'MIGHTY EAGLE'

SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN

[Published in 1882 (P. W. of B. P. S.) by Mr. H. Buxton Forman,
C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]
MIGHTY eagle! thou that soarest
O'er the misty mountain forest,
And amid the light of morning
Like a cloud of glory hiest,
And when night descends defiest
The embattled tempests' warning!

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR

[Published in part (v-ix, xiv) by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed. (without title); in full 2nd ed. (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley's hand are extant: two-Leigh Hunt's and Ch. Cowden Clarke's-described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C. W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry [P. W., Centenary Edition, iii. 193-6]. One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley's autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley's hand is in the Harvard MS. book.]

I

THY Country's curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother's bosom-Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!

II

Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold,
Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown,

And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,

Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.

III

And, whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
Watching the beck of Mutability

Delays to execute her high commands,

And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

IV

Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul,

5

5

10

And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb;

Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl

15

To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom!

V

I curse thee by a parent's outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,

By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,

By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed;

9 Angel which aye cancelled by Shelley for Fate which ever Fa.

20

VI

By those infantine smiles of happy light,

Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth, Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:

VII

By those unpractised accents of young speech,
Which he who is a father thought to frame
To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach-

Thou strike the lyre of mind!-oh, grief and shame!

VIII

25

By all the days, under an hireling's care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,-

O wretched ye if ever any were,

Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!

X

By the false cant which on their innocent lips
Must hang like poison on an opening bloom,

By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb-

XI

By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;
By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt
Of thine impostures, which must be their error-
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built—

XII

By thy complicity with lust and hate

35

40

45

Thy thirst for tears-thy hunger after gold

The ready frauds which ever on thee wait

The servile arts in which thou hast grown old

XIII

By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile-
By all the arts and snares of thy black den,
And for thou canst outweep the crocodile-
By thy false tears-those millstones braining men-

24 promise of a 1839, 2nd ed.; promises of 1839, 1st ed.

27 lore] love Fa. 32 and saddest] the saddest Fa. 36 yet not fatherless! cancelled by Shelley for why not fatherless? Fa. 41-4 By... built crossed by Shelley and marked dele by Mrs. Shelley' Woodberry) Fa. 50 arts and snares 1839, 1st ed.; snares and arts Harvard Coll. MS.; snares and nets Fa.; acts and snares 1839, 2nd ed.

50

XIV

By all the hate which checks a father's love-
By all the scorn which kills a father's care-
By those most impious hands which dared remove
Nature's high bounds-by thee-and by despair-

XV

Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,
And cry, My children are no longer mine-
The blood within those veins may be mine own,
But-Tyrant-their polluted souls are thine ;-

XVI

I curse thee-though I hate thee not.-O slave!
If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell
Of which thou art a daemon, on thy grave

This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY

[Published by Mrs. Shelley (i, v, vi), P. W., 1839, 1st ed.; in full, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed. A transcript is extant in Mrs. Shelley's hand.]

I

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it,

The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thou delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,

And the winds are loose, we must not stay,

Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;

They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.
To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee
Because we fearless are and free.

on the beach omitted 1839, 1st ed. 1839, 2nd ed.

8 of the law 1839, 1st ed.; of law 16 fearless are 20 shalt transcript; wilt edd. 1839.

14 prime transcript; time edd. 1839. edd. 1839; are fearless transcript.

55

60

5

ΤΟ

15

20

With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be
The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,

And the cold spray and the clamour wild?-
There, sit between us two, thou dearest-

Me and thy mother-well we know

The storm at which thou tremblest so,

With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves

Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

VI

This hour will in thy memory

Be a dream of days forgotten long,
We soon shall dwell by the azure sea
Of serene and golden Italy,

Or Greece, the Mother of the free;

And I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old

In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame

Of Grecian fore, that by such name

A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim!

FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY

[Published in Dr. Garnett's Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

I

THE world is now our dwelling-place;
Where'er the earth one fading trace

Of what was great and free does keep,

33 and transcript; omitted edd. 1839.

25-32 Fear. . . eternity omitted, transcript. See Rosalind and Helen, 11. 894-901. 41 us transcript, 1839, 1st ed.; thee 1839, 2nd ed. 42 will in transcript, 1839, 2nd ed.; will sometime in 1839, 1st ed. 43 long transcript; omitted edd. 1839. 48 those transcript, 1839, 1st ed.; their 1839, 2nd ed.

25

30

35

40

45

50

That is our home! . . .

Mild thoughts of man's ungentle race
Shall our contented exile reap;
For who that in some happy place
His own free thoughts can freely chase
By woods and waves can clothe his face
In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in P. W.,
1839, 1st ed.]

HER voice did quiver as we parted,

Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery-O Misery,

This world is all too wide for thee.

LINES

[Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date 'November 5th, 1817,' in Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I

THAT time is dead for ever, child!
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past

II

5

10

15

5

The stream we gazed on then rolled by;

Its waves are unreturning;

But we yet stand

In a lone land,

Of hopes and fears, which fade and

And stare aghast

ΙΟ

At the spectres wailing, pale

and

ghast,

5

Like tombs to mark the memory

DEATH

flee

In the light of life's dim morning.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley in Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I

THEY die-the dead return not-Misery

Sits near an open grave and calls them over,
A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye-

They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,
Which he so feebly calls-they all are gone—
Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,
Death.-5 calls edd. 1859; called 1824.

5