Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

MEPHISTOPHELES: Yet Many a riddle there is tied anew Inextricably. Let the great world rage! _240 We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings. 'Tis an old custom. Men have ever built Their own small world in the great world of all. I see young witches naked there, and old ones Wisely attired with greater decency. _245 Be guided now by me, and you shall buy A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble. I hear them tune their instruments--one must Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I'll lead you Among them; and what there you do and see, _250 As a fresh compact 'twixt us two shall be. How say you now? this space is wide enough-- Look forth, you cannot see the end of it-- An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they Who throng around them seem innumerable: _255 Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love, And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend, What is there better in the world than this?

NOTE: _254 An 1824; A editions 1839.

FAUST: In introducing us, do you assume The character of Wizard or of Devil? _260

MEPHISTOPHELES: In truth, I generally go about In strict incognito; and yet one likes To wear one's orders upon gala days. I have no ribbon at my knee; but here At home, the cloven foot is honourable. _265 See you that snail there?--she comes creeping up, And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something. I could not, if I would, mask myself here. Come now, we'll go about from fire to fire: I'll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. _270 [TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.] Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here? You ought to be with the young rioters Right in the thickest of the revelry-- But every one is best content at home.

NOTE: _264 my wanting, 1822.

General. Who dare confide in right or a just claim? _275 So much as I had done for them! and now-- With women and the people 'tis the same, Youth will stand foremost ever,--age may go To the dark grave unhonoured.

NOTE: _275 right editions 1824, 1839; night 1822.

MINISTER: Nowadays People assert their rights: they go too far; _280 But as for me, the good old times I praise; Then we were all in all--'twas something worth One's while to be in place and wear a star; That was indeed the golden age on earth.

PARVENU: We too are active, and we did and do _285 What we ought not, perhaps; and yet we now Will seize, whilst all things are whirled round and round, A spoke of Fortune's wheel, and keep our ground.

NOTE: _285 Parvenu: (Note) A sort of fundholder 1822, editions 1824, 1839.

AUTHOR: Who now can taste a treatise of deep sense And ponderous volume? 'tis impertinence _290 To write what none will read, therefore will I To please the young and thoughtless people try.

NOTE: _290 ponderous 1824; wonderous 1822.

MEPHISTOPHELES [WHO AT ONCE APPEARS TO HAVE GROWN VERY OLD]: I find the people ripe for the last day, Since I last came up to the wizard mountain; And as my little cask runs turbid now, _295 So is the world drained to the dregs.

PEDLAR-WITCH: Look here, Gentlemen; do not hurry on so fast; And lose the chance of a good pennyworth. I have a pack full of the choicest wares Of every sort, and yet in all my bundle _300 Is nothing like what may be found on earth; Nothing that in a moment will make rich Men and the world with fine malicious mischief-- There is no dagger drunk with blood; no bowl From which consuming poison may be drained _305 By innocent and healthy lips; no jewel, The price of an abandoned maiden's shame; No sword which cuts the bond it cannot loose, Or stabs the wearer's enemy in the back; No--

MEPHISTOPHELES: Gossip, you know little of these times. _310 What has been, has been; what is done, is past, They shape themselves into the innovations They breed, and innovation drags us with it. The torrent of the crowd sweeps over us: You think to impel, and are yourself impelled. _315

FAUST: What is that yonder?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Mark her well. It is Lilith.

FAUST: Who?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Lilith, the first wife of Adam. Beware of her fair hair, for she excels All women in the magic of her locks; And when she winds them round a young man's neck, _320 She will not ever set him free again.

FAUST: There sit a girl and an old woman--they Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.

MEPHISTOPHELES: There is no rest to-night for any one: When one dance ends another is begun; _325 Come, let us to it. We shall have rare fun.

[FAUST DANCES AND SINGS WITH A GIRL, AND MEPHISTOPHELES WITH AN OLD WOMAN.]

FAUST: I had once a lovely dream In which I saw an apple-tree, Where two fair apples with their gleam To climb and taste attracted me. _330

NOTES: _327-_334 So Boscombe manuscript ("Westminster Review", July, 1870); wanting, 1822, 1824, 1839.

THE GIRL: She with apples you desired From Paradise came long ago: With you I feel that if required, Such still within my garden grow.

...

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: What is this cursed multitude about? _335 Have we not long since proved to demonstration That ghosts move not on ordinary feet? But these are dancing just like men and women.

NOTE: _335 Procto-Phantasmist]Brocto-Phantasmist editions 1824, 1839.

THE GIRL: What does he want then at our ball?

FAUST: Oh! he Is far above us all in his conceit: _340 Whilst we enjoy, he reasons of enjoyment; And any step which in our dance we tread, If it be left out of his reckoning, Is not to be considered as a step. There are few things that scandalize him not: _345 And when you whirl round in the circle now, As he went round the wheel in his old mill, He says that you go wrong in all respects, Especially if you congratulate him Upon the strength of the resemblance.

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: Fly! _350 Vanish! Unheard-of impudence! What, still there! In this enlightened age too, since you have been Proved not to exist!--But this infernal brood Will hear no reason and endure no rule. Are we so wise, and is the POND still haunted? _355 How long have I been sweeping out this rubbish Of superstition, and the world will not Come clean with all my pains!--it is a case Unheard of!

NOTE: _355 pond wanting in Boscombe manuscript.

THE GIRL: Then leave off teasing us so.

PROCTO-PHANTASMIST: I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, _360 That I should not regret this despotism Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not. To-night I shall make poor work of it, Yet I will take a round with you, and hope Before my last step in the living dance _365 To beat the poet and the devil together.

MEPHISTOPHELES: At last he will sit down in some foul puddle; That is his way of solacing himself; Until some leech, diverted with his gravity, Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. _370 [TO FAUST, WHO HAS SECEDED FROM THE DANCE.] Why do you let that fair girl pass from you, Who sung so sweetly to you in the dance?

FAUST: A red mouse in the middle of her singing Sprung from her mouth.

MEPHISTOPHELES: That was all right, my friend: Be it enough that the mouse was not gray. _375 Do not disturb your hour of happiness With close consideration of such trifles.

FAUST: Then saw I--

MEPHISTOPHELES: What?

FAUST: Seest thou not a pale, Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away? She drags herself now forward with slow steps, _380 And seems as if she moved with shackled feet: I cannot overcome the thought that she Is like poor Margaret.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Let it be--pass on-- No good can come of it--it is not well To meet it--it is an enchanted phantom, _385 A lifeless idol; with its numbing look, It freezes up the blood of man; and they Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone, Like those who saw Medusa.

FAUST: Oh, too true! Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse _390 Which no beloved hand has closed, alas! That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me-- Those are the lovely limbs which I enjoyed!

NOTE: _392 breast editions 1839; heart 1822, 1824.

MEPHISTOPHELES: It is all magic, poor deluded fool! She looks to every one like his first love. _395

FAUST: Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn My looks from her sweet piteous countenance. How strangely does a single blood-red line, Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife, Adorn her lovely neck!

MEPHISTOPHELES: Ay, she can carry _400 Her head under her arm upon occasion; Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures End in delusion.--Gain this rising ground, It is as airy here as in a... And if I am not mightily deceived, _405 I see a theatre.--What may this mean?

ATTENDANT: Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis The custom now to represent that number. 'Tis written by a Dilettante, and The actors who perform are Dilettanti; _410 Excuse me, gentlemen; but I must vanish. I am a Dilettante curtain-lifter.

***

JUVENILIA.

QUEEN MAB.

A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.

[An edition (250 copies) of "Queen Mab" was printed at London in the summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer, appears on the title-page (see "Bibliographical List"). Of this edition about seventy copies were privately distributed. Sections 1, 2, 8, and 9 were afterwards rehandled, and the intermediate sections here and there revised and altered; and of this new text sections 1 and 2 were published by Shelley in the "Alastor" volume of 1816, under the title, "The Daemon of the World". The remainder lay unpublished till 1876, when sections 8 and 9 were printed by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., from a printed copy of "Queen Mab" with Shelley's manuscript corrections. See "The Shelley Library", pages 36-44, for a description of this copy, which is in Mr. Forman's possession. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps of 1813; (2) text (with some omissions) in the "Poetical Works" of 1839, edited by Mrs. Shelley; (3) text (one line only wanting) in the 2nd edition of the "Poetical Works", 1839 (same editor).

"Queen Mab" was probably written during the year 1812--it is first heard of at Lynmouth, August 18, 1812 ("Shelley Memorials", page 39)--but the text may be assumed to include earlier material.]

ECRASEZ L'INFAME!--Correspondance de Voltaire.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis; Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.

...

Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae. Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.--Lucret. lib. 4.

Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso.--Archimedes.

TO HARRIET *****.

Whose is the love that gleaming through the world, Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? Whose is the warm and partial praise, Virtue's most sweet reward?

Beneath whose looks did my reviving soul _5 Riper in truth and virtuous daring grow? Whose eyes have I gazed fondly on, And loved mankind the more?

HARRIET! on thine:--thou wert my purer mind; Thou wert the inspiration of my song; _10 Thine are these early wilding flowers, Though garlanded by me.

Then press into thy breast this pledge of love; And know, though time may change and years may roll, Each floweret gathered in my heart _15 It consecrates to thine.

QUEEN MAB.

1.

How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One, pale as yonder waning moon With lips of lurid blue; The other, rosy as the morn _5 When throned on ocean's wave It blushes o'er the world: Yet both so passing wonderful!

Hath then the gloomy Power Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres _10 Seized on her sinless soul? Must then that peerless form Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, those azure veins Which steal like streams along a field of snow, _15 That lovely outline, which is fair As breathing marble, perish? Must putrefaction's breath Leave nothing of this heavenly sight But loathsomeness and ruin? _20 Spare nothing but a gloomy theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it only a sweet slumber Stealing o'er sensation, Which the breath of roseate morning _25 Chaseth into darkness? Will Ianthe wake again, And give that faithful bosom joy Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch Light, life and rapture from her smile? _30

Yes! she will wake again, Although her glowing limbs are motionless, And silent those sweet lips, Once breathing eloquence, That might have soothed a tiger's rage, _35 Or thawed the cold heart of a conqueror. Her dewy eyes are closed, And on their lids, whose texture fine Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath, The baby Sleep is pillowed: _40 Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, Curling like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound? _45 'Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore, The enthusiast hears at evening: 'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh; _50 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Of that strange lyre whose strings The genii of the breezes sweep: Those lines of rainbow light Are like the moonbeams when they fall _55 Through some cathedral window, but the tints Are such as may not find Comparison on earth.

