No More Learning

5.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, _60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse, _65

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? _70

***


AN EXHORTATION.

[Published with "Prometheus Unbound", 1820. Dated 'Pisa, April, 1820'
in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to
1819. ]

Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they, _5
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?

Poets are on this cold earth, _10
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
in a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do: _15
Fame is love disguised: if few
Find either, never think it strange
That poets range.
Yet dare not stain with wealth or power
A poet's free and heavenly mind: _20
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
Children of a sunnier star, _25
Spirits from beyond the moon,
Oh, refuse the boon!

***


THE INDIAN SERENADE.

[Published, with the title, "Song written for an Indian Air", in "The
Liberal", 2, 1822. Reprinted ("Lines to an Indian Air") by Mrs.
Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. The poem is included in the Harvard
manuscript book, and there is a description by Robert Browning of an
autograph copy presenting some variations from the text of 1824. See
Leigh Hunt's "Correspondence", 2, pages 264-8. ]

1.
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee, _5
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me--who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!

2.
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream-- _10
The Champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart;--
As I must on thine, _15
Oh, beloved as thou art!

3.
Oh lift me from the grass!
I die!