Chapter XLIX: Prologue: To Hellas (3)

LAUD: Your Majesty has ever interposed, _210 In lenity towards your native soil, Between the heavy vengeance of the Church And Scotland. Mark the consequence of warming This brood of northern vipers in your bosom. The rabble, instructed no doubt _215 By London, Lindsay, Hume, and false Argyll (For the waves never menace heaven until Scourged by the wind's invisible tyranny), Have in the very temple of the Lord Done outrage to His chosen ministers. _220 They scorn the liturgy of the Holy Church, Refuse to obey her canons, and deny The apostolic power with which the Spirit Has filled its elect vessels, even from him Who held the keys with power to loose and bind, _225 To him who now pleads in this royal presence.-- Let ample powers and new instructions be Sent to the High Commissioners in Scotland. To death, imprisonment, and confiscation, Add torture, add the ruin of the kindred _230 Of the offender, add the brand of infamy, Add mutilation: and if this suffice not, Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst They may lick up that scum of schismatics. I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring _235 What we possess, still prate of Christian peace, As if those dreadful arbitrating messengers Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong, Should be let loose against the innocent sleep Of templed cities and the smiling fields, _240 For some poor argument of policy Which touches our own profit or our pride (Where it indeed were Christian charity To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand): And, when our great Redeemer, when our God, _245 When He who gave, accepted, and retained Himself in propitiation of our sins, Is scorned in His immediate ministry, With hazard of the inestimable loss Of all the truth and discipline which is _250 Salvation to the extremest generation Of men innumerable, they talk of peace! Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now: For, by that Christ who came to bring a sword, Not peace, upon the earth, and gave command _255 To His disciples at the Passover That each should sell his robe and buy a sword,- Once strip that minister of naked wrath, And it shall never sleep in peace again Till Scotland bend or break.

NOTES: _134-_232 Beloved...mutilation 1870; omitted 1824. _237 arbitrating messengers 1870; messengers of wrath 1824. _239 the 1870; omitted 1524. _243-_244 Parentheses inserted 1870. _246, _247 When He...sins 1870; omitted 1824. _248 ministry 1870; ministers 1824. _249-52 With...innumerable 1870; omitted 1824.

KING: My Lord Archbishop, _260 Do what thou wilt and what thou canst in this. Thy earthly even as thy heavenly King Gives thee large power in his unquiet realm. But we want money, and my mind misgives me That for so great an enterprise, as yet, _265 We are unfurnished.

STRAFFORD: Yet it may not long Rest on our wills.

COTTINGTON: The expenses Of gathering shipmoney, and of distraining For every petty rate (for we encounter A desperate opposition inch by inch _270 In every warehouse and on every farm), Have swallowed up the gross sum of the imposts; So that, though felt as a most grievous scourge Upon the land, they stand us in small stead As touches the receipt.

STRAFFORD: 'Tis a conclusion _275 Most arithmetical: and thence you infer Perhaps the assembling of a parliament. Now, if a man should call his dearest enemies T0 sit in licensed judgement on his life, His Majesty might wisely take that course. _280 [ASIDE TO COTTINGTON.] It is enough to expect from these lean imposts That they perform the office of a scourge, Without more profit. [ALOUD.] Fines and confiscations, And a forced loan from the refractory city, Will fill our coffers: and the golden love _285 Of loyal gentlemen and noble friends For the worshipped father of our common country, With contributions from the catholics, Will make Rebellion pale in our excess. Be these the expedients until time and wisdom _290 Shall frame a settled state of government.

LAUD: And weak expedients they! Have we not drained All, till the ... which seemed A mine exhaustless?

