The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. XLV. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought Far in the unapparent. Chatterton Rose pale, his solemn agony had not Yet faded from him: Sidney as he fought, And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, Arose; and Lucan by his death approved ;- XLVI. And many more, whose names on earth are dark, But whose transmitted effluence cannot die So long as fire outlives the parent spark, Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 'Thou art become as one of us,' they cry; 'It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long Swung blind in unascending majesty, Silent alone amid an heaven of song. Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng! LII. The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly; Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die, If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. LIII. Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart? And man and woman; and what still is dear No more let life divide what death can join together. LIV. That light whose smile kindles the universe, LV. The breath whose might I have invoked in song I am borne darkly, fearfully afar! Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. THE CLOUD. I I. BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. II. I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the Blast. In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion Lured by the love of the Genii that move Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Wherever he dream under mountain or stream And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, III. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, When the morning star shines dead. As on the jag of a mountain-crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. IV. That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,- Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, V. I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below. VI. I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky: I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise, and unbuild it again. O ODE TO THE WEST WIND. WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill |