And where its wrecks like shattered mountains | And man, and woman; and what still is dear rise, Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress The bones of Desolation's nakedness, Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread.
'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty in which all things work and move,
And gray walls moulder round, on which dull That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand; And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath, A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath.
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love Which through the web of being blindly wove By man and beast and earth and air and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.
The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
Here pause: these graves are all too young as The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven! yet
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned Its charge to each; and if the seal is set, Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind, Break it not thou! too surely shalt thou find Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb.
What Adonais is, why fear we to become?
The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is filed!-Rome's azure sky, Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak, The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here They have departed: thou shouldst now depart! A light is past from the revolving year,
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds1 outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires2 gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
2 creeds and monarchies (to which, as such, Shelley was devotedly hostile) Shelley's drama of the modern Greeks' struggle for independence concludes with this Chorus, prophesying the return of that Golden Age when Saturn was fabled to have reigned over a universe of peace and love. Of the fulfillment of this prophecy Shelley had at times an ardent hope, which reaches perhaps its highest expression in this Chorus (with which compare Byron's Isles of Greece), and at other times a profound despair, which can easily be read in some of the lyrics that are given on subsequent pages.
Against the morning star. Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo cleaves the main, Fraught with a later prize; Another Orpheus sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies. A new Ulysses leaves once more Calypso for his native shore.
Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,t
If earth Death's scroll must be! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free: Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime;
And leave, if nought so bright may live, All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell,3 than One who rose,4 Than many unsubdued:5
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers, But votive tears and symbol flowers.
Oh, cease! must hate and death return? Cease! must men kill and die? Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past, Oh, might it die or rest at last!
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
5 Objects of heathen idolatry.
†The more or less historic Trojan War, and the woes of the Theban house of Laius and his son Edipus, belong of course to a time succeeding the Golden Age of fable.
As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:
No song but sad dirges, Like the wind through a ruined cell, Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.
When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possessed. O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high: Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky. From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.
Rough wind, that moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind, when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm, whose tears are vain, Bare woods, whose branches strain, Deep caves and dreary main, Wail, for the world's wrong!
JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)
FROM ENDYMION*
PROEM. FROM BOOK I
A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow,1 are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 10 Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear
The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Now while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white, 50 Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, I must be near the middle of my story. O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end. And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough3 flowers and weed.
His prayer he saith, this patient, holy man; Then takes his lamp, and riseth from his knees, And back returneth, meagre, barefoot, wan, Along the chapel aisle by slow degrees:
And couch supine their beauties, lily white; Nor look behind, nor sideways, but require
Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.
The sculptured dead, on each side, seem to Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline;
Emprisoned in black, purgatorial rails: Knights, ladies, praying in dumb orat 'ries, He passeth by; and his weak spirit fails
The music, yearning like a God in pain, She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine, Fixed on the floor, saw many a sweeping train1 Pass by-she heeded not at all: in vain
To think how they may ache in icy hoods and Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier, mails.
Northward he turneth through a little door, And scarce three steps, ere Music's golden tongue
Flattered to tears this aged man and poor; But no already had his deathbell rung; The joys of all his life were said and sung: His was harsh penance on St. Agnes' Eve: Another way he went, and soon among Rough ashes sat he for his soul's reprieve, And all night kept awake, for sinners' sake to grieve.
And back retired; not cooled by high disdain, But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere: She sighed for Agnes' dreams, the sweetest of the year.
She danced along with vague, regardless eyes, Anxious her lips, her breathing quick and short: The hallowed hour was near at hand: she sighs Amid the timbrels, and the thronged resort Of whisperers in anger, or in sport; 'Mid looks of love, defiance, hate, and scorn, Hoodwinked2 with faery fancy; all amort,3 Save to St. Agnes and her lambs unshorn,* And all the bliss to be before to-morrow morn.
That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft; And so it chanced, for many a door was wide, From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft, The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide The level chambers, ready with their pride, Were glowing to receive a thousand guests: The carved angels, ever eager-eyed, Stared, where upon their heads the cornice rests, With hair blown back, and wings put cross-But for one moment in the tedious hours,
So, purposing each moment to retire, She lingered still. Meantime, across the moors, Had come young Porphyro, with heart on fire For Madeline. Beside the portal doors, Buttressed from moonlight, stands he, and im- All saints to give him sight of Madeline, plores
That he might gaze and worship all unseen; Perchance speak, kneel, touch, kiss-in sooth such things have been.
He ventures in: let no buzzed whisper tell: All eyes be muffled, or a hundred swords Will storm his heart, Love's feverous citadel: For him, those chambers held barbarian hordes, Hyena foemen, and hot-blooded lords, Whose very dogs would execrations howl Against his lineage: not one breast affords Him any mercy, in that mansion foul,
Save one old beldame, weak in body and in soul.
1 i. e., of robes (Keats) 3 dead 2 blinded (to all else)
* St. Agnes was a Roman virgin who suffered martyrdom. At Mass, on the day sacred to her, while the Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) was chanted, two lambs were dedicated to her. and afterwards shorn and the wool woven (stanza 13).
Ah, happy chance! the aged creature came, Shuffling along with ivory-headed wand,
But soon his eyes grew brilliant, when she told His lady's purpose; and he scarce could brook5 Tears, at the thought of those enchantments cold,
And Madeline asleep in lap of legends old.
To where he stood, hid from the torch's flame, Behind a broad hall-pillar, far beyond The sound of merriment and chorus bland: He startled her; but soon she knew his face, And grasped his fingers in her palsied hand, Saying, “Merey, Porphyro! hie thee from this | Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart place;
Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
Made purple riot: then doth he propose
They are all here to-night, the whole blood - | A stratagem, that makes the beldame start: thirsty race!
"A cruel man and impious thou art: Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream Alone with her good angels, far apart
Get hence! get hence! there's dwarfish Hilde- From wicked men like thee. Go, go!-I deem
He had a fever late, and in the fit
He cursed thee and thine, both house and land: Then there's that old Lord Maurice, not a whit More tame for his gray hairs-Alas me! flit! Flit like a ghost away. 99_66 'Ah, Gossip dear, We're safe enough; here in this arm-chair sit, And tell me how""Good Saints! not here, not here;
Follow me, child, or else these stones will be thy bier."
He followed through a lowly archèd way, Brushing the cobwebs with his lofty plume; And as she muttered ،، Well-a-well-a-day ! ' He found him in a little moonlight room, Pale, latticed, chill, and silent as a tomb. "Now tell me where is Madeline,'' said he, "O tell me, Angela, by the holy loom Which none but secret sisterhood may see,
Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem.
"Ah! why wilt thou affright a feeble soul? A poor, weak, palsy-stricken churchyard thing, Whose passing-bell may ere the midnight toll; Whose prayers for thee, each morn and evening,
When they St. Agnes' wool are weaving | Were never missed." Thus plaining, doth she piously."'
"St. Agnes! Ah! it is St. Agnes' Eve- Yet men will murder upon holy days: Thou must hold water in a witch's sieve, And be liege-lord of all the Elves and Fays, To venture so: it fills me with amaze To see thee, Porphyro!-St. Agnes' Eve! God's help! my lady fair the conjurer plays This very night; good angels her deceive!
A gentler speech from burning Porphyro; So woful, and of such deep sorrowing, That Angela gives promise she will do Whatever he shall wish, betide her weal or
Which was, to lead him, in close secrecy, Even to Madeline's chamber, and there hide Him in a closet, of such privacy That he might see her beauty unespied,
But let me laugh awhile, I've mickle time to And win perhaps that night a peerless bride, grieve.''
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