383

ASTREA REDUX

THE world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,

The earth doth like a snake renew

Her winter weeds outworn:

Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains

From waves serener far;
A new Peneus rolls his fountains
Against the morning-star;

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies;
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

O, write no more the tale of Troy,

If earth Death's scroll must be ! Nor mix with Laian rage the joy Which dawns upon the free, Although a subtler Sphinx renew Riddles of death Thebes never knew!

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendour of its prime,

And leave, if naught so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued :

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

O, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past

O, might it die or rest at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

384

THE SONG OF PAN

FROM the forests and highlands
We come, we come!

From the river-girt islands
Where loud waves are dumb,
Listening to my sweet pipings!

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,

The cicale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,
And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns

And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the dædal Earth,

And of Heaven, and the Giant Wars,
And Love, and Death, and Birth—
And then I changed my pipings:
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed!
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus:
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed :
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

385

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

THE INDIAN SERENADE

I ARISE from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me—who knows how !
To thy chamber window, Sweet !

The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream—
And the champak's odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart ;—
As I must on thine,

O beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!

I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast-
O, press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last!

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

386

RARELY, RARELY, COMEST THOU

RARELY, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure :

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,

And the starry night,

Autumn evening, and the morn

When the golden mists are born.

I love snow, and all the forms

Of the radiant frost ;

I love waves, and winds, and storms

Everything almost

Which is Nature's, and may be

Untainted by man's misery.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference?-But thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee;

But above all other things,

Spirit, I love thee

Thou art love and life! O, come,

Make once more my heart thy home!

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

387

I FEAR THY KISSES

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine:
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine:

Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

388

TO NIGHT

SWIFTLY walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,

Which make thee terrible and dear-
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day