The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 8

all, but which the wise, and great, and
good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
4.
The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all
the living things that dwell _85 Within the daedal earth; lightning, and
rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,
The torpor of the
year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep

Holds every future leaf and flower;--the bound _90 With which from
that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their
death and birth,
And that of him and all that his may be;
All things
that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve,
subside, and swell. _95 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote,
serene, and inaccessible:
And THIS, the naked countenance of earth,


On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains
Teach the
adverting mind. The glaciers creep _100 Like snakes that watch their
prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice,

Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
Have piled: dome,
pyramid, and pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
_105 And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a
flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky
Rolls its
perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing
Its destined path, or in the
mangled soil _110 Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn
down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The limits of the
dead and living world,
Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place

Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; _115 Their food and
their retreat for ever gone,
So much of life and joy is lost. The race

Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke
before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known. Below,
vast caves _120 Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,
Which
from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one
majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
Rolls
its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125 Breathes its swift vapours to
the circling air.
5.
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high--the power is there,
The still and
solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life
and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130 In the
lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none
beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or
the star-beams dart through them:--Winds contend
Silently there, and
heap the snow with breath _135 Rapid and strong, but silently! Its
home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently,
and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140 Of heaven is
as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and
sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were
vacancy?

July 23, 1816.
NOTES:
_15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817;
cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839.
_20 Thy 1824; The
1839.
_53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson ('B.V.').
_56
Spread 1824; Speed 1839.
_69 tracks her there 1824; watches her
Boscombe manuscript. _79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe
manuscript.
_108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj.
Rossetti
(cf. lines 102, 106).
_121 torrents']torrent's 1817, 1824, 1839.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
There is a voice, not understood by all,
Sent from these desert-caves.
It is the roar
Of the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call,
Plunging
into the vale--it is the blast
Descending on the pines--the torrents
pour... _5
***
FRAGMENT: HOME.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,
The least of which
wronged Memory ever makes
Bitterer than all thine unremembered
tears.
***
FRAGMENT OF A GHOST STORY.

[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
A shovel of his ashes took
From the hearth's obscurest nook,

Muttering mysteries as she went.
Helen and Henry knew that Granny

Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5 And so they followed
hard--
But Helen clung to her brother's arm,
And her own spasm
made her shake.
***
NOTE ON POEMS OF 1816, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled "The Sunset"
was written in the spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopsgate.
He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The "Hymn
to Intellectual Beauty" was conceived during his voyage round the lake
with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading
the "Nouvelle Heloise" for the first time. The reading it on the very
spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once
surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest
enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the
character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship
he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley's own disposition; and,
though differing in many of the views and