The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 6

and day,?Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee!
'Inheritor of more than earth can give, _45 Passionless calm and silence unreproved,?Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest,?And are the uncomplaining things they seem,?Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love;?Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were--Peace!' _50 This was the only moan she ever made.
NOTES:?_4 death 1839; youth 1824.?_22 sun? We will walk 1824; sunrise? We will wake cj. Forman. _37 Her eyes...wan Hunt, 1823; omitted 1824, 1839.?_38 worn 1824; torn 1839.
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HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.
[Composed, probably, in Switzerland, in the summer of 1816. Published in Hunt's "Examiner", January 19, 1817, and with "Rosalind and Helen", 1819.]
1.?The awful shadow of some unseen Power?Floats though unseen among us,--visiting?This various world with as inconstant wing?As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,--?Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, _5 It visits with inconstant glance?Each human heart and countenance;?Like hues and harmonies of evening,--?Like clouds in starlight widely spread,--?Like memory of music fled,-- _10 Like aught that for its grace may be?Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2.?Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate?With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon?Of human thought or form,--where art thou gone? _15 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,?This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate??Ask why the sunlight not for ever?Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,?Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown, _20 Why fear and dream and death and birth?Cast on the daylight of this earth?Such gloom,--why man has such a scope?For love and hate, despondency and hope?
3.?No voice from some sublimer world hath ever _25 To sage or poet these responses given--?Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven.?Remain the records of their vain endeavour,?Frail spells--whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, _30 Doubt, chance, and mutability.?Thy light alone--like mist o'er mountains driven,?Or music by the night-wind sent?Through strings of some still instrument,?Or moonlight on a midnight stream, _35 Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
4.?Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart?And come, for some uncertain moments lent.?Man were immortal, and omnipotent,?Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, _40 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.?Thou messenger of sympathies,?That wax and wane in lovers' eyes--?Thou--that to human thought art nourishment,?Like darkness to a dying flame! _45 Depart not as thy shadow came?Depart not--lest the grave should be,?Like life and fear, a dark reality.
5.?While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped?Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin, _50 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing?Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.?I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;?I was not heard--I saw them not--?When musing deeply on the lot _55 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing?All vital things that wake to bring?News of birds and blossoming,--?Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;?I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! _60
6.?I vowed that I would dedicate my powers?To thee and thine--have I not kept the vow??With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now?I call the phantoms of a thousand hours?Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers _65 Of studious zeal or love's delight?Outwatched with me the envious night--?They know that never joy illumed my brow?Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free?This world from its dark slavery, _70 That thou--O awful LOVELINESS,?Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
7.?The day becomes more solemn and serene?When noon is past--there is a harmony?In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, _75 Which through the summer is not heard or seen,?As if it could not be, as if it had not been!?Thus let thy power, which like the truth?Of nature on my passive youth?Descended, to my onward life supply _80 Its calm--to one who worships thee,?And every form containing thee,?Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind?To fear himself, and love all human kind.
NOTES:?_2 among 1819; amongst 1817.?_14 dost 1819; doth 1817.?_21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript. 37-48 omitted Boscombe manuscript.?_44 art 1817; are 1819.?_76 or 1819; nor 1839.
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MONT BLANC.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.
[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below). Printed at the end of the "History of a Six Weeks' Tour" published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett.]
1.?The everlasting universe of things?Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,?Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--?Now lending splendour, where from secret springs?The source of human thought its tribute brings _5 Of waters,--with a sound but half its own,?Such as a feeble brook will oft assume?In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,?Where waterfalls