(Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, December 8, 1832; reprinted, “Poetical Works”, 1839. There is a transcript amongst the Harvard manuscripts, and another in the possession of Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn. Variants from these two sources are given by Professor Woodberry, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Centenary Edition, 1893, volume 3 pages 225, 226. The transcripts are referred to in our footnotes as Harvard and Fred. respectively.)
1.
Corpses are cold in the tomb;
Stones on the pavement are dumb;
Abortions are dead in the womb,
And their mothers look pale — like the death-white shore
Of Albion, free no more. 5
2.
Her sons are as stones in the way —
They are masses of senseless clay —
They are trodden, and move not away, —
The abortion with which SHE travaileth
Is Liberty, smitten to death. 10
3.
Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor!
For thy victim is no redresser;
Thou art sole lord and possessor
Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions — they pave
Thy path to the grave. 15
4.
Hearest thou the festival din
Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin,
And Wealth crying “Havoc!” within?
‘Tis the bacchanal triumph that makes Truth dumb,
Thine Epithalamium. 20
5.
Ay, marry thy ghastly wife!
Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife
Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life!
Marry Ruin, thou Tyrant! and Hell be thy guide
To the bed of the bride! 25
SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
1.
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
2.
Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save, 5
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood?
3.
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 10
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
4.
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear 15
With your pain and with your fear?
5.
The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge; another bears. 20
6.
Sow seed, — but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, — let no impostor heap;
Weave robes, — let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, — in your defence to bear.
7.
Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells; 25
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.
8.
With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 30
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre.
SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819.
(Published by Medwin, “The Athenaeum”, August 25, 1832; reprinted by
Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839. Our title is that of 1839, 2nd
edition. The poem is found amongst the Harvard manuscripts, headed “To
S — th and O — gh”.)
1.
As from an ancestral oak
Two empty ravens sound their clarion,
Yell by yell, and croak by croak,
When they scent the noonday smoke
Of fresh human carrion: — 5
2.
As two gibbering night-birds flit
From their bowers of deadly yew
Through the night to frighten it,
When the moon is in a fit,
And the stars are none, or few: — 10
3.
As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,
For the negro-ship, whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,
Wrinkling their red gills the while — 15
4.
Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,
Two scorpions under one wet stone,
Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,
Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,
Two vipers tangled into one. 20
**
TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
People of England, ye who toil and groan,
Who reap the harvests which are not your own,
Who weave the clothes which your oppressors wear,
And for your own take the inclement air;
Who build warm houses… 5
And are like gods who give them all they have,
And nurse them from the cradle to the grave…
…
WHAT MEN GAIN FAIRLY. (FRAGMENT)
(Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman). — ED.)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
What men gain fairly — that they should possess,
And children may inherit idleness,
From him who earns it — This is understood;
Private injustice may be general good.
But he who gains by base and armed wrong, 5
Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,
May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress
Is stripped from a convicted thief; and he
Left in the nakedness of infamy.
A NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.)
1.
God prosper, speed,and save,
God raise from England’s grave
Her murdered Queen!
Pave with swift victory
The steps of Liberty, 5
Whom Britons own to be
Immortal Queen.
2.
See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity!
God save the Queen! 10
Millions on millions wait,
Firm, rapid, and elate,
On her majestic state!
God save the Queen!
3.
She is Thine own pure soul 15
Moulding the mighty whole, —
God save the Queen!
She is Thine own deep love
Rained down from Heaven above, —
Wherever she rest or move, 20
God save our Queen!
4.
‘Wilder her enemies
In their own dark disguise, —
God save our Queen!
All earthly things that dare 25
Her sacred name to bear,
Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!
5.
Be her eternal throne
Built in our hearts alone — 30
God save the Queen!
Let the oppressor hold
Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old
O’er our hearts Queen. 35
6.
Lips touched by seraphim
Breathe out the choral hymn
‘God save the Queen!’
Sweet as if angels sang,
Loud as that trumpet’s clang 40
Wakening the world’s dead gang, —
God save the Queen!
SONNET: ENGLAND IN 1819.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, —
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, —
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 5
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, —
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, —
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield, —
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay; 10
Religion Christless, Godless — a book sealed;
A Senate, — Time’s worst statute, unrepealed, —
Are graves from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
AN ODE, WRITTEN OCTOBER, 1819, BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED THEIR LIBERTY.
(Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.)
Arise, arise, arise!
There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;
Be your wounds like eyes
To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.
What other grief were it just to pay? 5
Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;
Who said they were slain on the battle day?
Awaken, awaken, awaken!
The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;
Be the cold chains shaken 10
To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:
Their bones in the grave will start and move,
When they hear the voices of those they love,
Most loud in the holy combat above.
Wave, wave high the banner! 15
When Freedom is riding to conquest by:
Though the slaves that fan her
Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.
And ye who attend her imperial car,
Lift not your hands in the banded war, 20
But in her defence whose children ye are.
Glory, glory, glory,
To those who have greatly suffered and done!
Never name in story
Was greater than that which ye shall have won. 25
Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,
Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown
Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.
Bind, bind every brow
With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine: 30
Hide the blood-stains now
With hues which sweet Nature has made divine:
Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:
But let not the pansy among them be;
Ye were injured, and that means memory. 35
CANCELLED STANZA.
(Published in “The Times” (Rossetti).)
Gather, O gather,
Foeman and friend in love and peace!
Waves sleep together
When the blasts that called them to battle, cease.
For fangless Power grown tame and mild 5
Is at play with Freedom’s fearless child —
The dove and the serpent reconciled!
ODE TO HEAVEN.
(Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820. Dated ‘Florence, December, 1819’ in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., page 39.)
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then
Of the Present and the Past, 5
Of the eternal Where and When,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,
Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee, 10
Earth, and all earth’s company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses; 15
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode 20
Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Their unremaining gods and they 25
Like a river roll away:
Thou remainest such — alway! —
SECOND SPIRIT:
Thou art but the mind’s first chamber,
Round which its young fancies clamber,
Like weak insects in a cave, 30
Lighted up by stalactites;
But the portal of the grave,
Where a world of new delights
Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam 35
From the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT:
Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
What is Heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit? 40
What are suns and spheres which flee
With the instinct of that Spirit
Of which ye are but a part?
Drops which Nature’s mighty heart
Drives through thinnest veins! Depart! 45
What is Heaven? a globe of dew,
Filling in the morning new
Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken
On an unimagined world:
Constellated suns unshaken, 50
Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.
(Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.)
The (living frame which sustains my soul)
Is (sinking beneath the fierce control)
Down through the lampless deep of song
I am drawn and driven along —
When a Nation screams aloud 5
Like an eagle from the cloud
When a…
…
When the night…
…
Watch the look askance and old —
See neglect, and falsehood fold… 10
ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
(This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.)
(Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.)
1.
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, 5
Who chariotest t
o 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 10
(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, oh, hear!
2.
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky’s commotion, 15
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!
3.
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 35
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 40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!
4.
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 45
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 thy skiey speed 50
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!