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"WE ARE AS CLOUDS THAT VEIL THE MIDNIGHT MOON; HOW RESTLESSLY THEY GLEAM AND QUIVER,

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"MAN'S YESTERDAY MAY NE'ER BE LIKE HIS MORROW;

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes
Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers,
Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth,* fadeless blooms,
That they might hide, with thin and rainbow wings,
The shape of Death; and Love he sent to bind
The disunited tendrils of that vine

Which bears the wine of life, the human heart;
And he tamed Fire, which, like some beast of prey,
Most terrible, but lovely, played 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
Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song;
And Music lifted up the listening spirit
Until it walked, exempt from mortal care,
God-like, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound;
And human hands first mimicked and then mocked,
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 powers 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

* These are not meant to be identified with any existing flowers. They are to be taken in a poetical sense, as endowed with everlasting beauty. So Tennyson,

"Propt on beds of amaranth and moly."

NOUGHT MAY ENDURE BJT MUTABILITY."-SHELLEY.

STREAKING THE DARKNESS RADIANTLY; YET SOON NIGHT CLOSES-THEY ARE LOST FOR EVE."—SHELLEY.

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Love, hope, aND SELF-ESTEEM, LIKE CLOUDS DEPART, -(SHELLEY)

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Changes his lair, and by what secret spell

The pale moon is transformed, 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

Were built, and through their snow-like columns flowed
The warm winds, and the azure aether shone,

And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen.

[From the "Prometheus Unbound: a Lyrical Drama," act ii., scene 4.]

"O MAN, HOLD ON IN COURAGE OF SOUL THROUGH THE STORMY SHADES OF THY WORLDLY WAY;-(SHELLEY)

THE BILLOWS OF CLOUD THAT AROUND THEE ROLL SHALL SLEEP IN THE LIGHT OF A WONDROUS DAY."-SHELLEY.

T

A GARDEN.

|HE snowdrop, and then the violet,

Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.
And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew

* Interlunar: a word of which Shelley seems to have been fond. uses elsewhere the expression,

"In her interlunar swoon. "1

He

AND COME, FOR SOME UNCERTAIN MOMENTS LENT.' -SHELLEY.

"THE DAY BECOMES MORE SOLEMN AND SERENE WHEN NOON IS PAST.

THERE IS A HARMONY (SHELLEY)

46 MEMORIES THAT MAKE THE HEART A TOMB,-(PERCY B. shelley)

404

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Maenad,* its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was prankt,† under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and moss,
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

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REGRETS WHICH GLIDE THROUGH THE SPIRIT'S GLOOM."-SHelley,

SHAKESPEARE.

IN AUTUMN, AND A LUSTRE IN ITS SKY, WHICH THROUGH THE SUMMER IS NOT HEARD NOR SEEN."-SHELLEY.

"POESY'S UNFAILING RIVER, WHICH THROUGH ALBION WINDS FOR EVER, (SHELLEY)

"MANY A GREEN ISLE NEEDS MUST BE (SHELLEY)

A GARDEN.

LASHING WITH MELODIOUS WAVE MANY A SACRED POET'S GRAVE."-PERCY B. SHELLEY.

["Broad water-lilies lay tremulously."]

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells,
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,

And flowerets, which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

And from this undefilèd paradise

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun.

[From "The Sensitive Plant," Part i., written in 1820.]

IN THE DEEP WIDE SEA OF MISERY."-SHELLEY.

405

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"AND THE SUNLIGHT CLASPS THE EARTH, AND THE MOONBEAMS KISS THE SEA."-SHELLEY.

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66 See, the MOUNTAINS KISS HIGH HEAVEN,-(SHELLEY)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

WW

THE PAST.

ILT thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers,
Heaping over their corpses bold
Blossoms and leaves instead of mould?
Blossoms, which were the joys that fell,
And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

Forget the dead, the past? Oh yet

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it;
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell

That joy, once lost, is pain.

[From Shelley's "Miscellaneous Poems."]

"ALL THINGS, BY A LAW DIVINE, IN ONE ANOTHER'S BEING MINGLE."-PERCY B. SHELLEY.

LOVE'S DEVOTION.

NE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained
For me to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not?

AND THE WAVES CLASP ONE ANOTHER."-SHELLEY.

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