Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

The transport of a fierce and monstrous gladness

Spread through the multitudinous streets, fast flying

Upon the winds of fear; from his dull madness

The starveling waked, and died in joy; the dying,

Among the corpses in stark agony lying,

Just heard the happy tidings, and in hope

Closed their faint eyes; from house to house replying

With loud acclaim, the living shook Heaven’s cope,

      And filled the startled Earth with echoes. Morn did ope

Its pale eyes then; and lo! the long array

Of guards in golden arms, and Priests beside,

Singing their bloody hymns, whose garbs betray

The blackness of the faith it seems to hide;

And see the Tyrant’s gem-wrought chariot glide

Among the gloomy cowls and glittering spears--

A Shape of light is sitting by his side,

A child most beautiful. I’ the midst appears

      Laon--exempt alone from mortal hopes and fears.

His head and feet are bare, his hands are bound

Behind with heavy chains, yet none do wreak

Their scoffs on him, though myriads throng around;

There are no sneers upon his lip which speak

That scorn or hate has made him bold; his cheek

Resolve has not turned pale; his eyes are mild

And calm, and, like the morn about to break,

Smile on mankind; his heart seems reconciled

      To all things and itself, like a reposing child.

Tumult was in the soul of all beside,

Ill joy, or doubt, or fear; but those who saw

Their tranquil victim pass felt wonder glide

Into their brain, and became calm with awe.--

See, the slow pageant near the pile doth draw.

A thousand torches in the spacious square,

Borne by the ready slaves of ruthless law,

Await the signal round; the morning fair

      Is changed to a dim night by that unnatural glare.

And see! beneath a sun-bright canopy,

Upon a platform level with the pile,

The anxious Tyrant sit, enthroned on high,

Girt by the chieftains of the host; all smile

In expectation but one child: the while

I, Laon, led by mutes, ascend my bier

Of fire, and look around;--each distant isle

Is dark in the bright dawn; towers far and near

      Pierce like reposing flames the tremulous atmosphere.

There was such silence through the host as when

An earthquake, trampling on some populous town,

Has crushed ten thousand with one tread, and men

Expect the second; all were mute but one,

That fairest child, who, bold with love, alone

Stood up before the king, without avail,

Pleading for Laon’s life--her stifled groan

Was heard--she trembled like one aspen pale

      Among the gloomy pines of a Norwegian vale.

What were his thoughts linked in the morning sun,

Among those reptiles, stingless with delay,

Even like a tyrant’s wrath?--the signal-gun

Roared--hark, again! in that dread pause he lay

As in a quiet dream--the slaves obey--

A thousand torches drop,--and hark, the last

Bursts on that awful silence; far away

Millions, with hearts that beat both loud and fast,

      Watch for the springing flame expectant and aghast.

They fly--the torches fall--a cry of fear

Has startled the triumphant!--they recede!

For, ere the cannon’s roar has died, they hear

The tramp of hoofs like earthquake, and a steed

Dark and gigantic, with the tempest’s speed,

Bursts through their ranks; a woman sits thereon,

Fairer it seems than aught that earth can breed,

Calm, radiant, like the phantom of the dawn,

      A spirit from the caves of daylight wandering gone.

All thought it was God’s Angel come to sweep

The lingering guilty to their fiery grave;

The Tyrant from his throne in dread did leap,--

Her innocence his child from fear did save;

Scared by the faith they feigned, each priestly slave

Knelt for His mercy whom they served with blood,

And, like the refluence of a mighty wave

Sucked into the loud sea, the multitude

      With crushing panic fled in terror’s altered mood.

They pause, they blush, they gaze; a gathering shout

Bursts like one sound from the ten thousand streams

Of a tempestuous sea; that sudden rout

One checked who never in his mildest dreams

Felt awe from grace or loveliness, the seams

Of his rent heart so hard and cold a creed

Had seared with blistering ice; but he misdeems

That he is wise whose wounds do only bleed

      Inly for self,--thus thought the Iberian Priest indeed,

And others, too, thought he was wise to see

In pain, and fear, and hate, something divine--

In love and beauty, no divinity.