Behold the chariot of the Fairy Queen! Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air; _60 Their filmy pennons at her word they furl, And stop obedient to the reins of light: These the Queen of Spells drew in, She spread a charm around the spot, And leaning graceful from the aethereal car, _65 Long did she gaze, and silently, Upon the slumbering maid.

Oh! not the visioned poet in his dreams, When silvery clouds float through the 'wildered brain, When every sight of lovely, wild and grand _70 Astonishes, enraptures, elevates, When fancy at a glance combines The wondrous and the beautiful,-- So bright, so fair, so wild a shape Hath ever yet beheld, _75 As that which reined the coursers of the air, And poured the magic of her gaze Upon the maiden's sleep.

The broad and yellow moon Shone dimly through her form-- _80 That form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car Moved not the moonlight's line: 'Twas not an earthly pageant: Those who had looked upon the sight, _85 Passing all human glory, Saw not the yellow moon, Saw not the mortal scene, Heard not the night-wind's rush, Heard not an earthly sound, _90 Saw but the fairy pageant, Heard but the heavenly strains That filled the lonely dwelling.

The Fairy's frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud, That catches but the palest tinge of even, _95 And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn, Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful, _100 As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form, Spread a purpureal halo round the scene, Yet with an undulating motion, Swayed to her outline gracefully.

From her celestial car _105 The Fairy Queen descended, And thrice she waved her wand Circled with wreaths of amaranth: Her thin and misty form Moved with the moving air, _110 And the clear silver tones, As thus she spoke, were such As are unheard by all but gifted ear.

FAIRY: 'Stars! your balmiest influence shed! Elements! your wrath suspend! _115 Sleep, Ocean, in the rocky bounds That circle thy domain! Let not a breath be seen to stir Around yon grass-grown ruin's height, Let even the restless gossamer _120 Sleep on the moveless air! Soul of Ianthe! thou, Judged alone worthy of the envied boon, That waits the good and the sincere; that waits Those who have struggled, and with resolute will _125 Vanquished earth's pride and meanness, burst the chains, The icy chains of custom, and have shone The day-stars of their age;--Soul of Ianthe! Awake! arise!'

Sudden arose _130 Ianthe's Soul; it stood All beautiful in naked purity, The perfect semblance of its bodily frame. Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness _135 Had passed away, it reassumed Its native dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin.

Upon the couch the body lay Wrapped in the depth of slumber: _140 Its features were fixed and meaningless, Yet animal life was there, And every organ yet performed Its natural functions: 'twas a sight Of wonder to behold the body and soul. _145 The self-same lineaments, the same Marks of identity were there: Yet, oh, how different! One aspires to Heaven, Pants for its sempiternal heritage, And ever-changing, ever-rising still, _150 Wantons in endless being. The other, for a time the unwilling sport Of circumstance and passion, struggles on; Fleets through its sad duration rapidly: Then, like an useless and worn-out machine, _155 Rots, perishes, and passes.

FAIRY: 'Spirit! who hast dived so deep; Spirit! who hast soared so high; Thou the fearless, thou the mild, Accept the boon thy worth hath earned, _160 Ascend the car with me.'

SPIRIT: 'Do I dream? Is this new feeling But a visioned ghost of slumber? If indeed I am a soul, A free, a disembodied soul, _165 Speak again to me.'

FAIRY: 'I am the Fairy MAB: to me 'tis given The wonders of the human world to keep: The secrets of the immeasurable past, In the unfailing consciences of men, _170 Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find: The future, from the causes which arise In each event, I gather: not the sting Which retributive memory implants In the hard bosom of the selfish man; _175 Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day, Are unforeseen, unregistered by me: And it is yet permitted me, to rend _180 The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit, Clothed in its changeless purity, may know How soonest to accomplish the great end For which it hath its being, and may taste That peace, which in the end all life will share. _185 This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul, Ascend the car with me!'

The chains of earth's immurement Fell from Ianthe's spirit; They shrank and brake like bandages of straw _190 Beneath a wakened giant's strength. She knew her glorious change, And felt in apprehension uncontrolled New raptures opening round: Each day-dream of her mortal life, _195 Each frenzied vision of the slumbers That closed each well-spent day, Seemed now to meet reality.

The Fairy and the Soul proceeded; The silver clouds disparted; _200 And as the car of magic they ascended, Again the speechless music swelled, Again the coursers of the air Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen Shaking the beamy reins _205 Bade them pursue their way.

The magic car moved on. The night was fair, and countless stars Studded Heaven's dark blue vault,-- Just o'er the eastern wave _210 Peeped the first faint smile of morn:-- The magic car moved on-- From the celestial hoofs The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew, And where the burning wheels _215 Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak, Was traced a line of lightning. Now it flew far above a rock, The utmost verge of earth, The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow _220 Lowered o'er the silver sea.

Far, far below the chariot's path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous Ocean lay. The mirror of its stillness showed _225 The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the gray light of morn Tinging those fleecy clouds That canopied the dawn. _230 Seemed it, that the chariot's way Lay through the midst of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged With shades of infinite colour, And semicircled with a belt _235 Flashing incessant meteors.

The magic car moved on. As they approached their goal The coursers seemed to gather speed; The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _240 Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere; The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave; Its rays of rapid light Parted around the chariot's swifter course, _245 And fell, like ocean's feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow.

The magic car moved on. Earth's distant orb appeared _250 The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven; Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever-varying glory. _255 It was a sight of wonder: some Were horned like the crescent moon; Some shed a mild and silver beam Like Hesperus o'er the western sea; Some dashed athwart with trains of flame, _260 Like worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed, Eclipsed all other light.