STRAFFORD: And the love which IS, If loyal hearts could turn their blood to gold. _295

LAUD: Both now grow barren: and I speak it not As loving parliaments, which, as they have been In the right hand of bold bad mighty kings The scourges of the bleeding Church, I hate. Methinks they scarcely can deserve our fear. _300

STRAFFORD: Oh! my dear liege, take back the wealth thou gavest: With that, take all I held, but as in trust For thee, of mine inheritance: leave me but This unprovided body for thy service, And a mind dedicated to no care _305 Except thy safety:--but assemble not A parliament. Hundreds will bring, like me, Their fortunes, as they would their blood, before--

KING: No! thou who judgest them art but one. Alas! We should be too much out of love with Heaven, _310 Did this vile world show many such as thee, Thou perfect, just, and honourable man! Never shall it be said that Charles of England Stripped those he loved for fear of those he scorns; Nor will he so much misbecome his throne _315 As to impoverish those who most adorn And best defend it. That you urge, dear Strafford, Inclines me rather--

QUEEN: To a parliament? Is this thy firmness? and thou wilt preside Over a knot of ... censurers, _320 To the unswearing of thy best resolves, And choose the worst, when the worst comes too soon? Plight not the worst before the worst must come. Oh, wilt thou smile whilst our ribald foes, Dressed in their own usurped authority, _325 Sharpen their tongues on Henrietta's fame? It is enough! Thou lovest me no more! [WEEPS.]

KING: Oh, Henrietta!

[THEY TALK APART.]

COTTINGTON [TO LAUD]: Money we have none: And all the expedients of my Lord of Strafford Will scarcely meet the arrears.

LAUD: Without delay _330 An army must be sent into the north; Followed by a Commission of the Church, With amplest power to quench in fire and blood, And tears and terror, and the pity of hell, The intenser wrath of Heresy. God will give _335 Victory; and victory over Scotland give The lion England tamed into our hands. That will lend power, and power bring gold.

COTTINGTON: Meanwhile We must begin first where your Grace leaves off. Gold must give power, or--

LAUD: I am not averse _340 From the assembling of a parliament. Strong actions and smooth words might teach them soon The lesson to obey. And are they not A bubble fashioned by the monarch's mouth, The birth of one light breath? If they serve no purpose, _345 A word dissolves them.

STRAFFORD: The engine of parliaments Might be deferred until I can bring over The Irish regiments: they will serve to assure The issue of the war against the Scots. And, this game won--which if lost, all is lost-- _350 Gather these chosen leaders of the rebels, And call them, if you will, a parliament.

KING: Oh, be our feet still tardy to shed blood. Guilty though it may be! I would still spare The stubborn country of my birth, and ward _355 From countenances which I loved in youth The wrathful Church's lacerating hand. [TO LAUD.] Have you o'erlooked the other articles?

[ENTER ARCHY.]

LAUD: Hazlerig, Hampden, Pym, young Harry Vane, Cromwell, and other rebels of less note, _360 Intend to sail with the next favouring wind For the Plantations.

ARCHY: Where they think to found A commonwealth like Gonzalo's in the play, Gynaecocoenic and pantisocratic.

NOTE: _363 Gonzalo's 1870; Gonzaga Boscombe manuscript.

KING: What's that, sirrah?

ARCHY: New devil's politics. _365 Hell is the pattern of all commonwealths: Lucifer was the first republican. Will you hear Merlin's prophecy, how three [posts?] 'In one brainless skull, when the whitethorn is full, Shall sail round the world, and come back again: _370 Shall sail round the world in a brainless skull, And come back again when the moon is at full:'-- When, in spite of the Church, They will hear homilies of whatever length Or form they please. _375

[COTTINGTON?]: So please your Majesty to sign this order For their detention.

ARCHY: If your Majesty were tormented night and day by fever, gout, rheumatism, and stone, and asthma, etc., and you found these diseases had secretly entered into a conspiracy to abandon you, should you think it necessary to lay an embargo on the port by which they meant to dispeople your unquiet kingdom of man? _383

KING: If fear were made for kings, the Fool mocks wisely; But in this case--[WRITING]. Here, my lord, take the warrant, And see it duly executed forthwith.-- That imp of malice and mockery shall be punished. _387

[EXEUNT ALL BUT KING, QUEEN, AND ARCHY.]

ARCHY: Ay, I am the physician of whom Plato prophesied, who was to be accused by the confectioner before a jury of children, who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud--who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by composition--all impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the holidays. _397

QUEEN: Is the rain over, sirrah?

KING: When it rains And the sun shines, 'twill rain again to-morrow: And therefore never smile till you've done crying. _400

ARCHY: But 'tis all over now: like the April anger of woman, the gentle sky has wept itself serene.

QUEEN: What news abroad? how looks the world this morning?

ARCHY: Gloriously as a grave covered with virgin flowers. There's a rainbow in the sky. Let your Majesty look at it, for

'A rainbow in the morning _407 Is the shepherd's warning;'

and the flocks of which you are the pastor are scattered among the mountain-tops, where every drop of water is a flake of snow, and the breath of May pierces like a January blast. _411

KING: The sheep have mistaken the wolf for their shepherd, my poor boy; and the shepherd, the wolves for their watchdogs.

QUEEN: But the rainbow was a good sign, Archy: it says that the waters of the deluge are gone, and can return no more.

ARCHY: Ay, the salt-water one: but that of tears and blood must yet come down, and that of fire follow, if there be any truth in lies.--The rainbow hung over the city with all its shops,...and churches, from north to south, like a bridge of congregated lightning pieced by the masonry of heaven--like a balance in which the angel that distributes the coming hour was weighing that heavy one whose poise is now felt in the lightest hearts, before it bows the proudest heads under the meanest feet. _424

QUEEN: Who taught you this trash, sirrah?

ARCHY: A torn leaf out of an old book trampled in the dirt.--But for the rainbow. It moved as the sun moved, and...until the top of the Tower...of a cloud through its left-hand tip, and Lambeth Palace look as dark as a rock before the other. Methought I saw a crown figured upon one tip, and a mitre on the other. So, as I had heard treasures were found where the rainbow quenches its points upon the earth, I set off, and at the Tower-- But I shall not tell your Majesty what I found close to the closet-window on which the rainbow had glimmered.

KING: Speak: I will make my Fool my conscience. _435

ARCHY: Then conscience is a fool.--I saw there a cat caught in a rat-trap. I heard the rats squeak behind the wainscots: it seemed to me that the very mice were consulting on the manner of her death.

QUEEN: Archy is shrewd and bitter.

ARCHY: Like the season, _440 So blow the winds.--But at the other end of the rainbow, where the gray rain was tempered along the grass and leaves by a tender interfusion of violet and gold in the meadows beyond Lambeth, what think you that I found instead of a mitre?

KING: Vane's wits perhaps. _445

ARCHY: Something as vain. I saw a gross vapour hovering in a stinking ditch over the carcass of a dead ass, some rotten rags, and broken dishes--the wrecks of what once administered to the stuffing-out and the ornament of a worm of worms. His Grace of Canterbury expects to enter the New Jerusalem some Palm Sunday in triumph on the ghost of this ass. _451

QUEEN: Enough, enough! Go desire Lady Jane She place my lute, together with the music Mari received last week from Italy, In my boudoir, and--

[EXIT ARCHY.]

KING: I'll go in.

NOTE: _254-_455 For by...I'll go in 1870; omitted 1824.

QUEEN: MY beloved lord, _455 Have you not noted that the Fool of late Has lost his careless mirth, and that his words Sound like the echoes of our saddest fears? What can it mean? I should be loth to think Some factious slave had tutored him.

KING: Oh, no! _460 He is but Occasion's pupil. Partly 'tis That our minds piece the vacant intervals Of his wild words with their own fashioning,-- As in the imagery of summer clouds, Or coals of the winter fire, idlers find _465 The perfect shadows of their teeming thoughts: And partly, that the terrors of the time Are sown by wandering Rumour in all spirits; And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind. _470

NOTES: _460, _461 Oh...pupil 1870; omitted 1824. _461 Partly 'tis 1870; It partly is 1824. _465 of 1870; in 1824.