Now with a bitter smile, whose light did shine

Like a fiend’s hope upon his lips and eyne,

He said, and the persuasion of that sneer

Rallied his trembling comrades--’Is it mine

To stand alone, when kings and soldiers fear

      A woman? Heaven has sent its other victim here.’

’Were it not impious,’ said the King, ’to break

Our holy oath?’--’Impious to keep it, say!’

Shrieked the exulting Priest:--’Slaves, to the stake

Bind her, and on my head the burden lay

Of her just torments; at the Judgment Day

Will I stand up before the golden throne

Of Heaven, and cry,--"To Thee did I betray

An infidel! but for me she would have known

      Another moment’s joy!" the glory be thine own.’

They trembled, but replied not, nor obeyed,

Pausing in breathless silence. Cythna sprung

From her gigantic steed, who, like a shade

Chased by the winds, those vacant streets among

Fled tameless, as the brazen rein she flung

Upon his neck, and kissed his moonèd brow.

A piteous sight, that one so fair and young

The clasp of such a fearful death should woo

      With smiles of tender joy as beamed from Cythna now.

The warm tears burst in spite of faith and fear

From many a tremulous eye, but, like soft dews

Which feed spring’s earliest buds, hung gathered there,

Frozen by doubt,--alas! they could not choose

But weep; for, when her faint limbs did refuse

To climb the pyre, upon the mutes she smiled;

And with her eloquent gestures, and the hues

Of her quick lips, even as a weary child

      Wins sleep from some fond nurse with its caresses mild,

She won them, though unwilling, her to bind

Near me, among the snakes. When then had fled

One soft reproach that was most thrilling kind,

She smiled on me, and nothing then we said,

But each upon the other’s countenance fed

Looks of insatiate love; the mighty veil

Which doth divide the living and the dead

Was almost rent, the world grew dim and pale--

      All light in Heaven or Earth beside our love did fail.

Yet--yet--one brief relapse, like the last beam

Of dying flames, the stainless air around

Hung silent and serene--a blood-red gleam

Burst upwards, hurling fiercely from the ground

The globèd smoke; I heard the mighty sound

Of its uprise, like a tempestuous ocean;

And, through its chasms I saw, as in a swound,

The Tyrant’s child fall without life or motion

      Before his throne, subdued by some unseen emotion.--

And is this death?--The pyre has disappeared,

The Pestilence, the Tyrant, and the throng;

The flames grow silent--slowly there is heard

The music of a breath-suspending song,

Which, like the kiss of love when life is young,

Steeps the faint eyes in darkness sweet and deep;

With ever-changing notes it floats along,

Till on my passive soul there seemed to creep

      A melody, like waves on wrinkled sands that leap.

The warm touch of a soft and tremulous hand

Wakened me then; lo, Cythna sate reclined

Beside me, on the waved and golden sand

Of a clear pool, upon a bank o’ertwined

With strange and star-bright flowers which to the wind

Breathed divine odor; high above was spread

The emerald heaven of trees of unknown kind,

Whose moonlike blooms and bright fruit overhead

      A shadow, which was light, upon the waters shed.

And round about sloped many a lawny mountain

With incense-bearing forests and vast caves

Of marble radiance, to that mighty fountain;

And, where the flood its own bright margin laves,

Their echoes talk with its eternal waves,

Which from the depths whose jagged caverns breed

Their unreposing strife it lifts and heaves,

Till through a chasm of hills they roll, and feed

      A river deep, which flies with smooth but arrowy speed.

As we sate gazing in a trance of wonder,

A boat approached, borne by the musical air

Along the waves which sung and sparkled under

Its rapid keel. A wingèd Shape sate there,

A child with silver-shining wings, so fair

That, as her bark did through the waters glide,

The shadow of the lingering waves did wear

Light, as from starry beams; from side to side

      While veering to the wind her plumes the bark did guide.