Spirit of Nature! here! In this interminable wilderness _265 Of worlds, at whose immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf That quivers to the passing breeze _270 Is less instinct with thee: Yet not the meanest worm That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead Less shares thy eternal breath. Spirit of Nature! thou! _275 Imperishable as this scene, Here is thy fitting temple.

2.

If solitude hath ever led thy steps To the wild Ocean's echoing shore, And thou hast lingered there, Until the sun's broad orb Seemed resting on the burnished wave, _5 Thou must have marked the lines Of purple gold, that motionless Hung o'er the sinking sphere: Thou must have marked the billowy clouds Edged with intolerable radiancy _10 Towering like rocks of jet Crowned with a diamond wreath. And yet there is a moment, When the sun's highest point Peeps like a star o'er Ocean's western edge, _15 When those far clouds of feathery gold, Shaded with deepest purple, gleam Like islands on a dark blue sea; Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, And furled its wearied wing _20 Within the Fairy's fane.

Yet not the golden islands Gleaming in yon flood of light, Nor the feathery curtains Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, _25 Nor the burnished Ocean waves Paving that gorgeous dome, So fair, so wonderful a sight As Mab's aethereal palace could afford. Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall! _30 As Heaven, low resting on the wave,it spread Its floors of flashing light, Its vast and azure dome, Its fertile golden islands Floating on a silver sea; _35 Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted Through clouds of circumambient darkness, And pearly battlements around Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.

The magic car no longer moved. _40 The Fairy and the Spirit Entered the Hall of Spells: Those golden clouds That rolled in glittering billows Beneath the azure canopy _45 With the aethereal footsteps trembled not: The light and crimson mists, Floating to strains of thrilling melody Through that unearthly dwelling, Yielded to every movement of the will. _50 Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned, And, for the varied bliss that pressed around, Used not the glorious privilege Of virtue and of wisdom.

'Spirit!' the Fairy said, _55 And pointed to the gorgeous dome, 'This is a wondrous sight And mocks all human grandeur; But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell In a celestial palace, all resigned _60 To pleasurable impulses, immured Within the prison of itself, the will Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled. Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come! This is thine high reward:--the past shall rise; _65 Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach The secrets of the future.'

The Fairy and the Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement.-- Below lay stretched the universe! _70 There, far as the remotest line That bounds imagination's flight, Countless and unending orbs In mazy motion intermingled, Yet still fulfilled immutably _75 Eternal Nature's law. Above, below, around, The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony; Each with undeviating aim, _80 In eloquent silence, through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way.

There was a little light That twinkled in the misty distance: None but a spirit's eye _85 Might ken that rolling orb; None but a spirit's eye, And in no other place But that celestial dwelling, might behold Each action of this earth's inhabitants. _90 But matter, space and time In those aereal mansions cease to act; And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps The harvest of its excellence, o'er-bounds Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul _95 Fears to attempt the conquest.

The Fairy pointed to the earth. The Spirit's intellectual eye Its kindred beings recognized. The thronging thousands, to a passing view, _100 Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens. How wonderful! that even The passions, prejudices, interests, That sway the meanest being, the weak touch That moves the finest nerve, _105 And in one human brain Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link In the great chain of Nature.

'Behold,' the Fairy cried, 'Palmyra's ruined palaces!-- _110 Behold! where grandeur frowned; Behold! where pleasure smiled; What now remains?--the memory Of senselessness and shame-- What is immortal there? _115 Nothing--it stands to tell A melancholy tale, to give An awful warning: soon Oblivion will steal silently The remnant of its fame. _120 Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o'er prostrate millions trod-- The earthquakes of the human race; Like them, forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past. _125

'Beside the eternal Nile, The Pyramids have risen. Nile shall pursue his changeless way: Those Pyramids shall fall; Yea! not a stone shall stand to tell _130 The spot whereon they stood! Their very site shall be forgotten, As is their builder's name!

'Behold yon sterile spot; Where now the wandering Arab's tent _135 Flaps in the desert-blast. There once old Salem's haughty fane Reared high to Heaven its thousand golden domes, And in the blushing face of day Exposed its shameful glory. _140 Oh! many a widow, many an orphan cursed The building of that fane; and many a father; Worn out with toil and slavery, implored The poor man's God to sweep it from the earth, And spare his children the detested task _145 Of piling stone on stone, and poisoning The choicest days of life, To soothe a dotard's vanity. There an inhuman and uncultured race Howled hideous praises to their Demon-God; _150 They rushed to war, tore from the mother's womb The unborn child,--old age and infancy Promiscuous perished; their victorious arms Left not a soul to breathe. Oh! they were fiends: But what was he who taught them that the God _155 Of nature and benevolence hath given A special sanction to the trade of blood? His name and theirs are fading, and the tales Of this barbarian nation, which imposture Recites till terror credits, are pursuing _160 Itself into forgetfulness.

'Where Athens, Rome, and Sparta stood, There is a moral desert now: The mean and miserable huts, The yet more wretched palaces, _165 Contrasted with those ancient fanes, Now crumbling to oblivion; The long and lonely colonnades, Through which the ghost of Freedom stalks, Seem like a well-known tune, _170 Which in some dear scene we have loved to hear, Remembered now in sadness. But, oh! how much more changed, How gloomier is the contrast Of human nature there! _175 Where Socrates expired, a tyrant's slave, A coward and a fool, spreads death around-- Then, shuddering, meets his own. Where Cicero and Antoninus lived, A cowled and hypocritical monk _180 Prays, curses and deceives.

