Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Poems: Ozymandias > (1818), Mont Blanc > (1817), Alastor > (1816)

Ozymandias
(1818)

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 shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked 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.

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni
(1817)

Back to top

I

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
 Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

II

Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine--
Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came
To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging
To hear--an old and solemn harmony;
Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep
Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil
Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep
Which when the voices of the desert fail
Wraps all in its own deep eternity;
Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,
A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;
Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,
Thou art the path of that unresting sound--
Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate fantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around;
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!

III

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.--I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That vanishes among the viewless gales!
    Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears--still, snowy, and serene;
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps;
A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone,
And the wolf tracks her there--how hideously
Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,
Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.--Is this the scene
Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
Of fire envelop once this silent snow?
None can reply--all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be,
But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.

IV

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell
Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound
With which from that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their death and birth,
And that of him and all that his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this , the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains
Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice
Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky
Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing
Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil
Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The limits of the dead and living world,
Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;
Their food and their retreat for ever gone,
So much of life and joy is lost. The race
Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

V

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret Strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?

Alastor: Or, the Spirit of Solitude >
(1816)

Back to top

                     'The good die first,

    And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust

    Burn to the socket!

Alastor: Or, the Spirit of Solitude

Back to top

   EARTH, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!

   If our great Mother has imbued my soul

   With aught of natural piety to feel

   Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;

   If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,

   With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,

   And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;

   If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,

   And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns

   Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;                      10

   If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes

   Her first sweet kisses,--have been dear to me;

   If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast

   I consciously have injured, but still loved

   And cherished these my kindred; then forgive

   This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw

   No portion of your wonted favor now!

     Mother of this unfathomable world!

   Favor my solemn song, for I have loved 

   Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched                           20

   Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,

   And my heart ever gazes on the depth

   Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed

   In charnels and on coffins, where black death

   Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,

   Hoping to still these obstinate questionings

   Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,

   Thy messenger, to render up the tale

   Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,

   When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,               30

   Like an inspired and desperate alchemist

   Staking his very life on some dark hope,

   Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks

   With my most innocent love, until strange tears,

   Uniting with those breathless kisses, made

   Such magic as compels the charmèd night

   To render up thy charge; and, though ne'er yet

   Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,

   Enough from incommunicable dream,

   And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,                  40

   Has shone within me, that serenely now

   And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre

   Suspended in the solitary dome

   Of some mysterious and deserted fane,

   I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain

   May modulate with murmurs of the air,

   And motions of the forests and the sea,

   And voice of living beings, and woven hymns

   Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

     There was a Poet whose untimely tomb                             50

   No human hands with pious reverence reared,

   But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds

   Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid

   Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:

   A lovely youth,--no mourning maiden decked

   With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,

   The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:

   Gentle, and brave, and generous,--no lorn bard

   Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:

   He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.                            60

   Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,

   And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined

   And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.

   The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,

   And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,

   Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

     By solemn vision and bright silver dream

   His infancy was nurtured. Every sight

   And sound from the vast earth and ambient air

   Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.                           70

   The fountains of divine philosophy

   Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,

   Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past

   In truth or fable consecrates, he felt

   And knew. When early youth had passed, he left

   His cold fireside and alienated home

   To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.

   Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness

   Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought

   With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,                    80

   His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps

   He like her shadow has pursued, where'er

   The red volcano overcanopies

   Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice

   With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes

   On black bare pointed islets ever beat

   With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,

   Rugged and dark, winding among the springs

   Of fire and poison, inaccessible

   To avarice or pride, their starry domes                            90

   Of diamond and of gold expand above

   Numberless and immeasurable halls,

   Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines

   Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.

   Nor had that scene of ampler majesty

   Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven

   And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims

   To love and wonder; he would linger long

   In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,

   Until the doves and squirrels would partake                       100

   From his innocuous band his bloodless food,

   Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,

   And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er

   The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend

   Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form

   More graceful than her own.

                                His wandering step,

   Obedient to high thoughts, has visited

   The awful ruins of the days of old:

   Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste

   Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers                          110

   Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

   Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,

   Sculptured on alabaster obelisk

   Or jasper tomb or mutilated sphinx,

   Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills

   Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,

   Stupendous columns, and wild images

   Of more than man, where marble daemons watch

   The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men

   Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,                120

   He lingered, poring on memorials

   Of the world's youth: through the long burning day

   Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon

   Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades

   Suspended he that task, but ever gazed

   And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind

   Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw

   The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

     Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,

   Her daily portion, from her father's tent,                        130

   And spread her matting for his couch, and stole

   From duties and repose to tend his steps,

   Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe

   To speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep,

   Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips

   Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath

   Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn

   Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home

   Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.

