And thou, lost Paradise of this divine And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! Thou island of eternity! thou shrine Where desolation clothed with loveliness, Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy, Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. XV. O, that the free would stamp the impious name Of King into the dust! or write it there, So that this blot upon the page of fame Were as a serpent's path, which the light air Lift the victory-flashing sword, And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, Into a mass, irrefragably firm, The axes and the rods which awe mankind; The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred; Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, To set thine armèd heel on this reluctant worm. XVI. O, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle Each before the judgment-throne Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! Were stript of their thin masks and various hue They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due. XVII. He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever Can be between the cradle and the grave Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour! He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. Amplest millions at their need, And power in thought be as the tree within the seed? Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Over all height and depth? if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousand fold for one. XVIII. Come Thou, but lead out of the inmost cave Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought, To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O, Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee: If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought By blood or tears, have not the wise and free Wept tears, and blood like tears? The solemn harmony XIX. Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing Sinks headlong through the aërial golden light When the bolt has pierced its brain; As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain; As a far taper fades with fading night, As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. SHELLEY. I TO NAPLES. Written in 1819, on hearing of the procla mation of a constitutional government in Naples. The two first stanzas refer to Shelley's then recent visits to Pompeii and to Baia. The ode first appeared in the "Posthumous Poems" of 1824. 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 intervals Thrill through those roofless halls; The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke I felt, but heard not :-through white columns glowed A plane of light between two Heavens of azure : As in the sculptor's thought; and there |