When the sunset sleeps Upon its snow; As a strain of sweetest sound Wraps itself the wind around 10 583 Until the voiceless wind be music too; CANCELLED STANZA OF THE MASK OF ANARCHY (FOR WHICH STANZAS LXVIII, LXIX HAVE BEEN SUBSTITUTED.) NOTE BY MRS. SHELLEY SHELLEY loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heartfelt compassion he went home to the direct point of injury-that oppression is detestable as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the scope of the Ode to the Assertors of Liberty. He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820 THE SENSITIVE PLANT [Composed at Pisa, early in 1820 (dated, March, 1820,' in Harvard MS.), and published, with Prometheus Unbound, the same year: included in the Reprinted in the Poetical Works, 1839, Harvard College MS. book. both edd.] PART FIRST A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 16 Like the Spirit of Love felt 1820; And the Spirit of Love felt 1839, 1st ed.; And the Spirit of Love fell 1839, 2nd ed. 5 And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast But none ever trembled and panted with bliss Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue, It was felt like an odour within the sense; And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed, The soul of her beauty and love lay bare: And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 10 15 20 25 30 As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 35 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky; And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose, And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 40 And on the stream whose inconstant bosom With golden and green light, slanting through Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom, Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 45 And starry river-buds glimmered by, And around them the soft stream did glide and dance And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss, Which led through the garden along and across, 49 and of moss] and moss Harvard MS. 50 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze, And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too, 55 And from this undefiled Paradise The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 60 When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them, 65 For each one was interpenetrated With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower; It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full, The light winds which from unsustaining wings The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 82 The] And the Harvard MS. 70 75 80 85 90 Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, And when evening descended from Heaven above, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, though less bright, was far more deep, And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness; (Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 95 100 105 Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant); The Sensitive Plant was the earliest There was a Power in this sweet place, An Eve in this Eden; a ruling Grace Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion Tended the garden from morn to even: Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 15 morn Harvard MS., 1839; moon 1820. 110 5 ΤΟ 15 20 That the coming and going of the wind I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet In a basket, of grasses and wild-flowers full, 25 30 35 40 45 The freshest her gentle hands could pull For the poor banished insects, whose intent, Although they did ill, was innocent. But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 50 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be. And many an antenatal tomb, Where butterflies dream of the life to come, She left clinging round the smooth and dark This fairest creature from earliest Spring And ere the first leaf looked brown-she died! PART THIRD Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 23 and going 1820; and the going Harvard MS., 1839. 1839; Through all Harvard MS. |