     The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,                         140

   And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,

   And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down

   Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,

   In joy and exultation held his way;

   Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within

   Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine

   Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,

   Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched

   His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep

   There came, a dream of hopes that never yet                       150

   Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid

   Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.

   Her voice was like the voice of his own soul

   Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,

   Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held

   His inmost sense suspended in its web

   Of many-colored woof and shifting hues.

   Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,

   And lofty hopes of divine liberty,

   Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,                         160

   Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood

   Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame

   A permeating fire; wild numbers then

   She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs

   Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands

   Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp

   Strange symphony, and in their branching veins

   The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.

   The beating of her heart was heard to fill

   The pauses of her music, and her breath                           170

   Tumultuously accorded with those fits

   Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,

   As if her heart impatiently endured

   Its bursting burden; at the sound he turned,

   And saw by the warm light of their own life

   Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil

   Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,

   Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,

   Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips

   Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.                    180

   His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess

   Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled

   His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet

   Her panting bosom:--she drew back awhile,

   Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,

   With frantic gesture and short breathless cry

   Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.

   Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night

   Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,

   Like a dark flood suspended in its course,                        190

   Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.

     Roused by the shock, he started from his trance--

   The cold white light of morning, the blue moon

   Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,

   The distinct valley and the vacant woods,

   Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled

   The hues of heaven that canopied his bower

   Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,

   The mystery and the majesty of Earth,

   The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes                             200

   Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly

   As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.

   The spirit of sweet human love has sent

   A vision to the sleep of him who spurned

   Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues

   Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;

   He overleaps the bounds. Alas! alas!

   Were limbs and breath and being intertwined

   Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, forever lost

   In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,                         210

   That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death

   Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,

   O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds

   And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake

   Lead only to a black and watery depth,

   While death's blue vault with loathliest vapors hung,

   Where every shade which the foul grave exhales

   Hides its dead eye from the detested day,

   Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?

   This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;                  220

   The insatiate hope which it awakened stung

   His brain even like despair.

                                 While daylight held

   The sky, the Poet kept mute conference

   With his still soul. At night the passion came,

   Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,

   And shook him from his rest, and led him forth

   Into the darkness. As an eagle, grasped

   In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast

   Burn with the poison, and precipitates

   Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,              230

   Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight

   O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven

   By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,

   Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,

   Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,

   Startling with careless step the moon-light snake,

   He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,

   Shedding the mockery of its vital hues

   Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on

   Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep                          240

   Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;

   Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs

   Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind

   Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,

   Day after day, a weary waste of hours,

   Bearing within his life the brooding care

   That ever fed on its decaying flame.

   And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,

   Sered by the autumn of strange suffering,

   Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand                        250

   Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;

   Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone,

   As in a furnace burning secretly,

   From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,

   Who ministered with human charity

   His human wants, beheld with wondering awe

   Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,

   Encountering on some dizzy precipice

   That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind,

   With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet                   260

   Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused

   In its career; the infant would conceal

   His troubled visage in his mother's robe

   In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,

   To remember their strange light in many a dream

   Of after times; but youthful maidens, taught

   By nature, would interpret half the woe

   That wasted him, would call him with false names

   Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand

   At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path                270

   Of his departure from their father's door.

     At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore

   He paused, a wide and melancholy waste

   Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged

   His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,

   Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.

   It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings

   Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course

   High over the immeasurable main.

   His eyes pursued its flight:--'Thou hast a home,                  280

   Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home,

   Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck

   With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes

   Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.

   And what am I that I should linger here,

   With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,

   Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned

   To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers

   In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven

   That echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile                      290

   Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.

   For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly

   Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,

   Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,

   With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

     Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around.

   There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight

   Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.

   A little shallop floating near the shore

   Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.                       300

   It had been long abandoned, for its sides

   Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints

   Swayed with the undulations of the tide.

   A restless impulse urged him to embark

   And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;

   For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves

   The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

     The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky

   Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind

   Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.              310

   Following his eager soul, the wanderer

   Leaped in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft

   On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,

   And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea

   Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.

     As one that in a silver vision floats

   Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds

   Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly

   Along the dark and ruffled waters fled

   The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on,                      320

   With fierce gusts and precipitating force,

   Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.

   The waves arose. Higher and higher still

   Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge

   Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.

   Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war

   Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast

   Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven

   With dark obliterating course, he sate:

   As if their genii were the ministers                              330

   Appointed to conduct him to the light

   Of those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate,

   Holding the steady helm. Evening came on;

   The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues

   High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray

   That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;

   Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,

   Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks

   O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day;

   Night followed, clad with stars. On every side                    340

   More horribly the multitudinous streams

   Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war

   Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock

   The calm and spangled sky. The little boat

   Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam

   Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;

   Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;

   Now leaving far behind the bursting mass

   That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled--

   As if that frail and wasted human form                            350

   Had been an elemental god.

