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude.

Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes ; And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pmed And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn; And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. By solemn vision and bright silver dream His infancy was nurtured. Every sight _ And sound from the vast earth and ambient air Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. The fountains of divine philosophy Fled not his thirsting lips : and all of great Or good or lovely which the sacred past In truth or fable consecrates he felt And knew. When early youth had passed, he left His cold fireside and alienated home, To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, His rest and food.

Nature's most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued, where'er The red volcano overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke ; or where bitumen lakes On black bare pointed islets ever beat With sluggish surge ; or where the secret caves, Rugged and dark, winding among the springs Of fire and poison inaccessible To avarice or pride, their starry domes Of diamond and of gold expand above Numberless and immeasurable halls, Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. Nor had that scene of ampler majesty Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims To love and wonder. He would linger long In lonesome vales, making the wild his home ; Until the doves and squirrels would partake From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, — And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form More graceful than her own.

His wandering step, Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old : Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Alastor. 51 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphinx, Dark Ethiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wdd images Of more than man, where marble dæmons watch The zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials Of the world's youth ; through the long burning day Gazed on those speechless shapes ; nor, when the moon FUled the mysterious halls with floating shades, Suspended he that task, but ever gazed And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, Her daily portion, from her father's tent, And spread her matting for his couch, and stole From duties and repose to tend his steps : Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe To speak her love :— and watched his nightly sleep, Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath Of innocent dreams arose. Then, when red morn Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home, Wildered and wan and panting, she returned. The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie, And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, In joy and exultation held his way ; Till in the vale of Cachmire far within Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs.

A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought ; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, And lofty hopes of divine liberty, Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, Himself a poet. Soon the solemn mood E Alastor. 52 Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame A permeating fire. Wild numbers then She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs Subdued by its own pathos : her fair hands Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp Strange symphony, and in their branching veins The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.

The beating of her heart was heard to fill The pauses of her music, and her breath Tumultuously accorded with those fits Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, As if her heart impatiently endured Its bursting burthen. At the sound he turned, And saw, by the warm light of their own life, Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil Of woven wind ; her outspread arms now bear, Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. His strong heart sank and sickened with excess Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet Her panting bosom : — she drew back awhile ; Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, With frantic gesture and short breathless cry Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.

Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep, Like a dark flood suspended in its course, Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. Roused by the shock, he started from his trance. The cold white light of morning, the blue moon Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, The distinct valley and the vacant woods, Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight ? the sounds that soothed his sleep, The mystery and the majesty of earth, The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. The Spirit of sweet Human Love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ; He overleaps the bounds.

Alas ! alas ! Were limbs and breath and being intertwined Thus treacherously ? Lost, lost, for ever lost In the wide pathless desert of dim Sleep, That beautiful shape ! Does the dark gate of Death Conduct to thy *nysterious paradise, Alastor. 53 O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake, Lead only to a black and watery depth, — While Death's blue vault with loathliest vapours hung, Where every shade which the foul grave exhales Hides its dead eye from the detested day, Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms ? This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart : The insatiate hope which it awakened stung His brain even like despair. While daylight held The sky, the Poet kept mute conference With his still soul. At night the passion came, Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, And shook him from his rest, and led him forth Into the darkness. — As an eagle, grasped In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast Burn with the poison, and precipitates, Through night and day, tempest and calm and cloud, Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight O'er the wide aery wilderness : thus, driven By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, Startling with careless step the moonlight snake, He fled.

Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on, Till vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep, Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day, a weary waste of hours, Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now his limbs were lean ; his scattered hair, Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, Sung dirges in the wind ; his listless hand Hung like dead bone within its withered skin ; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone, As in a furnace burning secretly, From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, Who ministered with human charity His human wants, beheld with wondering awe Their fleeting visitant.

The mountaineer, Encountering on some dizzy precipice That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind, With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused In his career. The infant would conceal His troubled visage in his mother's robe Alastor. 54 In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, To remember their strange light in many a dream Of after times. But youthful maidens, taught By nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false names Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path Of his departure from their father's door. At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore.

A swan was there, Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight : — " Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird ! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven That echoes not my thoughts ? " A gloomy smile Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. For Sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly Its precious charge ; and silent Death exposed, P'aithless perhaps as Sleep, a shadowy lure, With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around : There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. A little shallop floating near the shore Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. It had been long abandoned, for its sides Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints Swayed with the undulations of the tide. A restless impulse urged him to embark, And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste ; For well he knew that mighty shadow loves The slimy caverns of the populous deep. The day was fair and sunny : sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves, Following his eager soul, the wanderer Leapt in the boat ; he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, Who shall save?

