Its every leaf and lineament With more than truth exprest; Until an envious wind crept by, Like an unwelcome thought Which from the mind's too faithful eye Blots one dear image out.
-Though Thou art ever fair and kind, The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind
Than calm in waters seen!
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?
A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above
The freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground,
'And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound.
TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR ARIEL to Miranda :-Take This slave of music, for the sake Of him, who is the slave of thee; And teach it all the harmony In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow, Till joy denies itself again And, too intense, is turn'd to pain. For by permission and command Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, Poor Ariel sends this silent token Of more than ever can be spoken; Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who From life to life must still pursue Your happiness, for thus alone Can Ariel ever find his own; From Prospero's enchanted cell, As the mighty verses tell, To the throne of Naples he Lit you o'er the trackless sea, Flitting on, your prow before, Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon In her interlunar swoon
Is not sadder in her cell Than deserted Ariel;
When you live again on earth, Like an unseen Star of birth Ariel guides you o'er the sea Of life from your nativity: Many changes have been run Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has track'd your steps and served your will.
Now in humbler, happier lot,
This is all remember'd not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is Imprison'd for some fault of his In a body like a grave- From you he only dares to crave For his service and his sorrow A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.
The artist who this idol wrought To echo all harmonious thought,
Fell'd a tree, while on the steep The woods were in their winter sleep, Rock'd in that repose divine On the wind-swept Apennine; And dreaming, some of autumn past, And some of spring approaching fast, And some of April buds and showers, And some of songs in July bowers, And all of love: And so this tree,- Oh that such our death may be !- Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar; And taught it justly to reply To all who question skilfully In language gentle as thine own; Whispering in enamour'd tone Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells; -For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many-voicéd fountains; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its way: -All this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it; It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day. But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest holiest tone For our beloved Friend alone.
ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN PROFANED
ONE word is too often profaned For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And Pity from thee more dear Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?
I MET a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.
THE FLIGHT OF LOVE
WHEN the lamp is shatter'd The light in the dust lies dead— When the cloud is scatter'd, The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remember'd not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute- No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruin'd cell, Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.
When hearts have once mingled, Love first leaves the well-built nest; The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possesst.
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
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