'Spirit, ten thousand years Have scarcely passed away, Since, in the waste where now the savage drinks His enemy's blood, and aping Europe's sons, _185 Wakes the unholy song of war, Arose a stately city, Metropolis of the western continent: There, now, the mossy column-stone, Indented by Time's unrelaxing grasp, _190 Which once appeared to brave All, save its country's ruin; There the wide forest scene, Rude in the uncultivated loveliness Of gardens long run wild, _195 Seems, to the unwilling sojourner, whose steps Chance in that desert has delayed, Thus to have stood since earth was what it is. Yet once it was the busiest haunt, Whither, as to a common centre, flocked _200 Strangers, and ships, and merchandise: Once peace and freedom blessed The cultivated plain: But wealth, that curse of man, Blighted the bud of its prosperity: _205 Virtue and wisdom, truth and liberty, Fled, to return not, until man shall know That they alone can give the bliss Worthy a soul that claims Its kindred with eternity. _210

'There's not one atom of yon earth But once was living man; Nor the minutest drop of rain, That hangeth in its thinnest cloud, But flowed in human veins: _215 And from the burning plains Where Libyan monsters yell, From the most gloomy glens Of Greenland's sunless clime, To where the golden fields _220 Of fertile England spread Their harvest to the day, Thou canst not find one spot Whereon no city stood.

'How strange is human pride! _225 I tell thee that those living things, To whom the fragile blade of grass, That springeth in the morn And perisheth ere noon, Is an unbounded world; _230 I tell thee that those viewless beings, Whose mansion is the smallest particle Of the impassive atmosphere, Think, feel and live like man; That their affections and antipathies, _235 Like his, produce the laws Ruling their moral state; And the minutest throb That through their frame diffuses The slightest, faintest motion, _240 Is fixed and indispensable As the majestic laws That rule yon rolling orbs.'

The Fairy paused. The Spirit, In ecstasy of admiration, felt _245 All knowledge of the past revived; the events Of old and wondrous times, Which dim tradition interruptedly Teaches the credulous vulgar, were unfolded In just perspective to the view; _250 Yet dim from their infinitude. The Spirit seemed to stand High on an isolated pinnacle; The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe _255 Above, and all around Nature's unchanging harmony.

3.

'Fairy!' the Spirit said, And on the Queen of Spells Fixed her aethereal eyes, 'I thank thee. Thou hast given A boon which I will not resign, and taught _5 A lesson not to be unlearned. I know The past, and thence I will essay to glean A warning for the future, so that man May profit by his errors, and derive Experience from his folly: _10 For, when the power of imparting joy Is equal to the will, the human soul Requires no other Heaven.'

MAB: 'Turn thee, surpassing Spirit! Much yet remains unscanned. _15 Thou knowest how great is man, Thou knowest his imbecility: Yet learn thou what he is: Yet learn the lofty destiny Which restless time prepares _20 For every living soul.

'Behold a gorgeous palace, that, amid Yon populous city rears its thousand towers And seems itself a city. Gloomy troops Of sentinels, in stern and silent ranks, _25 Encompass it around: the dweller there Cannot be free and happy; hearest thou not The curses of the fatherless, the groans Of those who have no friend? He passes on: The King, the wearer of a gilded chain _30 That binds his soul to abjectness, the fool Whom courtiers nickname monarch, whilst a slave Even to the basest appetites--that man Heeds not the shriek of penury; he smiles At the deep curses which the destitute _35 Mutter in secret, and a sullen joy Pervades his bloodless heart when thousands groan But for those morsels which his wantonness Wastes in unjoyous revelry, to save All that they love from famine: when he hears _40 The tale of horror, to some ready-made face Of hypocritical assent he turns, Smothering the glow of shame, that, spite of him, Flushes his bloated cheek. Now to the meal Of silence, grandeur, and excess, he drags _45 His palled unwilling appetite. If gold, Gleaming around, and numerous viands culled From every clime, could force the loathing sense To overcome satiety,--if wealth The spring it draws from poisons not,--or vice, _50 Unfeeling, stubborn vice, converteth not Its food to deadliest venom; then that king Is happy; and the peasant who fulfils His unforced task, when he returns at even, And by the blazing faggot meets again _55 Her welcome for whom all his toil is sped, Tastes not a sweeter meal. Behold him now Stretched on the gorgeous couch; his fevered brain Reels dizzily awhile: but ah! too soon The slumber of intemperance subsides, _60 And conscience, that undying serpent, calls Her venomous brood to their nocturnal task. Listen! he speaks! oh! mark that frenzied eye-- Oh! mark that deadly visage.'

KING: 'No cessation! Oh! must this last for ever? Awful Death, _65 I wish, yet fear to clasp thee!--Not one moment Of dreamless sleep! O dear and blessed peace! Why dost thou shroud thy vestal purity In penury and dungeons? wherefore lurkest With danger, death, and solitude; yet shunn'st _70 The palace I have built thee? Sacred peace! Oh visit me but once, but pitying shed One drop of balm upon my withered soul.'

