Reverend Alexander B. Grosart, 3 vols (London: Edward Moxon, Son and Co., 1876), III, pp. 462–3.
Note on the Texts
The present selection aims to provide as generous and varied a representation of Shelley’s poetry and prose as limitations of space allow. All of what have come to be regarded as his major poems have been included with the exception of the 4,818 lines of the epic-romance Laon and Cythna (1817), though the Dedication before that poem, addressed to Shelley’s wife Mary and in some measure a separate work, has been retained. Within both ‘The Poems’ and ‘The Prose’ sections the texts are presented in chronological order of composition, inasmuch as that can be determined.
Because Shelley spent the final third or so of his writing life in Italy, he was not able to correct for the press those of his volumes that were printed and published in London during the years 1819–22, and a consequence of his sudden and untimely death was that a significant number of his works were left in manuscript notebooks and published posthumously without having received his final attention. As a result, the textual witnesses for Shelley’s verse and prose, of very different kinds, have always posed correspondingly varied, and sometimes very difficult, problems for his editors. The most authoritative source of a given text may be a printed volume published in Shelley’s lifetime for which he may or may not have seen proofs; one of the few manuscripts that he prepared for the press to have survived (for example, The Mask of Anarchy or Peter Bell the Third); a fair copy in his own hand or transcribed by another which he may have meant for safe-keeping, or for private circulation rather than regular publication; or one of his many surviving drafts, which range from clean and unambiguous at one extreme to untidy, unresolved, incomplete and barely legible at the other.
The copy-texts we have chosen for the present edition have been treated on the principle of minimal intervention. We have almost always retained their spelling and capitalization (even where these are inconsistent), and we have modified punctuation where we have judged it necessary to clarify a passage or to reduce what has appeared to us the excessive punctuation of some source-texts. Modern accents and breathings have been supplied where necessary for Greek epigraphs. In the endnotes on each title, we have indicated the source of our text and, for manuscript sources, have provided a reference to a facsimile of the manuscript where one exists in one of the three series, The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics: Shelley and Shelley and His Circle 1773–1822. For bibliographical details of these, see Abbreviations and Further Reading.
In both the Poems and Prose sections, a word or phrase within angle brackets <word> is cancelled in the manuscript source; space within square brackets [ ] signals a missing word or phrase; a question mark within square brackets [ ? ] indicates an illegible word or phrase; a question mark and word(s) within square brackets [?word(s)] marks a conjectural reading. Word(s) within square brackets [word(s)] are missing in the manuscript source and have been supplied by the editors. Suspension points … in a text are present in the copy-text; an ellipsis within square brackets […] signifies an editorial omission.
THE POEMS
The Irishman’s Song
The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light
May sink into ne’er ending chaos and night,
Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
But thy courage O Erin! may never decay.
5See! the wide wasting ruin extends all around,
Our ancestors’ dwellings lie sunk on the ground,
Our foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,
And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.
Ah! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,
10Ah! sunk is our sweet country’s rapturous measure,
But the war note is waked, and the clangor of spears,
The dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.
Ah! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,
Convulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,
15Or the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by,
And ‘my countrymen! vengeance!’ incessantly cry.
Song (‘Fierce roars the midnight storm’)
Fierce roars the midnight storm,
O’er the wild mountain,
Dark clouds the night deform,
Swift rolls the fountain—
5See! o’er yon rocky height,
Dim mists are flying—
See by the moon’s pale light,
Poor Laura’s dying!
Shame and remorse shall howl,
10 By her false pillow—
Fiercer than storms that roll,
O’er the white billow;
No hand her eyes to close,
When life is flying,
15But she will find repose,
For Laura’s dying!
Then will I seek my love,
Then will I cheer her,
Then my esteem will prove,
20 When no friend is near her.
On her grave I will lie,
When life is parted,
On her grave I will die,
For the false hearted.
‘How eloquent are eyes!’
How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt Poet’s frenzied lay
When the soul’s wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
5 How eloquent are eyes!
Not music’s most impassioned note
On which love’s warmest fervours float
Like they bid rapture rise.
Love! look thus again,
10That your look may light a waste of years
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Thro’ the cold shower of tears!
Love! look thus again,
That Time the victor as he flies
15May pause to gaze upon thine eyes,
A victor then in vain!—
Yet no! arrest not Time,
For Time, to others dear, we spurn,
When Time shall be no more we burn,
20 When Love meets full return.
Ah no! arrest not Time,
Fast let him fly on eagle wing
Nor pause till Heaven’s unfading spring
Breathes round its holy clime.
25 Yet quench that thrilling gaze
Which passionate Friendship arms with fire,
For what will eloquent eyes inspire
But feverish, false desire?
Quench then that thrilling gaze
30For age may freeze the tremulous joy,
But age can never love destroy.
It lives to better days.
Age cannot love destroy.
Can perfidy then blight its flower
35Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in fancy’s bower?
Age cannot love destroy.
Can slighted vows then rend the shrine
On which its chastened splendours shine
40 Around a dream of joy?
Fragment, or The Triumph of Conscience
’Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling;
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low;
Around, the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,—
5 They bodingly presag’d destruction and woe.
’Twas then that I started!—the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning, which danc’d in the sky;
Above me, the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs, the blast wafted by.
