Over heaps of unvalued1 stones; Which amid the streams Weave a net-work of coloured light; Are as green as the forest's night :- And the sword-fish dark, Under the ocean foam, And up through the rifts V. And now from their fountains In Enna's mountains, Down one vale where the morning basks, They ply their watery tasks. From their cradles steep In the cave of the shelving hill; And the meadows of Asphodel; In the azure sky When they love but live no more. 1 Shelley follows Milton in using unvalued as an equivalent for inestimable -Ed. THE QUESTION.1 I. I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. II. There grew pied wind-flowers and violets, Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets (Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth) Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. III. And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured May, And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; 1 The Question is entitled A Dream in the Harvard College manuscript book, which contains a transcript of the poem in Mrs. Shelley's writing.—ED. And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray; And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. IV. And nearer to the river's trembling edge And starry river-buds among the sedge, And bulrushes and reeds of such deep green V. Methought that of these visionary flowers I made a nosegay, bound in such a way That the same hues, which in their natural bowers Were mingled or opposed, the like array Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours Within my hand, and then, elate and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-oh! to whom? HYMN OF APOLLO.' I. THE sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie, 1 This and the Hymn to Pan were written to be inserted in a drama by Edward Williams on the subject of Midas.-ED. From the broad moonlight of the sky, Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, Waken me when their Mother, the grey Dawn, Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. II. Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, I walk over the mountains and the waves, Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam; My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves Are filled with my bright presence, and the air Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. III. The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day; All men who do or even imagine il. Fly me, and from the glory of my ray Good minds and open actions take new might, Until diminished by the reign of night. IV. I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers With their ætherial colours; the Moon's globe And the pure stars in their eternal bowers shine, Are portions of one power, which is mine. V. I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, Into the clouds of the Atlantic even For grief that I depart they weep and frown: What look is more delightful than the smile With which I soothe them from the western isle? VI. I am the eye with which the Universe All prophecy, all medicine are mine, HYMN OF PAN. 36 lines I. FROM the forests and highlands We come, we come ; Where loud waves are dumb The wind in the reeds and the rushes, And the lizards below in the grass, II. Liquid Peneus was flowing, And all dark Tempe lay In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing Mrs. Shelley explains that, in the Midas drama, Apollo and Pan "contend before Tmolus for the prize in music."-ED. |