The boat was one curved shell of hollow pearl,

Almost translucent with the light divine

Of her within; the prow and stern did curl,

Hornèd on high, like the young moon supine,

When o’er dim twilight mountains dark with pine

It floats upon the sunset’s sea of beams,

Whose golden waves in many a purple line

Fade fast, till, borne on sunlight’s ebbing streams,

      Dilating, on earth’s verge the sunken meteor gleams.

Its keel has struck the sands beside our feet.

Then Cythna turned to me, and from her eyes,

Which swam with unshed tears, a look more sweet

Than happy love, a wild and glad surprise,

Glanced as she spake: ’Ay, this is Paradise

And not a dream, and we are all united!

Lo, that is mine own child, who in the guise

Of madness came, like day to one benighted

      In lonesome woods; my heart is now too well requited!’

And then she wept aloud, and in her arms

Clasped that bright Shape, less marvellously fair

Than her own human hues and living charms,

Which, as she leaned in passion’s silence there,

Breathed warmth on the cold bosom of the air,

Which seemed to blush and tremble with delight;

The glossy darkness of her streaming hair

Fell o’er that snowy child, and wrapped from sight

      The fond and long embrace which did their hearts unite.

Then the bright child, the plumèd Seraph, came,

And fixed its blue and beaming eyes on mine,

And said, ’I was disturbed by tremulous shame

When once we met, yet knew that I was thine

From the same hour in which thy lips divine

Kindled a clinging dream within my brain,

Which ever waked when I might sleep, to twine

Thine image with her memory dear; again

      We meet, exempted now from mortal fear or pain.

’When the consuming flames had wrapped ye round,

The hope which I had cherished went away;

I fell in agony on the senseless ground,

And hid mine eyes in dust, and far astray

My mind was gone, when bright, like dawning day,

The Spectre of the Plague before me flew,

And breathed upon my lips, and seemed to say,

"They wait for thee, belovèd!"--then I knew

      The death-mark on my breast, and became calm anew.

’It was the calm of love--for I was dying.

I saw the black and half-extinguished pyre

In its own gray and shrunken ashes lying;

The pitchy smoke of the departed fire

Still hung in many a hollow dome and spire

Above the towers, like night,--beneath whose shade,

Awed by the ending of their own desire,

The armies stood; a vacancy was made

      In expectation’s depth, and so they stood dismayed.

’The frightful silence of that altered mood

The tortures of the dying clove alone,

Till one uprose among the multitude,

And said--"The flood of time is rolling on;

We stand upon its brink, whilst they are gone

To glide in peace down death’s mysterious stream.

Have ye done well? they moulder, flesh and bone,

Who might have made this life’s envenomed dream

      A sweeter draught than ye will ever taste, I deem.

’"These perish as the good and great of yore

Have perished, and their murderers will repent;

Yes, vain and barren tears shall flow before

Yon smoke has faded from the firmament,

Even for this cause, that ye, who must lament

The death of those that made this world so fair,

Cannot recall them now; but then is lent

To man the wisdom of a high despair,

      When such can die, and he live on and linger here.

’"Ay, ye may fear not now the Pestilence,

From fabled hell as by a charm withdrawn;

All power and faith must pass, since calmly hence

In pain and fire have unbelievers gone;

And ye must sadly turn away, and moan

In secret, to his home each one returning;

And to long ages shall this hour be known,

And slowly shall its memory, ever burning,

      Fill this dark night of things with an eternal morning.

’"For me that world is grown too void and cold,

Since hope pursues immortal destiny

With steps thus slow--therefore shall ye behold

How those who love, yet fear not, dare to die;

Tell to your children this!" then suddenly

He sheathed a dagger in his heart, and fell;

My brain grew dark in death, and yet to me

There came a murmur from the crowd to tell

      Of deep and mighty change which suddenly befell.

’Then suddenly I stood, a wingèd Thought,

Before the immortal Senate, and the seat

Of that star-shining Spirit, whence is wrought

The strength of its dominion, good and great,

The Better Genius of this world’s estate.