                               At midnight

   The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs

   Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone

   Among the stars like sunlight, and around

   Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves

   Bursting and eddying irresistibly

   Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?--

   The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,--

   The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,

   The shattered mountain overhung the sea,                          360

   And faster still, beyond all human speed,

   Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,

   The little boat was driven. A cavern there

   Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths

   Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on

   With unrelaxing speed.--'Vision and Love!'

   The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld

   The path of thy departure. Sleep and death

   Shall not divide us long.'

                               The boat pursued

   The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone                        370

   At length upon that gloomy river's flow;

   Now, where the fiercest war among the waves

   Is calm, on the unfathomable stream

   The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,

   Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,

   Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell

   Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound

   That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass

   Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;

   Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,                        380

   Circling immeasurably fast, and laved

   With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots

   Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms

   In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,

   Reflecting yet distorting every cloud,

   A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.

   Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,

   With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round,

   Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,

   Till on the verge of the extremest curve,                         390

   Where through an opening of the rocky bank

   The waters overflow, and a smooth spot

   Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides

   Is left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sink

   Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress

   Of that resistless gulf embosom it?

   Now shall it fall?--A wandering stream of wind

   Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,

   And, lo! with gentle motion between banks

   Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,                           400

   Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark!

   The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar

   With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.

   Where the embowering trees recede, and leave

   A little space of green expanse, the cove

   Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers

   Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes,

   Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave

   Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,

   Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,                    410

   Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay

   Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed

   To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,

   But on his heart its solitude returned,

   And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid

   In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,

   Had yet performed its ministry; it hung

   Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud

   Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods

   Of night close over it.

                            The noonday sun                          420

   Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass

   Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence

   A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,

   Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks,

   Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever.

   The meeting boughs and implicated leaves

   Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led

   By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,

   He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,

   Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark                           430

   And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,

   Expanding its immense and knotty arms,

   Embraces the light beech. The pyramids

   Of the tall cedar overarching frame

   Most solemn domes within, and far below,

   Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,

   The ash and the acacia floating hang

   Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed

   In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,

   Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around                   440

   The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,

   With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,

   Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,

   These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs,

   Uniting their close union; the woven leaves

   Make network of the dark blue light of day

   And the night's noontide clearness, mutable

   As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns

   Beneath these canopies extend their swells,

   Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms                450

   Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen

   Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine

   A soul-dissolving odor to invite

   To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell

   Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep

   Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,

   Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,

   Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,

   Images all the woven boughs above,

   And each depending leaf, and every speck                          460

   Of azure sky darting between their chasms;

   Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves

   Its portraiture, but some inconstant star,

   Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,

   Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,

   Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,

   Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings

   Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

   Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld

   Their own wan light through the reflected lines                   470

   Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth

   Of that still fountain; as the human heart,

   Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,

   Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard

   The motion of the leaves--the grass that sprung

   Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel

   An unaccustomed presence--and the sound

   Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs

   Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed

   To stand beside him--clothed in no bright robes                   480

   Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,

   Borrowed from aught the visible world affords

   Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;

   But undulating woods, and silent well,

   And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom

   Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,

   Held commune with him, as if he and it

   Were all that was; only--when his regard

   Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes,

   Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,                    490

   And seemed with their serene and azure smiles

   To beckon him.

                   Obedient to the light

   That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing

   The windings of the dell. The rivulet,

   Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine

   Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell

   Among the moss with hollow harmony

   Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones

   It danced, like childhood laughing as it went;

   Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,             500

   Reflecting every herb and drooping bud

   That overhung its quietness.--'O stream!

   Whose source is inaccessibly profound,

   Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?

   Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,

   Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,

   Thy searchless fountain and invisible course,

   Have each their type in me; and the wide sky

   And measureless ocean may declare as soon

   What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud                          510

   Contains thy waters, as the universe

   Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched

   Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste

   I' the passing wind!'

                          Beside the grassy shore

   Of the small stream he went; he did impress

   On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught

   Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one

   Roused by some joyous madness from the couch

   Of fever, he did move; yet not like him

   Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame                     520

   Of his frail exultation shall be spent,

   He must descend. With rapid steps he went

   Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow

   Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now

   The forest's solemn canopies were changed

   For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.

   Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed

   The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae

   Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,

   And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines                     530

   Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots

   The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here

   Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,

   The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin

   And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes

   Had shone, gleam stony orbs:--so from his steps

   Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade

   Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds

   And musical motions. Calm he still pursued

   The stream, that with a larger volume now                         540

   Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there

   Fretted a path through its descending curves

   With its wintry speed. On every side now rose

   Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,

   Lifted their black and barren pinnacles

   In the light of evening, and its precipice

   Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,

   'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,

   Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues

   To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands                    550

   Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,

   And seems with its accumulated crags

   To overhang the world; for wide expand

   Beneath the wan stars and descending moon

   Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,

   Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom

   Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills

   Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge

   Of the remote horizon. The near scene,

   In naked and severe simplicity,                                   560

   Made contrast with the universe. A pine,

   Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy

   Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast

   Yielding one only response at each pause

   In most familiar cadence, with the howl,

   The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams

   Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river

   Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,

   Fell into that immeasurable void,

   Scattering its waters to the passing winds.                       570

     Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine

   And torrent were not all;--one silent nook

   Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,

   Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,

   It overlooked in its serenity

   The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.

   It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile

   Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped

   The fissured stones with its entwining arms,

   And did embower with leaves forever green                         580

   And berries dark the smooth and even space

   Of its inviolated floor; and here

   The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore

   In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay,

   Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,

   Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt

   Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach

   The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,

   One human step alone, has ever broken

   The stillness of its solitude; one voice                          590

   Alone inspired its echoes;--even that voice

   Which hither came, floating among the winds,

   And led the loveliest among human forms

   To make their wild haunts the depository

   Of all the grace and beauty that endued

   Its motions, render up its majesty,

   Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,

   And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,

   Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,

   Commit the colors of that varying cheek,                          600

   That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

     The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured

   A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge

   That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist

   Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank

   Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star

   Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,

   Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice

   Slept, clasped in his embrace.--O storm of death,

   Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!                  610

   And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still

   Guiding its irresistible career

   In thy devastating omnipotence,

   Art king of this frail world! from the red field

   Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,

   The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed

   Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,

   A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls

   His brother Death! A rare and regal prey

   He hath prepared, prowling around the world;                      620

   Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men

   Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,

   Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine

   The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

     When on the threshold of the green recess

   The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death

   Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,

   Did he resign his high and holy soul

   To images of the majestic past,

   That paused within his passive being now,                         630

   Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe

   Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place

   His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk

   Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone

   Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,

   Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink

   Of that obscurest chasm;--and thus he lay,

   Surrendering to their final impulses

   The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,

   The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear                      640

   Marred his repose; the influxes of sense

   And his own being, unalloyed by pain,

   Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

   The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there

   At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight

   Was the great moon, which o'er the western line

   Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,

   With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed

   To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills

   It rests; and still as the divided frame                          650

   Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,

   That ever beat in mystic sympathy

   With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still;

   And when two lessening points of light alone

   Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp

   Of his faint respiration scarce did stir

   The stagnate night:--till the minutest ray

   Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.

   It paused--it fluttered. But when heaven remained

   Utterly black, the murky shades involved                          660

   An image silent, cold, and motionless,

   As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.

   Even as a vapor fed with golden beams

   That ministered on sunlight, ere the west

   Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame--

   No sense, no motion, no divinity--

   A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings

   The breath of heaven did wander--a bright stream

   Once fed with many-voicèd waves--a dream

   Of youth, which night and time have quenched forever--            670

   Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

     Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,

   Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam

   With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale

   From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! Oh, that God,

   Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice

   Which but one living man has drained, who now,

   Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels

   No proud exemption in the blighting curse

   He bears, over the world wanders forever,                         680

   Lone as incarnate death! Oh, that the dream

   Of dark magician in his visioned cave,

   Raking the cinders of a crucible

   For life and power, even when his feeble hand

   Shakes in its last decay, were the true law

   Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,

   Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn

   Robes in its golden beams,--ah! thou hast fled!

   The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,

   The child of grace and genius. Heartless things                   690

   Are done and said i' the world, and many worms

   And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth

   From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,

   In vesper low or joyous orison,

   Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled--

   Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes

   Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee

   Been purest ministers, who are, alas!

   Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips

   So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes                     700

   That image sleep in death, upon that form

   Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear

   Be shed--not even in thought. Nor, when those hues

   Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,

   Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone

   In the frail pauses of this simple strain,

   Let not high verse, mourning the memory

   Of that which is no more, or painting's woe

   Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery

   Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,                         710

   And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain

   To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.

   It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all

   Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,

   Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves

   Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,

   The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;

   But pale despair and cold tranquillity,

   Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,

   Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.                   720

Back to top

Source:
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1. Ozymandias

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, History of a Six Weeks' Tour (London: T. Hookham, June 1817).
Facsimile of first edition (Oxford: Woodstock, 1989)