10My heart sank within me—unheeded the war
Of the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke;—
Unheeded the thunder-peal crash’d in mine ear—
This heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear;
But conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.
15’Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding,
The ghost of the murder’d Victoria strode;
In her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding,
She swiftly advanc’d to my lonesome abode.
I wildly then call’d on the tempest to bear me—
Song (‘Ah! faint are her limbs’)
I
Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,
Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;
Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,
She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.
5I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle,
As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;
And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,
‘Stay thy boat on the lake,—dearest Henry, I come.’
II
High swell’d in her bosom the throb of affection,
10 As lightly her form bounded over the lea,
And arose in her mind every dear recollection:
‘I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.’
How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,
When sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving,
15And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving,
Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!
III
Oh! dark lower’d the clouds on that horrible eve,
And the moon dimly gleam’d through the tempested air;
Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?
20 Oh! how could false hope rend a bosom so fair?
Thy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving,
O’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;
But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,
In eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.
The Monarch’s funeral
An Anticipation
The growing gloom of eventide
Has quenched the sunbeam’s latest glow
And lowers upon the woe and pride
That blasts the city’s peace below.
5At such an hour how sad the sight
To mark a Monarch’s funeral
When the dim shades of awful night
Rest on the coffin’s velvet pall;
To see the Gothic Arches shew
10 A varied mass of light and shade
While to the torches’ crimson glow
A vast cathedral is displayed;
To see with what a silence deep
The thousands o’er this death-scene brood
15As tho’ some wizard’s charm did creep
Upon the countless multitude;
To see this awful pomp of death
For one frail mass of mouldering clay
When nobler men the tomb beneath
20 Have sunk unwept, unseen away.
For who was he, the uncoffined slain,
That fell in Erin’s injured isle
Because his spirit dared disdain
To light his country’s funeral pile?
25Shall he not ever live in lays
The warmest that a Muse may sing
Whilst monumental marbles raise
The fame of a departed King?
May not the Muse’s darling theme
30 Gather its glorious garland thence
Whilst some frail tombstone’s Dotard dream
Fades with a monarch’s impotence?
—Yet, ’tis a scene of wondrous awe
To see a coffined Monarch lay,
35That the wide grave’s insatiate maw
Be glutted with a regal prey!
Who now shall public councils guide?
Who rack the poor on gold to dine?
Who waste the means of regal pride
40 For which a million wretches pine?
It is a child of earthly breath,
A being perishing as he,
Who throned in yonder pomp of death
Hath now fulfilled his destiny.
45Now dust to dust restore!… O Pride,
Unmindful of thy fleeting power,
Whose empty confidence has vied
With human life’s most treacherous hour,
One moment feel that in the breast
50 With regal crimes and troubles vext
The pampered Earthworms soon will rest,
One moment feel … and die the next.
Yet deem not in the tomb’s control
The vital lamp of life can fail,
55Deem not that e’er the Patriot’s soul
Is wasted by the withering gale.
The dross which forms the King is gone
And reproductive Earth supplies
As senseless as the clay and stone
60 In which the kindred body lies.
The soul which makes the Man doth soar,
And love alone survives to shed
All that its tide of bliss can pour
Of Heaven upon the blessed dead.
65So shall the Sun forever burn,
So shall the midnight lightnings die,
And joy that glows at Nature’s bourn
Outlive terrestrial misery.
And will the crowd who silent stoop
70 Around the lifeless Monarch’s bier,
A mournful and dejected group,
Breathe not one sigh, or shed one tear?
Ah! no. ’Tis wonder, ’tis not woe;
Even royalists might groan to see
75The Father of the People so
Lost in the Sacred Majesty.
A Winter’s Day
O! wintry day! that mockest spring
With hopes of the reviving year,
That sheddest softness from thy wing
And near the cascade’s murmuring
5 Awakenest sounds so clear
That peals of vernal music swing
Thro’ the balm atmosphere.
Why hast thou given, O year! to May
A birth so premature,
10To live one incompleted day
That the mad whirlwind’s sullen sway
May sweep it from the moor,
And winter reassume the sway
That shall so long endure?
15Art thou like Genius’s matin bloom,
Unwelcome promise of its prime,
That scattereth its rich perfume
Around the portals of the tomb,
Decking the scar of time
20In mockery of the early doom?
Art thou like Passion’s rapturous dream
That o’er life’s stormy dawn
Doth dart its wild and flamy beam
Yet like a fleeting flash doth seem
25 When many chequered years are gone
And tell the illusion of its gleam
Life’s blasted springs alone?
Whate’er thou emblemest, I’ll breathe
Thy transitory sweetness now,
30And whether Health with roseate wreathe
May bind mine head, or creeping Death
Steal o’er my pulse’s flow,
Struggling the wintry winds beneath
I’ll love thy vernal glow.
To the Republicans of North America
Brothers! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar,
Yet in spirit oft I see
On the wild and winding shore
5Freedom’s bloodless banner wave,
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished by the grave,
See them drenched in sacred gore,
Catch the patriot’s gasping breath
10Murmuring ‘Liberty’ in death.
Shout aloud! let every slave
Crouching at corruption’s throne
Start into a man and brave
Racks and chains without a groan!
