Phantom may Glory, glory, glory, To those who have greatly suffered and done! Never name in story Was greater than that which ye shall have won. Conquerors have conquered their foes alone, Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown: Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. Ride ye, more victorious, over your own. Bind, bind every brow With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine : Hide the blood-stains now With hues which sweet nature has made divine: And swift stars with flashing tresses; And icy moons most cold and bright, And mighty suns beyond the night, Atoms of intensest light. Even thy name is as a god, Green strength, azure hope, and eter- Heaven! for thou art the abode Of that power which is the glass Wherein mat his nature sees. Generations as they pass Worship thee with bended knees. Their unremaining gods and they Like a river roll away: Thou remainest such alway. Second Spirit Thou art but the mind's first chamber, But the portal of the grave, Third Spirit Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? What are suns and spheres which flee What is heaven? a globe of dew, Some eyed flower whose young leaves On an unimagined world : Constellated suns unshaken, ODE TO THE WEST WIND1 I Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Angels of rain and lightning: there are Thou, from whose unseen presence the On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: Oh hear ! III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams Wild Spirit, which art moving every- The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, overgrown with azure moss and flowers 1 This poem was conceived and chiefly written All in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animat So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! ing, was collecting the vapours which pour down Thou the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, For whose path the Atlantic's level at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know ww Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with Scatter, as from an unextinguished And tremble and despoil themselves: Ashes and sparks, my words among The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the uni verse Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? AN EXHORTATION Poets could but find the same Would they ever change their hue As the light chameleons do, Suiting it to every ray Twenty times a day? Poets are on this cold earth, As chameleons might be, Yet dare not stain with wealth or power Any food but beams and wind, THE INDIAN SERENADE I I ARISE from dreams of thee |