The boat fled on— the boiling torrent drove— The crags closed round with black and jagged arms. Alastor. A las tor. 57 And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. As one that in a silver vision floats Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly Along the dark and ruffled waters fled The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, With fierce gusts and precipitating force, Through the white ridges of the chafed sea. The waves arose. Higher and higher still Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge, Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. Calm, and rejoicing in the fearful war Of wave running on wave, and blast on blast Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven With dark obliterating course, he sate : As if their genii were the ministers Appointed to conduct him to the light Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate Holding the steady helm.

Evening came on ; The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ; Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day ; Night followed, clad with stars. On every side More horribly the multitudinous streams Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock The calm and spangled sky. The little boat Still fled before the storm ; still fled, like foam Down the steep cataract of a wintry river ; Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave ; Now leaving far behind the bursting mass, That fell, convulsing ocean :— safely fled — As if that frail and wasted human form Had been an elemental god. At midnight The moon arose : and lo ! the etherial cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves, Bursting and eddying irresistibly, Rage and resound for ever. — Who shall save ? — The boat fled on, — the boiling torrent drove, — The crags closed round with black and jagged arms, The shattered mountain overhung the sea ; And faster still, beyond all human speed, Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, The little boat was driven.

A cavern there A las tor. Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths Engulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on _ With unrelaxing speed. "Vision and Love ! The Poet cried aloud, " I have beheld The path of thy departure. Sleep and Death, Shall not divide us long." The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone At length upon that gloomy river's flow. Now, where the fiercest war among the waves Is calm, on the unfathomable stream The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell Even to the base of Caucasus with sound That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ; Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, Circling immeasurably fast, and laved With alternating dash the gnarled roots Of mighty trees that stretched their giant arms In darkness over it.

I' the midst was left, Reflecting yet distorting every cloud, A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round, Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose ; Till on the verge of the extremest curve, Where through an opening of the rocky bank The waters overflow, and a smooth spot Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides Is left, the boat paused shuddering. Shall it sink Down the abyss ? shall the reverting stress Of that resistless gulf embosom it ? Now shall it fall ? — A wandering stream of wind, Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail ; And lo ! with gentle motion, between banks Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, Beneath a woven grove, it sails ; and, hark ! The ghastly torrent nringles its far roar With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.

Where the embowering trees recede, and leave A little space of green expanse, the cove Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, Which nought but vagrant bird, or .wanton wind, Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay, Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed To deck with their bright hues his withered hair ; But on his heart its solitude returned, A lastor. 59 And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame, Had yet performed its ministry : it hung Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods Of night close over it. The noonday sun Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence A narrow vale embosoms.

There, huge caves, Scooped in the dark base of those aery rocks, Mocking its moans respond and roar for ever. The meeting boughs and implicated leaves Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank, Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, Expanding its immense and knotty arms, Embraces the light beech. The pyramids Of the tall cedar, overarching, frame Most solemn domes within ; and far below, Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, The ash and the acacia floating hang, Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents clothed In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, Stanred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around The grey trunks ; .and, as gamesome infants' leyes, With gentle meanings and most innocent wiles, Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs, Uniting their close union ; the woven leaves Make network of the dark -blue light of day And the night's noontide clearness, mutable As shapes in the weird clouds. _y_ft mossy lawns Beneath these canopies extend their swells, Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Minute yet beautiful.

One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk -rose twined with jasmine A soul-dissolving odour, to invite To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell, Silence and Twilight here, twin sisters, keep Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, Like vaporous shapes half-seen. Beyond, a well, Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, Images all the woven boughs above, And each depending leaf, and every speck Of azure sky darting between their chasms ; Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves Its portraiture, but some inconstant star Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, Or painted bird sleeping beneath the moon, A las tor. 60 Or gorgeous insect floating motionless, Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld Their own wan light through the reflected lines Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth Of that still fountain ; as the human heart, Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there.

He heard The motion of the leaves ; the grass that sprung Startled, and glanced and trembled, even to feel An unaccustomed presence ; and the sound Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed To stand beside him — clothed in no bright robes Of shadowy silver or enshrining light Borrowed from aught the visible world affords Of grace or majesty or mystery ; But, — undulating woods, and silent well, And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming, Held commune with him, as if he and it Were all that was. Only — when his regard Was raised by intense pensiveness — two eyes, Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, And seemed with their serene and azure smiles To beckon him. Obedient to the light That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing The windings of the dell. — The rivulet, Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine Beneath the forest flowed.

Sometimes it fell Among the moss, with hollow harmony Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones It danced ; like childhood, laughing as it went : Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, Reflecting every herb and drooping bud That overhung its quietness. — " O stream, Whose source is inaccessibly profound, Whither do thy mysterious waters tend ? Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs, Thy searchless fountain and invisible course, Have each their type in me. And the wide sky And measureless ocean may declare as soon What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud Contains thy waters as the universe Tell where these living thoughts reside, when, stretched Upon thy flowers, my bloodless limbs shall waste I' the passing wind !" Beside the grassy shore Alastor. 61 Of the small stream he went ; he did impress On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught Strong shuddering from his burning limbs.