15Let the castle’s heartless glow
And the hovel’s vice and woe
Fade like gaudy flowers that blow,
Weeds that peep and then are gone,
Whilst from misery’s ashes risen
20Love shall burst the Captive’s prison.
Cotopaxi! bid the sound
Thro’ thy sister mountains ring
Till each valley smile around
At the blissful welcoming,
25And O! thou stern Ocean-deep
Whose eternal billows sweep
Shores where thousands wake to weep
Whilst they curse some villain King,
On the winds that fan thy breast
30Bear thou news of freedom’s rest.
Earth’s remotest bounds shall start;
Every despot’s bloated cheek,
Pallid as his bloodless heart,
Frenzy, woe and dread shall speak …
35Blood may fertilize the tree
Of new bursting Liberty;
Let the guiltiness then be
On the slaves that ruin wreak,
On the unnatural tyrant brood
40Slow to Peace and swift to blood.
Can the daystar dawn of love
Where the flag of war unfurled
Floats with crimson stain above
Such a desolated world?…
45Never! but to vengeance driven
When the patriot’s spirit shriven
Seeks in death its native Heaven,
Then to speechless horror hurled
Widowed Earth may balm the bier
50Of its memory with a tear.
On Robert Emmet’s Tomb
May the tempests of Winter that sweep o’er thy tomb
Disturb not a slumber so sacred as thine;
May the breezes of summer that breathe of perfume
Waft their balmiest dews to so hallowed a shrine.
5May the foot of the tyrant, the coward, the slave
Be palsied with dread where thine ashes repose,
Where that undying shamrock still blooms on thy grave
Which sprung when the dawnlight of Erin arose.
There oft have I marked the grey gravestones among,
10 Where thy relics distinguished in lowliness lay,
The peasant boy pensively lingering long
And silently weep as he passed away.
And how could he not pause if the blood of his sires
Ever wakened one generous throb in his heart:
15How could he inherit a spark of their fires
If tearless and frigid he dared to depart?
Not the scrolls of a court could emblazon thy fame
Like the silence that reigns in the palace of thee,
Like the whispers that pass of thy dearly loved name,
20 Like the tears of the good, like the groans of the free.
No trump tells thy virtues—the grave where they rest
With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,
Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,
Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.
25When the storm cloud that lowers o’er the daybeam is gone,
Unchanged, unextinguished its lifespring will shine;
When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan
She will smile thro’ the tears of revival on thine.
To Liberty
O let not Liberty
Silently perish;
May the groan and the sigh
Yet the flame cherish
5Till the voice to Nature’s bursting heart given,
Ascending loud and high,
A world’s indignant cry,
And startling on his throne
The tyrant grim and lone,
10Shall beat the deaf vault of Heaven.
Say, can the Tyrant’s frown
Daunt those who fear not
Or break the spirits down
His badge that wear not?
15Can chains or death or infamy subdue
The pure and fearless soul
That dreads not their control,
Sees Paradise and Hell,
Sees the Palace and the cell,
20Yet bravely dares prefer the good and true?
Regal pomp and pride
The Patriot falls in scorning,
The spot whereon he died
Should be the despot’s warning;
25The voice of blood shall on his crimes call down Revenge!
And the spirits of the brave
Shall start from every grave
Whilst from her Atlantic throne
Freedom sanctifies the groan
30That fans the glorious fires of its change.
Monarch! sure employer
Of vice and want and woe,
Thou Conscienceless destroyer,
Who and what are thou?—
35The dark prison house that in the dust shall lie,
The pyramid which guilt
First planned, which man has built,
At whose footstone want and woe
With a ceaseless murmur flow
40And whose peak attracts the tempests of the sky.
The pyramids shall fall …
And Monarchs! so shall ye,
Thrones shall rust in the hall
Of forgotten royalty
45Whilst Virtue, Truth and Peace shall arise
And a Paradise on Earth
From your fall shall date its birth,
And human life shall seem
Like a short and happy dream
50Ere we wake in the daybeam of the skies.
Written on a Beautiful Day in Spring
In that strange mental wandering when to live,
To breathe, to be, is undivided joy,
When the most woe-worn wretch would cease to grieve,
When satiation’s self would fail to cloy;
5When unpercipient of all other things
Than those that press around, the breathing Earth,
The gleaming sky and the fresh season’s birth,
Sensation all its wondrous rapture brings,
And to itself not once the mind recurs—
10 Is it foretaste of Heaven?
So sweet as this the nerves it stirs,
And mingling in the vital tide
With gentle motion driven,
Cheers the sunk spirits, lifts the languid eye,
15And scattering thro’ the frame its influence wide
Revives the spirits when they droop and die.
The frozen blood with genial beaming warms,
And to a gorgeous fly the sluggish worm transforms.