His realm around one mighty Fane is spread,

Elysian islands bright and fortunate,

Calm dwellings of the free and happy dead,

      Where I am sent to lead!’ These wingèd words she said,

And with the silence of her eloquent smile,

Bade us embark in her divine canoe;

Then at the helm we took our seat, the while

Above her head those plumes of dazzling hue

Into the winds’ invisible stream she threw,

Sitting beside the prow; like gossamer

On the swift breath of morn the vessel flew

O’er the bright whirlpools of that fountain fair,

      Whose shores receded fast while we seemed lingering there;

Till down that mighty stream dark, calm and fleet,

Between a chasm of cedarn mountains riven,

Chased by the thronging winds whose viewless feet,

As swift as twinkling beams, had under Heaven

From woods and waves wild sounds and odors driven,

The boat fled visibly; three nights and days,

Borne like a cloud through morn, and noon, and even,

We sailed along the winding watery ways

      Of the vast stream, a long and labyrinthine maze.

A scene of joy and wonder to behold,--

That river’s shapes and shadows changing ever,

Where the broad sunrise filled with deepening gold

Its whirlpools where all hues did spread and quiver;

And where melodious falls did burst and shiver

Among rocks clad with flowers, the foam and spray

Sparkled like stars upon the sunny river;

Or, when the moonlight poured a holier day,

      One vast and glittering lake around green islands lay.

Morn, noon and even, that boat of pearl outran

The streams which bore it, like the arrowy cloud

Of tempest, or the speedier thought of man,

Which flieth forth and cannot make abode;

Sometimes through forests, deep like night, we glode,

Between the walls of mighty mountains crowned

With Cyclopean piles, whose turrets proud,

The homes of the departed, dimly frowned

      O’er the bright waves which girt their dark foundations round.

Sometimes between the wide and flowering meadows

Mile after mile we sailed, and ’t was delight

To see far off the sunbeams chase the shadows

Over the grass; sometimes beneath the night

Of wide and vaulted caves, whose roofs were bright

With starry gems, we fled, whilst from their deep

And dark green chasms shades beautiful and white,

Amid sweet sounds across our path would sweep,

      Like swift and lovely dreams that walk the waves of sleep.

And ever as we sailed, our minds were full

Of love and wisdom, which would overflow

In converse wild, and sweet, and wonderful;

And in quick smiles whose light would come and go,

Like music o’er wide waves, and in the flow

Of sudden tears, and in the mute caress;

For a deep shade was cleft, and we did know,

That virtue, though obscured on Earth, not less

      Survives all mortal change in lasting loveliness.

Three days and nights we sailed, as thought and feeling

Number delightful hours--for through the sky

The spherèd lamps of day and night, revealing

New changes and new glories, rolled on high,

Sun, Moon and moonlike lamps, the progeny

Of a diviner Heaven, serene and fair;

On the fourth day, wild as a wind-wrought sea

The stream became, and fast and faster bare

      The spirit-wingèd boat, steadily speeding there.

Steady and swift, where the waves rolled like mountains

Within the vast ravine, whose rifts did pour

Tumultuous floods from their ten thousand fountains,

The thunder of whose earth-uplifting roar

Made the air sweep in whirlwinds from the shore,

Calm as a shade, the boat of that fair child

Securely fled that rapid stress before,

Amid the topmost spray and sunbows wild

      Wreathed in the silver mist; in joy and pride we smiled.

The torrent of that wide and raging river

Is passed, and our aërial speed suspended.

We look behind; a golden mist did quiver

When its wild surges with the lake were blended;

Our bark hung there, as on a line suspended

Between two heavens,--that windless, waveless lake,

Which four great cataracts from four vales, attended

By mists, aye feed; from rocks and clouds they break,

      And of that azure sea a silent refuge make.

Motionless resting on the lake awhile,

I saw its marge of snow-bright mountains rear

Their peaks aloft; I saw each radiant isle;

And in the midst, afar, even like a sphere

Hung in one hollow sky, did there appear

The Temple of the Spirit; on the sound

Which issued thence drawn nearer and more near

Like the swift moon this glorious earth around,

      The charmèd boat approached, and there its haven found.