THE FAIRY: 'Vain man! that palace is the virtuous heart, And Peace defileth not her snowy robes _75 In such a shed as thine. Hark! yet he mutters; His slumbers are but varied agonies, They prey like scorpions on the springs of life. There needeth not the hell that bigots frame To punish those who err: earth in itself _80 Contains at once the evil and the cure; And all-sufficing Nature can chastise Those who transgress her law,--she only knows How justly to proportion to the fault The punishment it merits. Is it strange _85 That this poor wretch should pride him in his woe? Take pleasure in his abjectness, and hug The scorpion that consumes him? Is it strange That, placed on a conspicuous throne of thorns, Grasping an iron sceptre, and immured _90 Within a splendid prison, whose stern bounds Shut him from all that's good or dear on earth, His soul asserts not its humanity? That man's mild nature rises not in war Against a king's employ? No--'tis not strange. _95 He, like the vulgar, thinks, feels, acts and lives Just as his father did; the unconquered powers Of precedent and custom interpose Between a KING and virtue. Stranger yet, To those who know not Nature, nor deduce _100 The future from the present, it may seem, That not one slave, who suffers from the crimes Of this unnatural being; not one wretch, Whose children famish, and whose nuptial bed Is earth's unpitying bosom, rears an arm To dash him from his throne! _105 Those gilded flies That, basking in the sunshine of a court, Fatten on its corruption!--what are they? --The drones of the community; they feed On the mechanic's labour: the starved hind _110 For them compels the stubborn glebe to yield Its unshared harvests; and yon squalid form, Leaner than fleshless misery, that wastes A sunless life in the unwholesome mine, Drags out in labour a protracted death, _115 To glut their grandeur; many faint with toil, That few may know the cares and woe of sloth.

'Whence, think'st thou, kings and parasites arose? Whence that unnatural line of drones, who heap Toil and unvanquishable penury _120 On those who build their palaces, and bring Their daily bread?--From vice, black loathsome vice; From rapine, madness, treachery, and wrong; From all that 'genders misery, and makes Of earth this thorny wilderness; from lust, _125 Revenge, and murder...And when Reason's voice, Loud as the voice of Nature, shall have waked The nations; and mankind perceive that vice Is discord, war, and misery; that virtue Is peace, and happiness and harmony; _130 When man's maturer nature shall disdain The playthings of its childhood;--kingly glare Will lose its power to dazzle; its authority Will silently pass by; the gorgeous throne Shall stand unnoticed in the regal hall, _135 Fast falling to decay; whilst falsehood's trade Shall be as hateful and unprofitable As that of truth is now. Where is the fame Which the vainglorious mighty of the earth Seek to eternize? Oh! the faintest sound _140 From Time's light footfall, the minutest wave That swells the flood of ages, whelms in nothing The unsubstantial bubble. Ay! today Stern is the tyrant's mandate, red the gaze That flashes desolation, strong the arm _145 That scatters multitudes. To-morrow comes! That mandate is a thunder-peal that died In ages past; that gaze, a transient flash On which the midnight closed, and on that arm The worm has made his meal. The virtuous man, _150 Who, great in his humility, as kings Are little in their grandeur; he who leads Invincibly a life of resolute good, And stands amid the silent dungeon depths More free and fearless than the trembling judge, _155 Who, clothed in venal power, vainly strove To bind the impassive spirit;--when he falls, His mild eye beams benevolence no more: Withered the hand outstretched but to relieve; Sunk Reason's simple eloquence, that rolled _160 But to appal the guilty. Yes! the grave Hath quenched that eye, and Death's relentless frost Withered that arm: but the unfading fame Which Virtue hangs upon its votary's tomb; The deathless memory of that man, whom kings _165 Call to their mind and tremble; the remembrance With which the happy spirit contemplates Its well-spent pilgrimage on earth, Shall never pass away.

'Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; _170 The subject, not the citizen: for kings And subjects, mutual foes, forever play A losing game into each other's hands, Whose stakes are vice and misery. The man Of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys. _175 Power, like a desolating pestilence, Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience, Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth, Makes slaves of men, and, of the human frame, A mechanized automaton. When Nero, _180 High over flaming Rome, with savage joy Lowered like a fiend, drank with enraptured ear The shrieks of agonizing death, beheld The frightful desolation spread, and felt A new-created sense within his soul _185 Thrill to the sight, and vibrate to the sound; Think'st thou his grandeur had not overcome The force of human kindness? and, when Rome, With one stern blow, hurled not the tyrant down, Crushed not the arm red with her dearest blood _190 Had not submissive abjectness destroyed Nature's suggestions? Look on yonder earth: The golden harvests spring; the unfailing sun Sheds light and life; the fruits, the flowers, the trees, Arise in due succession; all things speak _195 Peace, harmony, and love. The universe, In Nature's silent eloquence, declares That all fulfil the works of love and joy,-- All but the outcast, Man. He fabricates The sword which stabs his peace; he cherisheth _200 The snakes that gnaw his heart; he raiseth up The tyrant, whose delight is in his woe, Whose sport is in his agony. Yon sun, Lights it the great alone? Yon silver beams, Sleep they less sweetly on the cottage thatch _205 Than on the dome of kings? Is mother Earth A step-dame to her numerous sons, who earn Her unshared gifts with unremitting toil; A mother only to those puling babes Who, nursed in ease and luxury, make men _210 The playthings of their babyhood, and mar, In self-important childishness, that peace Which men alone appreciate?