‘Dark Spirit of the desart rude’
Dark Spirit of the desart rude
That o’er this awful solitude,
Each tangled and untrodden wood,
Each dark and silent glen below
5Where sunlight’s gleamings never glow,
Whilst jetty, musical and still
In darkness speeds the mountain rill;
That o’er yon broken peaks sublime,
Wild shapes that mock the scythe of time,
10And the pure Ellan’s foamy course,
Wavest thy wand of magic force—
Art thou yon sooty and fearful fowl
That flaps its wing o’er the leafless oak
That o’er the dismal scene doth scowl
15 And mocketh music with its croak?
I’ve sought thee where day’s beams decay
On the peak of the lonely hill;
I’ve sought thee where they melt away
By the wave of the pebbly rill;
20I’ve strained to catch thy murky form
Bestride the rapid and gloomy storm;
Thy red and sullen eyeball’s glare
Has shot, in a dream thro’ the midnight air,
But never did thy shape express
25 Such an emphatic gloominess.
And where art thou, O thing of gloom?…
On Nature’s unreviving tomb
Where sapless, blasted and alone
She mourns her blooming centuries gone!—
30From the fresh sod the Violets peep,
The buds have burst their frozen sleep,
Whilst every green and peopled tree
Is alive with Earth’s sweet melody.
But thou alone art here,
35Thou desolate Oak, whose scathed head
For ages has never trembled,
Whose giant trunk dead lichens bind,
Moaningly sighing in the wind,
With huge loose rocks beneath thee spread—
40 Thou, Thou alone art here!
Remote from every living thing,
Tree, shrub or grass or flower,
Thou seemest of this spot the King,
And with a regal power
45 Suck like that race all sap away
And yet upon the spoil decay.
The Retrospect
Cwm Elan 1812
To trace Duration’s lone career,
To check the chariot of the year
Whose burning wheels forever sweep
The boundaries of oblivion’s deep …
5To snatch from Time the monster’s jaw
The children which she just had borne,
And ere entombed within her maw
To drag them to the light of morn
And mark each feature with an eye
10Of cold and fearless scrutiny …
It asks a soul not formed to feel,
An eye of glass, a hand of steel;
Thoughts that have passed and thoughts that are
With truth and feeling to compare;
15A scene which wildered fancy viewed
In the soul’s coldest solitude,
With that same scene when peaceful love
Flings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,
When mountain, meadow, wood and stream
20With unalloying glory gleam
And to the spirit’s ear and eye
Are unison and harmony.
The moonlight was my dearer day:—
Then would I wander far away
25And lingering on the wild brook’s shore
To hear its unremitting roar
Would lose in the ideal flow
All sense of overwhelming woe;
Or at the noiseless noon of night
30Would climb some heathy mountain’s height
And listen to the mystic sound
That stole in fitful gasps around.
I joyed to see the streaks of day
Above the purple peaks decay
35And watch the latest line of light
Just mingling with the shades of night;
For day with me, was time of woe
When even tears refused to flow;
Then would I stretch my languid frame
40Beneath the wild-wood’s gloomiest shade
And try to quench the ceaseless flame
That on my withered vitals preyed;
Would close mine eyes and dream I were
On some remote and friendless plain
45And long to leave existence there
If with it I might leave the pain
That with a finger cold and lean
Wrote madness on my withering mien.
It was not unrequited love
50That bade my wildered spirit rove;
’Twas not the pride disdaining life,
That with this mortal world at strife
Would yield to the soul’s inward sense,
Then groan in human impotence,
55And weep, because it is not given
To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.
’Twas not, that in the narrow sphere
Where Nature fixed my wayward fate
There was no friend or kindred dear
60Formed to become that spirit’s mate
Which searching on tired pinion found
Barren and cold repulse around …
Ah no! yet each one sorrow gave
New graces to the narrow grave:
65For broken vows had early quelled
The stainless spirit’s vestal flame.
Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled
Then the envenomed arrow came
And apathy’s unaltering eye
70Beamed coldness on the misery;
And early I had learned to scorn
The chains of clay that bound a soul
Panting to seize the wings of morn,
And where its vital fires were born
75To soar, and spurn the cold control
Which the vile slaves of earthly night
Would twine around its struggling flight.
O many were the friends whom fame
Had linked with the unmeaning name
80Whose magic marked among mankind
The casket of my unknown mind,
Which hidden from the vulgar glare
Imbibed no fleeting radiance there.
My darksome spirit sought. It found
85A friendless solitude around.—
For who, that might undaunted stand
The saviour of a sinking land,
Would crawl its ruthless tyrant’s slave
And fatten upon freedom’s grave,
90Tho’ doomed with her to perish, where
The captive clasps abhorred despair?
They could not share the bosom’s feeling
Which passion’s every throb revealing
Dared force on the world’s notice cold
95Thoughts of unprofitable mould,
Who bask in Custom’s fickle ray,
Fit sunshine of such wintry day!
They could not in a twilight walk
Weave an impassioned web of talk
100Till mysteries the spirit press
In wild yet tender awfulness,
Then feel within our narrow sphere
How little yet how great we are!
But they might shine in courtly glare,
105Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,
And might command where’er they move
A thing that bears the name of love;
They might be learned, witty, gay,
Foremost in fashion’s gilt array,
110On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,
Be princes’ friends, but never mine!
Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,
Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,
Whence I would watch its lustre pale
115Steal from the moon o’er yonder vale!
Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast
Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,
Ever its giant shade doth cast
On the tumultuous surge below!
120Woods to whose depth retires to die
The wounded echo’s melody,
And whither this lone spirit bent
The footstep of a wild intent—
Meadows! whose green and spangled breast
125These fevered limbs have often pressed
Until the watchful fiend Despair
Slept in the soothing coolness there!
Have not your varied beauties seen
The sunken eye, the withering mien,
130Sad traces of the unuttered pain
That froze my heart and burned my brain?
How changed since nature’s summer form
Had last the power my grief to charm,
Since last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness,
135Strange chaos of a mingled madness!
Changed!—not the loathsome worm that fed
In the dark mansions of the dead,
Now soaring thro’ the fields of air
And gathering purest nectar there,
140A butterfly whose million hues
The dazzled eye of wonder views
Long lingering on a work so strange,
Has undergone so bright a change!
How do I feel my happiness?
145I cannot tell, but they may guess
Whose every gloomy feeling gone
Friendship and passion feel alone,
Who see mortality’s dull clouds
Before affection’s murmur fly,
150Whilst the mild glances of her eye
Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds
The spirit’s radiant sanctuary.
O thou! whose virtues latest known
First in this heart yet claim’st a throne,
155Whose downy sceptre still shall share
The gentle sway with virtue there,
Thou fair in form and pure in mind,
Whose ardent friendship rivets fast
The flowery band our fates that bind
160Which incorruptible shall last
When duty’s hard and cold control
Had thawed around the burning soul.
The gloomiest retrospects that bind
With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind,
165The prospects of most doubtful hue
That rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,
Are gilt by the reviving ray
Which thou hast flung upon my day.
QUEEN MAB;
A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM: WITH NOTES
ECRASEZ L’INFAME!
Correspondance de Voltaire.
Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante
Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis;
Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.
* * * * * * *
Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae.
Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis
Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.
Lucret. lib. iv.
Δὸς που στῶ, καὶ κόσμον κινήσω.
Archimedes.
To Harriet *****
Whose is the love that, gleaming through the world,
Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn?
Whose is the warm and partial praise,
Virtue’s most sweet reward?
5Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul
Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow?
Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on,
And loved mankind the more?
Harriet! on thine:—thou wert my purer mind;
10Thou wert the inspiration of my song;
Thine are these early wilding flowers,
Though garlanded by me.
Then press unto thy breast this pledge of love;
And know, though time may change and years may roll,
15 Each flowret gathered in my heart
It consecrates to thine.
Queen Mab
I
How wonderful is Death,
Death, and his brother Sleep!
One, pale as yonder waning moon
With lips of lurid blue;
5 The other, rosy as the morn
When throned on ocean’s wave
It blushes o’er the world:
Yet both so passing wonderful!
Hath then the gloomy Power
10Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres
Seized on her sinless soul?
Must then that peerless form
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, those azure veins
15Which steal like streams along a field of snow,
That lovely outline, which is fair
As breathing marble, perish?
Must putrefaction’s breath
Leave nothing of this heavenly sight
20 But loathsomeness and ruin?
Spare nothing but a gloomy theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Or is it only a sweet slumber
Stealing o’er sensation,
25 Which the breath of roseate morning
Chaseth into darkness?
Will Ianthe wake again,
And give that faithful bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
30 Light, life and rapture from her smile?
Yes! she will wake again,
Although her glowing limbs are motionless,
And silent those sweet lips,
Once breathing eloquence,
35 That might have soothed a tyger’s rage,
Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror.
Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
40 The baby Sleep is pillowed:
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom’s stainless pride,
Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.
45 Hark! whence that rushing sound?
’Tis like the wondrous strain
That round a lonely ruin swells,
Which, wandering on the echoing shore,
The enthusiast hears at evening:
50 ’Tis softer than the west wind’s sigh;
’Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Of that strange lyre whose strings
The genii of the breezes sweep:
Those lines of rainbow light
55 Are like the moonbeams when they fall
Through some cathedral window, but the teints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.
Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen!
60Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:
These the Queen of spells drew in,
She spread a charm around the spot,
65And leaning graceful from the etherial car,
Long did she gaze, and silently,
Upon the slumbering maid.
Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams,
When silvery clouds float through the wildered brain,
70When every sight of lovely, wild and grand
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,
When fancy at a glance combines
The wondrous and the beautiful,—
So bright, so fair, so wild a shape
75 Hath ever yet beheld,
As that which reined the coursers of the air,
And poured the magic of her gaze
Upon the maiden’s sleep.
The broad and yellow moon
80 Shone dimly through her form—
That form of faultless symmetry;
The pearly and pellucid car
Moved not the moonlight’s line:
’Twas not an earthly pageant:
85 Those who had looked upon the sight,
Passing all human glory,
Saw not the yellow moon,
Saw not the mortal scene,
Heard not the night-wind’s rush,
90 Heard not an earthly sound,
Saw but the fairy pageant,
Heard but the heavenly strains
That filled the lonely dwelling.
The Fairy’s frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,
95That catches but the palest tinge of even,
And which the straining eye can hardly seize
When melting into eastern twilight’s shadow,
Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star
That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
100Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful,
As that which, bursting from the Fairy’s form,
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
Yet with an undulating motion,
Swayed to her outline gracefully.
105 From her celestial car
The Fairy Queen descended,
And thrice she waved her wand
Circled with wreaths of amaranth:
Her thin and misty form
110 Moved with the moving air,
And the clear silver tones,
As thus she spoke, were such
As are unheard by all but gifted ear.
FAIRY
Stars! Your balmiest influence shed!
115 Elements! Your wrath suspend!
Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds
That circle thy domain!
