Silent alone amid an heaven of song.

Assume thy wingèd throne, thou Vesper of our throng!"

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly :
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity,

Until Death tramples it to fragments.-Die,

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is filed!-Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.

LIII.

Why linger, why turn back, why surink, my heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart.
A light is past from the revolving year,

And man and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.

The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near :
'Tis Adonais calls! Oh hasten thither!

No more let life divide what death can join together.

LIV.

That light whose smile kindles the universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which, through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

LV.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given.
The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven !

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.

1.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast,
As she dances about in the sun.

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,
And their great pines groan aghast ;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the Blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning my pilot sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits.

Over earth and ocean with gentle motion
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the Genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream under mountain or stream
The Spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

ΙΙΙ.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,

Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning star shines dead.

As on the jag of a mountain-crag

Which an earthquake rocks and swings

As 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,
Whom mortals call the Moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The Stars peep behind her and peer.

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,-
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

V.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim,
When the Whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
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,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,

In the million-coloured bow;

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.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

O 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,
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, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill :
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer-dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,

Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay,

And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip the skyey speed

Scarce seemed a vision,-I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed

One too like thee :-tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is :
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
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 universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ·
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

.

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES.
THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
The purple noon's transparent light :
The breath of the moist air is light
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,

The winds, the birds, the ocean-floods,

The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown;

I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown :

I sit upon the sands alone;

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content, surpassing wealth,
The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure;
Others I see whom these surround-

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ;-
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are ;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,

And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea

Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I when this sweet day is gone,

Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;

They might lament-for I am one

Whom men love not, -and yet regret ;
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.