'Spirit of Nature! no. The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs _215 Alike in every human heart. Thou, aye, erectest there Thy throne of power unappealable: Thou art the judge beneath whose nod Man's brief and frail authority _220 Is powerless as the wind That passeth idly by. Thine the tribunal which surpasseth The show of human justice, As God surpasses man. _225

'Spirit of Nature! thou Life of interminable multitudes; Soul of those mighty spheres Whose changeless paths through Heaven's deep silence lie; Soul of that smallest being, _230 The dwelling of whose life Is one faint April sun-gleam;-- Man, like these passive things, Thy will unconsciously fulfilleth: Like theirs, his age of endless peace, _235 Which time is fast maturing, Will swiftly, surely come; And the unbounded frame, which thou pervadest, Will be without a flaw Marring its perfect symmetry. _240

4.

'How beautiful this night! the balmiest sigh, Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear, Were discord to the speaking quietude That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Studded with stars unutterably bright, _5 Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, Seems like a canopy which love had spread To curtain her sleeping world. Yon gentle hills, Robed in a garment of untrodden snow; Yon darksome rocks, whence icicles depend, _10 So stainless, that their white and glittering spires Tinge not the moon's pure beam; yon castled steep, Whose banner hangeth o'er the time-worn tower So idly, that rapt fancy deemeth it A metaphor of peace;--all form a scene _15 Where musing Solitude might love to lift Her soul above this sphere of earthliness; Where Silence undisturbed might watch alone, So cold, so bright, so still. The orb of day, In southern climes, o'er ocean's waveless field _20 Sinks sweetly smiling: not the faintest breath Steals o'er the unruffled deep; the clouds of eve Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day; And vesper's image on the western main Is beautifully still. To-morrow comes: _25 Cloud upon cloud, in dark and deepening mass, Roll o'er the blackened waters; the deep roar Of distant thunder mutters awfully; Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloom That shrouds the boiling surge; the pitiless fiend, _30 With all his winds and lightnings, tracks his prey; The torn deep yawns,--the vessel finds a grave Beneath its jagged gulf. Ah! whence yon glare That fires the arch of Heaven!--that dark red smoke Blotting the silver moon? The stars are quenched _35 In darkness, and the pure and spangling snow Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round! Hark to that roar, whose swift and deaf'ning peals In countless echoes through the mountains ring, Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne! _40 Now swells the intermingling din; the jar Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb; The falling beam, the shriek, the groan, the shout, The ceaseless clangour, and the rush of men Inebriate with rage:--loud, and more loud _45 The discord grows; till pale Death shuts the scene, And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws His cold and bloody shroud.--Of all the men Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there, In proud and vigorous health; of all the hearts _50 That beat with anxious life at sunset there; How few survive, how few are beating now! All is deep silence, like the fearful calm That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause; Save when the frantic wail of widowed love _55 Comes shuddering on the blast, or the faint moan With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay Wrapped round its struggling powers. The gray morn Dawns on the mournful scene; the sulphurous smoke Before the icy wind slow rolls away, _60 And the bright beams of frosty morning dance Along the spangling snow. There tracks of blood Even to the forest's depth, and scattered arms, And lifeless warriors, whose hard lineaments _65 Death's self could change not, mark the dreadful path Of the outsallying victors: far behind, Black ashes note where their proud city stood. Within yon forest is a gloomy glen-- Each tree which guards its darkness from the day, Waves o'er a warrior's tomb. I see thee shrink, _70 Surpassing Spirit!--wert thou human else? I see a shade of doubt and horror fleet Across thy stainless features: yet fear not; This is no unconnected misery, Nor stands uncaused, and irretrievable. _75 Man's evil nature, that apology Which kings who rule, and cowards who crouch, set up For their unnumbered crimes, sheds not the blood Which desolates the discord-wasted land. From kings, and priests, and statesmen, war arose, _80 Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe, Whose grandeur his debasement. Let the axe Strike at the root, the poison-tree will fall; And where its venomed exhalations spread Ruin, and death, and woe, where millions lay _85 Quenching the serpent's famine, and their bones Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast, A garden shall arise, in loveliness Surpassing fabled Eden. Hath Nature's soul, That formed this world so beautiful, that spread _90 Earth's lap with plenty, and life's smallest chord Strung to unchanging unison, that gave The happy birds their dwelling in the grove, That yielded to the wanderers of the deep The lovely silence of the unfathomed main, _95 And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust With spirit, thought, and love; on Man alone, Partial in causeless malice, wantonly Heaped ruin, vice, and slavery; his soul Blasted with withering curses; placed afar _100 The meteor-happiness, that shuns his grasp, But serving on the frightful gulf to glare, Rent wide beneath his footsteps? Nature!--no! Kings, priests, and statesmen, blast the human flower Even in its tender bud; their influence darts _105 Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins Of desolate society. The child, Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name, Swells with the unnatural pride of crime, and lifts His baby-sword even in a hero's mood. _110 This infant-arm becomes the bloodiest scourge Of devastated earth; whilst specious names, Learned in soft childhood's unsuspecting hour, Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dims Bright Reason's ray, and sanctifies the sword _115 Upraised to shed a brother's innocent blood. Let priest-led slaves cease to proclaim that man Inherits vice and misery, when Force And Falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good. _120 'Ah! to the stranger-soul, when first it peeps From its new tenement, and looks abroad For happiness and sympathy, how stern And desolate a tract is this wide world! How withered all the buds of natural good! _125 No shade, no shelter from the sweeping storms Of pitiless power! On its wretched frame, Poisoned, perchance, by the disease and woe Heaped on the wretched parent whence it sprung By morals, law, and custom, the pure winds _130 Of Heaven, that renovate the insect tribes, May breathe not. The untainting light of day May visit not its longings. It is bound Ere it has life: yea, all the chains are forged Long ere its being: all liberty and love _135 And peace is torn from its defencelessness; Cursed from its birth, even from its cradle doomed To abjectness and bondage!