Let not a breath be seen to stir
Around yon grass-grown ruin’s height,
120 Let even the restless gossamer
Sleep on the moveless air!
Soul of Ianthe! thou,
Judged alone worthy of the envied boon,
That waits the good and the sincere; that waits
125Those who have struggled, and with resolute will
Vanquished earth’s pride and meanness, burst the chains,
The icy chains of custom, and have shone
The day-stars of their age;—Soul of Ianthe!
Awake! arise!
130 Sudden arose
Ianthe’s Soul; it stood
All beautiful in naked purity,
The perfect semblance of its bodily frame,
Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace.
135 Each stain of earthliness
Had passed away, it reassumed
Its native dignity, and stood
Immortal amid ruin.
Upon the couch the body lay
140 Wrapt in the depth of slumber:
Its features were fixed and meaningless,
Yet animal life was there,
And every organ yet performed
Its natural functions: ’twas a sight
145Of wonder to behold the body and soul.
The self-same lineaments, the same
Marks of identity were there:
Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
150And ever changing, ever rising still,
Wantons in endless being.
The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly;
155Then like an useless and worn-out machine,
Rots, perishes, and passes.
FAIRY
Spirit! who hast dived so deep;
Spirit! who hast soared so high;
Thou the fearless, thou the mild,
160 Accept the boon thy worth hath earned,
Ascend the car with me!
SPIRIT
Do I dream? is this new feeling
But a visioned ghost of slumber?
If indeed I am a soul,
165 A free, a disembodied soul,
Speak again to me.
FAIRY
I am the Fairy MAB: to me ’tis given
The wonders of the human world to keep:
The secrets of the immeasurable past,
170In the unfailing consciences of men,
Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:
The future, from the causes which arise
In each event, I gather: not the sting
Which retributive memory implants
175In the hard bosom of the selfish man;
Nor that extatic and exulting throb
Which virtue’s votary feels when he sums up
The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,
Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:
180And it is yet permitted me, to rend
The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit
Clothed in its changeless purity, may know
How soonest to accomplish the great end
For which it hath its being, and may taste
185That peace, which in the end all life will share.
This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,
Ascend the car with me!
The chains of earth’s immurement
Fell from Ianthe’s spirit;
190They shrank and brake like bandages of straw
Beneath a wakened giant’s strength.
She knew her glorious change,
And felt in apprehension uncontrolled
New raptures opening round:
195 Each day-dream of her mortal life,
Each frenzied vision of the slumbers
That closed each well-spent day,
Seemed now to meet reality.
The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;
200 The silver clouds disparted;
And as the car of magic they ascended,
Again the speechless music swelled,
Again the coursers of the air
Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen
205 Shaking the beamy reins
Bade them pursue their way.
The magic car moved on.
The night was fair, and countless stars
Studded heaven’s dark blue vault,—
210 Just o’er the eastern wave
Peeped the first faint smile of morn:—
The magic car moved on—
From the celestial hoofs
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,
215 And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain’s loftiest peak,
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now it flew far above a rock,
The utmost verge of earth,
220 The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Lowered o’er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot’s path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous Ocean lay.
225 The mirror of its stillness shewed
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot’s fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
230 That canopied the dawn.
Seemed it, that the chariot’s way
Lay through the midst of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,
235 And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on.
As they approached their goal
The coursers seemed to gather speed;
240The sea no longer was distinguished; earth
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere;
The sun’s unclouded orb
Rolled through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light
245Parted around the chariot’s swifter course,
And fell, like ocean’s feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel’s prow.
The magic car moved on.
250 Earth’s distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;
Whilst round the chariot’s way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
255 An ever-varying glory.
It was a sight of wonder: some
Were horned like the crescent moon;
Some shed a mild and silver beam
Like Hesperus o’er the western sea;
260 Some dash’d athwart with trains of flame,
Like worlds to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like suns, and as the chariot passed,
Eclipsed all other light.
Spirit of Nature! here!
265 In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
Yet not the lightest leaf
270 That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee:
Yet not the meanest worm
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
275 Spirit of Nature! thou!
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.
II
If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean’s echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there,
Until the sun’s broad orb
5 Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines
Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o’er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds
10 Edged with intolerable radiancy
Towering like rocks of jet
Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun’s highest point
15Peeps like a star o’er ocean’s western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
20 And furled its wearied wing
Within the Fairy’s fane.
Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
25 Stretching o’er the sun’s bright couch,
Nor the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As Mab’s etherial palace could afford.
30Yet likest evening’s vault, that faery Hall!
As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
35 Floating on a silver sea;
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o’er the immense of Heaven.
40 The magic car no longer moved.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Entered the Hall of Spells:
Those golden clouds
That rolled in glittering billows
45 Beneath the azure canopy
With the etherial footsteps trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,
Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling,
50Yielded to every movement of the will.
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.
55 Spirit! the Fairy said,
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
This is a wondrous sight
And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue’s only meed, to dwell
60In a celestial palace, all resigned
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless nature would be unfulfilled.
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
65This is thine high reward:—the past shall rise;
Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement.—
70 Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination’s flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In mazy motion intermingled,
75 Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal Nature’s law.
Above, below, around
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony;
80 Each with undeviating aim,
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
85 None but a spirit’s eye
Might ken that rolling orb;
None but a spirit’s eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold
90Each action of this earth’s inhabitants.
