_116
shattered]scattered
cj.
Shelley
Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,
Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, _250
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,
And cries: 'Give me, thy child, dominion
Over all height and depth'? if Life can breed
New wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,
Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one! _255
18.
Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave
Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star
Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,
Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; _260
Comes she not, and come ye not,
Rulers of eternal thought,
To judge, with solemn truth, life's ill-apportioned lot?
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame
Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? _265
O Liberty! if such could be thy name
Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free
Wept tears, and blood like tears? --The solemn harmony _270
19.
Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing
To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;
Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,
Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light _275
On the heavy-sounding plain,
When the bolt has pierced its brain;
As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;
As a far taper fades with fading night,
As a brief insect dies with dying day,-- _280
My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,
Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain,
As waves which lately paved his watery way
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. _285
NOTES:
_4 into]unto Harvard manuscript.
_9 inverse cj. Rossetti; in verse 1820.
_92 See the Bacchae of Euripides--[SHELLEY'S NOTE].
_113 lore 1839; love 1820.
_116 shattered]scattered cj. Rossetti.
_134 wand 1820; want 1830.
_194 us]as cj. Forman.
_212 KING Boscombe manuscript; **** 1820, 1839; CHRIST cj. Swinburne.
_249 Or 1839; O, 1820.
_250 Driving 1820; Diving 1839.
***
CANCELLED PASSAGE OF THE ODE TO LIBERTY.
[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. ]
Within a cavern of man's trackless spirit
Is throned an Image, so intensely fair
That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it
Worship, and as they kneel, tremble and wear
The splendour of its presence, and the light _5
Penetrates their dreamlike frame
Till they become charged with the strength of flame.
***
TO --.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.
