CVII. Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— CVIII. 850 855 Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 860 When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792-1822 ODE TO THE WEST WIND (1819) I. O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 5 Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 10 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 every where; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear! II. 15 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Ocean, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread 20 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the dying year, to which this closing night 25 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere III. Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 30 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 35 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 40 The sapless foliage of the ocean know Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, IV. If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; 45 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 50 As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 55 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. V. Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 60 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! 65 And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind, 70 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? TO A SKYLARK (1820) Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, 5 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, 10 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; 15 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad day-light 20 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear 25 Until we hardly see-we feel that it is there. All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, 30 The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see 35 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Till the world is wrought 40 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: |