DEMOGORGON

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone 540 Of sullen lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:

A CONFUSED VOICE

We hear thy words waken Oblivion.

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DEMOGORGON

Spirits, whose homes are flesh: ye beasts and birds, Ye worms, and fish; ye living leaves and buds; 545 Lightning and wind; and ye untameable herds, Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:

A VOICE

Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.

DEMOGORGON

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave;
A dupe and a deceiver; a decay;

A traveller from the cradle to the grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:

ALL

Speak! thy strong words may never pass away.

DEMOGORGON

This is the day, which down the void abysm

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At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despot

ism,

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And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: Love, from its awful throne of patient power

In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length, These are the spells by which to re-assume An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!

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THE WORLD'S WANDERERS

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

1820.

THE WANING MOON

AND like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapt in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky East,
A white and shapeless mass.

1820.

TO THE MOON

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ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth, —

And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy?

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GOOD NIGHT

GOOD NIGHT? ah, no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood,
Then it will be good night.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good night.

1820.

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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 drest,
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.

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