"WHERE IS THE BEAUTY, LOVE, AND TRUTH WE SEEK, BUT IN OUR MINDS?"-P. B. SHELLEY.

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66

AND THE SUNLIGHT CLASPS The earth,"-(Shelley)

THE CLOUD.

And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,

Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder

It struggles and howls at fits:

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,

This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move

In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,

Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,

The Spirit he loves remains ;

And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the Morning-star shines dead.
As on the jag of a mountain-crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and love,

And the crimson pall of Eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,

"AND THE MOONBEAMS KISS THE SEA."-SHELLEY.

"OUR SWEETEST SONGS ARE THOSE WHICH TELL OF SADDEST THOUGHT."-PERCY B. SHELLEY.

"SPRING'S VOLUPTUOUS PANTINGS, WHEN SHE BREATHES HER KISSES, HAVE BEEN DEAR TO ME."-SHELLEY.

"NO SISTER-FLOWER WOULD BE FORGIVEN

THE CLOUD.

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with the burning zone,

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,

With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky:

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;

I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when with never a stain

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

203

"TREADING THE STORMY ROAD WHICH LEADS, THROUGH TOIL AND FATE, TO FAME'S SERENE ABODE."-SHELLEY.

204

66 AMID THE SPLENDOUR-WINGED STARS, THE MOON

TO A SKYLARK.

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,

Build up the blue dome of the air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and unbuild it again.

[PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. An admirable example of his rich fancy and remarkable felicity of poetic diction.]

"UNFATHOMABLE SEA! WHOSE WAVES ARE YEARS,-OCEAN OF TIME,-(PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY)

TO A SKYLARK.

AIL to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,

Pourest thy full heart

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,

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;

Like an unbodied Joy whose race has just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;

BURNS INEXTINGUISHABLY BEAUTIFUL."-SHELLEY.

"WHOSE WATERS OF DEEP WOE ARE BRACKISH WITH THE SALT OF HUMAN TEARS!"-Shelley.

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,

Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

"THE SOUL ASPIRES TO HEAVEN, PANTS FOR ITS SEMPITERNAL HERITAGE, WANTONS IN ENDLESS BEING."-SHELLEY.

"SPRING SHALL BLOW HER CLARION O'ER THE EARTH, AND FILL WITH LIVING HUES AND ODOURS PLAIN AND HILL."

"FOR LOVE AND BEAUTY AND DELIGHT THERE IS NO DEATH NOR CHANCE; THEIR MIGHT

66 THEY LEARN IN SUFFERING WHAT THEY TEACH IN SONG."-SHELLEY.

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,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour

With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glowworm golden

In a dell of dew,

Scattering unbeholden

Its aërial hue

Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives

Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

"EVIL MINDS CHANGE GOOD TO THEIR OWN NATURE."-shelley.

EXCEEDS OUR ORGANS, WHICH ENDURE NO LIGHT, BEING THEMSELVES OBSCURE."-SHELLEY.