[The recently discovered Second Part of The Damon of the World will be found among the posthumous poems, in Vol. III, together with a full account of the copy of Queen Mab in which the revision was made.-H. B. F.] THE DÆMON OF THE WORLD. A FRAGMENT.1 How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One pale as yonder wan and horned moon, With lips of lurid blue, The other glowing like the vital morn, When throned on ocean's wave It breathes over the world: Yet both so passing strange and wonderful! Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton, To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne Steal like dark streams along a field of snow, Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed 1 A revised fragment of Queen Mab, -of which Poem Shelley's edition will be found in its place among the youthful poems in Vol. IV. But loathsomeness and ruin? Spare aught but a dark theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids 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 Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb, Or mark her delicate cheek 20 25 30 35 With interchange of hues mock the broad moon, Outwatching weary night, Without assured reward. Her dewy eyes are closed; On their translucent lids, whose texture fine 40 Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below 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. Hark! whence that rushing sound? "Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps When west winds sigh and evening waves respond In whispers from the shore: 45 50 '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 The chariot of the Dæmon of the World 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 Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold Their wings of braided air: The Dæmon leaning from the etherial 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, 55 60 65 70 Beneath the shadow of her wings Folds all thy memory doth inherit From ruin of divinest things, Feelings that lure thee to betray, For thou hast earned a mighty boon, The truths which wisest poets see 80 85 Dimly, thy mind may make its own, Rewarding its own majesty, Entranced in some diviner mood Of self-oblivious solitude. Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest; A living light, to cheer it long, The watch-fires of the world among. Therefore from nature's inner shrine, Where gods and fiends in worship bend, Majestic spirit, be it thine The flame to seize, the veil to rend, All that inspires thy voice of love, Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes, Or through thy frame doth burn or move, Or think or feel, awake, arise! Spirit, leave for mine and me Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!1 It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant spirit arose, All beautiful in naked purity. Robed in its human hues it did ascend, Disparting as it went the silver clouds It moved towards the car, and took its seat Beside the Dæmon shape. 1 Mimickry in Shelley's edition. |