80

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85

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee;
Thou lovest – but ne'er knew love's sad

satiety.
Waking or asleep

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream
Or how could thy notes flow in such a

crystal stream?
We look before and after,

And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

90 Yet if we could scorn

Hate and pride and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear:
I know not how thy joy we ever should

There grew pied wind-flowers and vio

lets; Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the

earth, The constellated flower that never sets; Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose

birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower

that wets (Like a child, half in tenderness and

mirth) Its mother's face with heaven-collected

tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice,

it hears.

15

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves, wandering

astray, And flowers azure, black, and streaked

with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

THE QUESTION

(1820)

I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare winter suddenly was changed to

spring, And gentle odors led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring

From ODE TO NAPLES

(1820)

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I stood within the city disinterred;
And heard the autumnal leaves like light

footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and

heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at in

tervals Thrill through those roofless halls, The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended

blood: 10 I felt, that Earth out of her deep heart

spoke I felt, but heard not. // Through white

columns glowed The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood, A plane of light between two Heavens of

azure. Il Around me gleamed many a bright sepul

chre Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his

pleasure Were to spare Death, had never made

erasure; But

every living lineament

clear As in the sculptor's thought; and

there The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded

snow,
Seemed only not to move and grow
Because the crystal silence of the

air
Weighed on their life; even

Power divine,
Which then lulled all things, brooded

was

15

20

as the

upon mine.

TO THE MOON (A Fragment, 1820)

Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the

earth, Wandering companionless

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in

arms or arts, Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes

tame: Verse echoes not one beating of their

hearts, History is but the shadow of their

shame, Art veils her glass, or from the pageant

starts As to oblivion their blind millions feet, Staining that heaven with obscene imagery Of their own likeness. What are numbers

knit By force or custom? Man who man

would be, Must rule the empire of himself; in it Must be supreme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

A LAMENT

(1821)

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MUTABILITY

(1821)

The Aower that smiles today

Tomorrow dies;
All that we wish to stay

Tempts, and then flies.

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter

hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with

delight
No more

oh, never more! 10