Sonnet. From the Italian of Dante The First Canzone of the Convito. From the Italian of Dante Matilda gathering Flowers. From the Purgatorio of Dante Fragment. Adapted from the Vita Nuova of Dante THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD A FRAGMENT PART I [Sections i and ii of Queen Mab rehandled, and published by Shelley in the Alastor volume, 1816. See Bibliographical List, and the Editor's Introductory Note to Queen Mab.] Nec tantum prodere vati, Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in unam How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! LUCAN, Phars. v. 176. One pale as yonder wan and hornèd moon, The other glowing like the vital morn, It breathes over the world: Yet both so passing strange and wonderful! Leave aught of this pure spectacle But loathsomeness and ruin?— On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose? Will they, when morning's beam Flows through those wells of light, Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?— Ianthe doth not sleep The dreamless sleep of death: Nor in her moonlight chamber silently 30 Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb, Or mark her delicate cheek With interchange of hues mock the broad moon, Without assured reward. Her dewy eyes are closed; Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below On their translucent lids, whose texture fine With unapparent fire, The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Twining like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. 35 40 45 Hark! whence that rushing sound? "Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps 50 When west winds sigh and evening waves respond Around a lonely ruin In whispers from the shore: "Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves The genii of the breezes sweep. Floating on waves of music and of light, Descends in silent power: Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud When evening yields to night, Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue Its transitory robe. Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car Gazed on the slumbering maid. Human eye hath ne'er beheld A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful, As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep Waving a starry wand, Hung like a mist of light. Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds Of wakening spring arose, Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky. Maiden, the world's supremest spirit Beneath the shadow of her wings Folds all thy memory doth inherit 76 80 |