But matter, space and time
In those aërial mansions cease to act;
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps
The harvest of its excellence, o’erbounds
95Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul
Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.
The Spirit’s intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognized.
100The thronging thousands, to a passing view,
Seemed like an anthill’s citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch
105 That moves the finest nerve,
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of nature.
Behold, the Fairy cried,
110 Palmyra’s ruined palaces!—
Behold! where grandeur frowned;
Behold! where pleasure smiled;
What now remains?—the memory
Of senselessness and shame—
115 What is immortal there?
Nothing—it stands to tell
A melancholy tale, to give
An awful warning: soon
Oblivion will steal silently
120 The remnant of its fame.
Monarchs and conquerors there
Proud o’er prostrate millions trod—
The earthquakes of the human race;
Like them, forgotten when the ruin
125 That marks their shock is past.
Beside the eternal Nile,
The Pyramids have risen.
Nile shall pursue his changeless way:
Those pyramids shall fall;
130 Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell
The spot whereon they stood;
Their very scite shall be forgotten,
As is their builder’s name!
Behold yon sterile spot;
135 Where now the wandering Arab’s tent
Flaps in the desart-blast.
There once old Salem’s haughty fane
Reared high to heaven its thousand golden domes,
And in the blushing face of day
140 Exposed its shameful glory.
Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed
The building of that fane; and many a father,
Worn out with toil and slavery, implored
The poor man’s God to sweep it from the earth,
145And spare his children the detested task
Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning
The choicest days of life,
To soothe a dotard’s vanity.
There an inhuman and uncultured race
150Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God;
They rushed to war, tore from the mother’s womb
The unborn child,—old age and infancy
Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms
Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends:
155But what was he who taught them that the God
Of nature and benevolence had given
A special sanction to the trade of blood?
His name and theirs are fading, and the tales
Of this barbarian nation, which imposture
160Recites till terror credits, are pursuing
Itself into forgetfulness.
Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood,
There is a moral desart now:
The mean and miserable huts,
165 The yet more wretched palaces,
Contrasted with those antient fanes
Now crumbling to oblivion;
The long and lonely colonnades,
Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks,
170 Seem like a well-known tune,
Which, in some dear scene we have loved to hear,
Remembered now in sadness.
But, oh! how much more changed,
How gloomier is the contrast
175 Of human nature there!
Where Socrates expired, a tyrant’s slave,
A coward and a fool, spreads death around—
Then, shuddering, meets his own.
Where Cicero and Antoninus lived,
180 A cowled and hypocritical monk
Prays, curses and deceives.
Spirit! ten thousand years
Have scarcely past away,
Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks
185His enemy’s blood, and aping Europe’s sons,
Wakes the unholy song of war,
Arose a stately city,
Metropolis of the western continent:
There, now, the mossy column-stone,
190Indented by time’s unrelaxing grasp,
Which once appeared to brave
All, save its country’s ruin;
There the wide forest scene,
Rude in the uncultivated loveliness
195 Of gardens long run wild,
Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps
Chance in that desart has delayed,
Thus to have stood since earth was what it is.
Yet once it was the busiest haunt,
200Whither, as to a common centre, flocked
Strangers, and ships, and merchandize:
Once peace and freedom blest
The cultivated plain:
But wealth, that curse of man,
205Blighted the bud of its prosperity:
Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty,
Fled, to return not, until man shall know
That they alone can give the bliss
Worthy a soul that claims
210 Its kindred with eternity.
There’s not one atom of yon earth
But once was living man;
Nor the minutest drop of rain,
That hangeth in its thinnest cloud,
215 But flowed in human veins:
And from the burning plains
Where Lybian monsters yell,
From the most gloomy glens
Of Greenland’s sunless clime,
220 To where the golden fields
Of fertile England spread
Their harvest to the day,
Thou canst not find one spot
Whereon no city stood.
225 How strange is human pride!
I tell thee that those living things,
To whom the fragile blade of grass,
That springeth in the morn
And perisheth ere noon,
230 Is an unbounded world;
I tell thee that those viewless beings,
Whose mansion is the smallest particle
Of the impassive atmosphere,
Think, feel and live like man;
235That their affections and antipathies,
Like his, produce the laws
Ruling their moral state;
And the minutest throb
That through their frame diffuses
240 The slightest, faintest motion,
Is fixed and indispensable
As the majestic laws
That rule yon rolling orbs.
The Fairy paused. The Spirit,
245In extacy of admiration, felt
All knowledge of the past revived; the events
Of old and wondrous times,
Which dim tradition interruptedly
Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded
250 In just perspective to the view;
Yet dim from their infinitude.
The Spirit seemed to stand
High on an isolated pinnacle;
The flood of ages combating below,
255The depth of the unbounded universe
Above, and all around
Nature’s unchanging harmony.
III
Fairy! the Spirit said,
And on the Queen of Spells
Fixed her etherial eyes,
I thank thee. Thou hast given
5A boon which I will not resign, and taught
A lesson not to be unlearned. I know
The past, and thence I will essay to glean
A warning for the future, so that man
May profit by his errors, and derive
10 Experience from his folly:
For, when the power of imparting joy
Is equal to the will, the human soul
Requires no other heaven.
