II And starlight wood, with fearful steps OZYMANDIAS pursuing Hopes of high talk with the departed | I met a traveller from an antique land dead. Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of I called on poisonous names with which stone our youth is fed; Stand in the desert. Near them, on the I was not heard—I saw them not sand, When musing deeply on the lot 55 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose Of life, at the sweet time when winds are frown, wooing And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold comAll vital things that wake to bring mand, News of birds and blossoming, Tell that its sculptor well those passions Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; read I shrieked, and clasped my hands in Which yet survive, (stamped on these ecstasy! 60 lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart I vowed that I would dedicate my powers that fed: To thee and thine—have I not kept the And on the pedestal these words appear: vow? “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: With beating heart and streaming Look on my works, ye Mighty, and deeyes, even now spair!” I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Nothing beside remains. Round the deEach from his voiceless grave; they have cay in visioned bowers 65 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and Of studious zeal or love's delight bare Outwatched with me the envious The lone and level sands stretch far away. nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow ODE TO THE WEST WIND Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst I free This world from its dark slavery; 700 wild West Wind, thou breath of That thou-0 awful LOVELINESS, 1 Autumn's being, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot Thou, from whose unseen presence the express. leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter The day becomes more solemn and serene fleeing, When noon is past-there is a harmony Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 red, Which through the summer is not heard or Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, s seen, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed As if it could not be, as if it had not been! The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and Thus let thy power, which like the low, truth Each like a corpse within its grave, until Of nature on my passive youth Thine azure sister of the spring shall Descended, to my onward life supply 80 blow Its calm-to one who worships thee, And every form containing thee, Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did fill 10 bind (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in To fear himself, and love all human air) kind. With living hues and odors plain and hill: Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; | Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear! fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear! Thou on whose stream, \mid the steep IV sky's commotion, 15 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; are shed, A wave to pant beneath thy power, and Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven share 45 and Ocean, The impulse of thy strength, only less Angels of rain and lightning: there are free spread Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 19 I were as in my boyhood, and could be Like the bright hair uplifted from the head The comrade of thy wanderings over Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim heaven, verge As then, when to outstrip thy skyey Of the horizon to the zenith's height speed The locks of the approaching storm. Thou Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er dirge have striven 50 35 All overgrown with azure moss and Drive my dead thoughts over the universe flowers Like withered leaves to quicken a new So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! birth! Thou And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among manCleave themselves into chasms, while kind! far below Be through my lips to unawakened earth The sea-blooms and the cozy woods which wear The trumpet of a prophecy! ( wind, 69 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 | If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? THE INDIAN SERENADE I arise from dreams of thee Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; 20 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills; Over the lakes and the plains, 6 Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30 The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag, 3.5 Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, It ardors of rest and of love, 40 And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, THE CLOUD I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, II And laugh as I pass in thunder. That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon, 46 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, 50 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 15 While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 60 I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright’ning, The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel Thou dost float and run; and swim, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just When the whirlwinds my banner begun. unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad day-light The mountains its columns be. Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill The triumphal arch through which I delight, 20 march With hurricane, fire, and snow, Keen as are the arrows When the powers of the air are chained to Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, 24 The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. While the moist earth was laughing All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud I pass through the pores of the ocean and The moon rains out her beams, and heaven shores; 75 is overflowed. What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not And the winds and sunbeams with their Drops so bright to see convex gleams As from thy presence showers a rain of Build up the blue dome of air, 80 melody. I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a poet hidden Like a child from the womb, like a ghost In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought heeded not: Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 5 flows her bower: 30 45 Higher still and higher Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aërial hue And singing still dost soar, and soaring | Among the flowers and grass which screen ever singest. it from the view: 50 105 TO Like a rose embowered Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, Makes faint with too much sweet these I know not how thy joy we ever should heavy-winged thieves. 55 come near. Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music | Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the doth surpass. 60 100 Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness That panted forth a flood of rapture so From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am lisdivine: 65 tening now. Or triumphal chant, But an empty vaunt, Music, when soft voices die, 70 | Vibrates in the memory- Odors, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead, 5 tains? Are heaped for the beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, What love of thine own kind? what ig Love itself shall slumber on. norance of pain? 75 STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Things more true and deep Blue isles and snowy mountains wear Than we mortals dream, The purple noon's transparent might; Or how could thy notes flow in such a The breath of the moist earth is light, 5 crystal stream? Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, We look before and after, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. I see the Deep's untrampled floor 10 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of With green and purple seaweeds saddest thought. strown; 80 85 |