'Throughout this varied and eternal world Soul is the only element: the block _140 That for uncounted ages has remained The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight Is active, living spirit. Every grain Is sentient both in unity and part, And the minutest atom comprehends _145 A world of loves and hatreds; these beget Evil and good: hence truth and falsehood spring; Hence will and thought and action, all the germs Of pain or pleasure, sympathy or hate, That variegate the eternal universe. _150 Soul is not more polluted than the beams Of Heaven's pure orb, ere round their rapid lines The taint of earth-born atmospheres arise.

'Man is of soul and body, formed for deeds Of high resolve, on fancy's boldest wing _155 To soar unwearied, fearlessly to turn The keenest pangs to peacefulness, and taste The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield. Or he is formed for abjectness and woe, To grovel on the dunghill of his fears, _160 To shrink at every sound, to quench the flame Of natural love in sensualism, to know That hour as blessed when on his worthless days The frozen hand of Death shall set its seal, Yet fear the cure, though hating the disease. _165 The one is man that shall hereafter be; The other, man as vice has made him now.

'War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight, The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade, And, to those royal murderers, whose mean thrones _170 Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore, The bread they eat, the staff on which they lean. Guards, garbed in blood-red livery, surround Their palaces, participate the crimes That force defends, and from a nation's rage _175 Secure the crown, which all the curses reach That famine, frenzy, woe and penury breathe. These are the hired bravos who defend The tyrant's throne--the bullies of his fear: These are the sinks and channels of worst vice, _180 The refuse of society, the dregs Of all that is most vile: their cold hearts blend Deceit with sternness, ignorance with pride, All that is mean and villanous, with rage Which hopelessness of good, and self-contempt, _185 Alone might kindle; they are decked in wealth, Honour and power, then are sent abroad To do their work. The pestilence that stalks In gloomy triumph through some eastern land Is less destroying. They cajole with gold, _190 And promises of fame, the thoughtless youth Already crushed with servitude: he knows His wretchedness too late, and cherishes Repentance for his ruin, when his doom Is sealed in gold and blood! _195 Those too the tyrant serve, who, skilled to snare The feet of Justice in the toils of law, Stand, ready to oppress the weaker still; And right or wrong will vindicate for gold, Sneering at public virtue, which beneath _200 Their pitiless tread lies torn and trampled, where Honour sits smiling at the sale of truth.

'Then grave and hoary-headed hypocrites, Without a hope, a passion, or a love, Who, through a life of luxury and lies, _205 Have crept by flattery to the seats of power, Support the system whence their honours flow... They have three words:--well tyrants know their use, Well pay them for the loan, with usury Torn from a bleeding world!--God, Hell, and Heaven. _210 A vengeful, pitiless, and almighty fiend, Whose mercy is a nickname for the rage Of tameless tigers hungering for blood. Hell, a red gulf of everlasting fire, Where poisonous and undying worms prolong _215 Eternal misery to those hapless slaves Whose life has been a penance for its crimes. And Heaven, a meed for those who dare belie Their human nature, quake, believe, and cringe Before the mockeries of earthly power. _220

'These tools the tyrant tempers to his work, Wields in his wrath, and as he wills destroys, Omnipotent in wickedness: the while Youth springs, age moulders, manhood tamely does His bidding, bribed by short-lived joys to lend _225 Force to the weakness of his trembling arm.

'They rise, they fall; one generation comes Yielding its harvest to destruction's scythe. It fades, another blossoms: yet behold! Red glows the tyrant's stamp-mark on its bloom, _230 Withering and cankering deep its passive prime. He has invented lying words and modes, Empty and vain as his own coreless heart; Evasive meanings, nothings of much sound, To lure the heedless victim to the toils _235 Spread round the valley of its paradise.

'Look to thyself, priest, conqueror, or prince! Whether thy trade is falsehood, and thy lusts Deep wallow in the earnings of the poor, With whom thy Master was:--or thou delight'st _240 In numbering o'er the myriads of thy slain, All misery weighing nothing in the scale Against thy short-lived fame: or thou dost load With cowardice and crime the groaning land, A pomp-fed king. Look to thy wretched self! _245 Ay, art thou not the veriest slave that e'er Crawled on the loathing earth? Are not thy days Days of unsatisfying listlessness? Dost thou not cry, ere night's long rack is o'er, "When will the morning come?" Is not thy youth _250 A vain and feverish dream of sensualism? Thy manhood blighted with unripe disease? Are not thy views of unregretted death Drear, comfortless, and horrible? Thy mind, Is it not morbid as thy nerveless frame, _255 Incapable of judgement, hope, or love? And dost thou wish the errors to survive That bar thee from all sympathies of good, After the miserable interest Thou hold'st in their protraction? When the grave _260 Has swallowed up thy memory and thyself, Dost thou desire the bane that poisons earth To twine its roots around thy coffined clay, Spring from thy bones, and blossom on thy tomb, That of its fruit thy babes may eat and die? _265

NOTE: _176 Secures edition 1813.

5.