MAB
Turn thee, surpassing Spirit!
15 Much yet remains unscanned.
Thou knowest how great is man,
Thou knowest his imbecility:
Yet learn thou what he is;
Yet learn the lofty destiny
20 Which restless time prepares
For every living soul.
Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid
Yon populous city, rears its thousand towers
And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops
25Of centinels, in stern and silent ranks,
Encompass it around: the dweller there
Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not
The curses of the fatherless, the groans
Of those who have no friend? He passes on:
30The King, the wearer of a gilded chain
That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool
Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave
Even to the basest appetites—that man
Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles
35At the deep curses which the destitute
Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy
Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan
But for those morsels which his wantonness
Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save
40All that they love from famine: when he hears
The tale of horror, to some ready-made face
Of hypocritical assent he turns,
Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him,
Flushes his bloated cheek.
Now to the meal
45Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags
His palled unwilling appetite. If gold,
Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled
From every clime, could force the loathing sense
To overcome satiety,—if wealth
50The spring it draws from poisons not,—or vice,
Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not
Its food to deadliest venom; then that king
Is happy; and the peasant who fulfills
His unforced task, when he returns at even,
55And by the blazing faggot meets again
Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped,
Tastes not a sweeter meal.
Behold him now
Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain
Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon
60The slumber of intemperance subsides,
And conscience, that undying serpent, calls
Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task.
Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye—
Oh! mark that deadly visage.
KING
No cessation!
65Oh! must this last forever! Awful death,
I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!—Not one moment
Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace!
Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity
In penury and dungeons? Wherefore lurkest
70With danger, death, and solitude; yet shun’st
The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace!
Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed
One drop of balm upon my withered soul.
MAB
Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart,
75And peace defileth not her snowy robes
In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters;
His slumbers are but varied agonies,
They prey like scorpions on the springs of life.
There needeth not the hell that bigots frame
80To punish those who err: earth in itself
Contains at once the evil and the cure;
And all-sufficing nature can chastise
Those who transgress her law,—she only knows
How justly to proportion to the fault
85The punishment it merits.
Is it strange
That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe?
Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug
The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange
That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns,
90Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured
Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds
Shut him from all that’s good or dear on earth,
His soul asserts not its humanity?
That man’s mild nature rises not in war
95Against a king’s employ? No—’tis not strange.
He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives
Just as his father did; the unconquered powers
Of precedent and custom interpose
Between a king and virtue. Stranger yet,
100To those who know not nature, nor deduce
The future from the present, it may seem,
That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes
Of this unnatural being; not one wretch,
Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed
105Is earth’s unpitying bosom, rears an arm
To dash him from his throne!
Those gilded flies
That, basking in the sunshine of a court,
Fatten on its corruption!—what are they?
—The drones of the community; they feed
110On the mechanic’s labour: the starved hind
For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield
Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form,
Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes
A sunless life in the unwholesome mine,
115Drags out in labour a protracted death,
To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil,
That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.
Whence, thinkest thou, kings and parasites arose?
Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap
120Toil and unvanquishable penury
On those who build their palaces, and bring
Their daily bread?—From vice, black loathsome vice;
From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong;
From all that genders misery, and makes
125Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust,
Revenge, and murder … And when reason’s voice,
Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked
The nations; and mankind perceive that vice
Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue
130Is peace, and happiness and harmony;
When man’s maturer nature shall disdain
The playthings of its childhood;—kingly glare
Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority
Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne
135Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall,
Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood’s trade
Shall be as hateful and unprofitable
As that of truth is now.
Where is the fame
Which the vain-glorious mighty of the earth
140Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound
From time’s light footfall, the minutest wave
That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing
The unsubstantial bubble. Aye! to-day
Stern is the tyrant’s mandate, red the gaze
145That flashes desolation, strong the arm
That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes!
That mandate is a thunder-peal that died
In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash
On which the midnight closed, and on that arm
150The worm has made his meal.
The virtuous man,
Who, great in his humility, as kings
Are little in their grandeur; he who leads
Invincibly a life of resolute good,
And stands amid the silent dungeon-depths
155More free and fearless than the trembling judge,
Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove
To bind the impassive spirit;—when he falls,
His mild eye beams benevolence no more:
Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve;
160Sunk reason’s simple eloquence, that rolled
But to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave
Hath quenched that eye, and death’s relentless frost
Withered that arm: but the unfading fame
Which virtue hangs upon its votary’s tomb;
165The deathless memory of that man, whom kings
Call to their mind and tremble; the remembrance
With which the happy spirit contemplates
Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth,
Shall never pass away.
170Nature rejects the monarch, not the man;
The subject, not the citizen: for kings
And subjects, mutual foes, forever play
A losing game into each other’s hands,
Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man
175Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate’er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame,
180A mechanized automaton.
When Nero,
High over flaming Rome, with savage joy
Lowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear
The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld
The frightful desolation spread, and felt
185A new created sense within his soul
Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound;
Thinkest thou his grandeur had not overcome
The force of human kindness? And, when Rome,
With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down,
190Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood,
Had not submissive abjectness destroyed
Nature’s suggestions?
Look on yonder earth:
The golden harvests spring; the unfailing sun
Sheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees,
195Arise in due succession; all things speak
Peace, harmony, and love.
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