A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay, The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wash'd them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :- not so thou;Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime. The image of eternity, the throne Of the invisible; even from out thy slime And i have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy And trusted to thy billows far and near, PROMETHEUS. I. Titan to whose immortal eyes Seen in their sad reality, Were not as things that gods despise, A silent suffering, and intense; The rock, the vulture, and the chain, The agony they do not show, Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky II. Titan to thee the strife was given And the deaf tyranny of Fate, Refused thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift eternity Was thine-and thou hast borne it well. That in his hand the lightnings trembled. III. Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit : Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source And Man in portions can foresee His wretchedness, and his resistance, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory. DIODATI, July 1816 SONNET ON CHILLON. Eternal Spirit of the chainless Mind! To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God. C STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 1. They say that Hope is happiness; But genuine Love must prize the past, II. And all that Memory loves the most III. Alas! it is delusion all: The future cheats us from afar, Nor dare we think on what we are. So, WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING. I. So, we'll go no more a roving Though the heart be still as loving, II. For the sword outwears its sheath, III. Though the night was made for loving, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon. (1817.) STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE ROAD BETWEEN FLORENCE AND PISA. Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story; What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled? |