QUEEN: Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts. Come, I will sing to you; let us go try These airs from Italy; and, as we pass The gallery, we'll decide where that Correggio Shall hang--the Virgin Mother _475 With her child, born the King of heaven and earth, Whose reign is men's salvation. And you shall see A cradled miniature of yourself asleep, Stamped on the heart by never-erring love; Liker than any Vandyke ever made, _480 A pattern to the unborn age of thee, Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow, Did I not think that after we were dead Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that _485 The cares we waste upon our heavy crown Would make it light and glorious as a wreath Of Heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

NOTE: _473-_477 and, as...salvation 1870; omitted 1824.

KING: Dear Henrietta!

SCENE 3: THE STAR CHAMBER. LAUD, JUXON, STRAFFORD, AND OTHERS, AS JUDGES. PRYNNE AS A PRISONER, AND THEN BASTWICK.

LAUD: Bring forth the prisoner Bastwick: let the clerk Recite his sentence.

CLERK: 'That he pay five thousand Pounds to the king, lose both his ears, be branded With red-hot iron on the cheek and forehead, And be imprisoned within Lancaster Castle _5 During the pleasure of the Court.'

LAUD: Prisoner, If you have aught to say wherefore this sentence Should not be put into effect, now speak.

JUXON: If you have aught to plead in mitigation, Speak.

BASTWICK: Thus, my lords. If, like the prelates, I _10 Were an invader of the royal power A public scorner of the word of God, Profane, idolatrous, popish, superstitious, Impious in heart and in tyrannic act, Void of wit, honesty, and temperance; _15 If Satan were my lord, as theirs,--our God Pattern of all I should avoid to do; Were I an enemy of my God and King And of good men, as ye are;--I should merit Your fearful state and gilt prosperity, _20 Which, when ye wake from the last sleep, shall turn To cowls and robes of everlasting fire. But, as I am, I bid ye grudge me not The only earthly favour ye can yield, Or I think worth acceptance at your hands,-- _25 Scorn, mutilation, and imprisonment. even as my Master did, Until Heaven's kingdom shall descend on earth, Or earth be like a shadow in the light Of Heaven absorbed--some few tumultuous years _30 Will pass, and leave no wreck of what opposes His will whose will is power.

NOTE: _27-_32 even...power printed as a fragment, Garnett, 1862; inserted here conjecturally, Rossetti, 1870.

LAUD: Officer, take the prisoner from the bar, And be his tongue slit for his insolence.

BASTWICK: While this hand holds a pen--

LAUD: Be his hands--

JUXON: Stop! _35 Forbear, my lord! The tongue, which now can speak No terror, would interpret, being dumb, Heaven's thunder to our harm;... And hands, which now write only their own shame, With bleeding stumps might sign our blood away. _40

LAUD: Much more such 'mercy' among men would be, Did all the ministers of Heaven's revenge Flinch thus from earthly retribution. I Could suffer what I would inflict. [EXIT BASTWICK GUARDED.] Bring up The Lord Bishop of Lincoln.-- [TO STRATFORD.] Know you not _45 That, in distraining for ten thousand pounds Upon his books and furniture at Lincoln, Were found these scandalous and seditious letters Sent from one Osbaldistone, who is fled? I speak it not as touching this poor person; _50 But of the office which should make it holy, Were it as vile as it was ever spotless. Mark too, my lord, that this expression strikes His Majesty, if I misinterpret not.

[ENTER BISHOP WILLIAMS GUARDED.]

STRAFFORD: 'Twere politic and just that Williams taste _55 The bitter fruit of his connection with The schismatics. But you, my Lord Archbishop, Who owed your first promotion to his favour, Who grew beneath his smile--

LAUD: Would therefore beg The office of his judge from this High Court,-- _60 That it shall seem, even as it is, that I, In my assumption of this sacred robe, Have put aside all worldly preference, All sense of all distinction of all persons, All thoughts but of the service of the Church.-- _65 Bishop of Lincoln!

WILLIAMS: Peace, proud hierarch! I know my sentence, and I own it just. Thou wilt repay me less than I deserve, In stretching to the utmost

...

NOTE: Scene 3. _1-_69 Bring...utmost 1870; omitted 1824.

SCENE 4: HAMPDEN, PYM, CROMWELL, HIS DAUGHTER, AND YOUNG SIR HARRY VANE.

HAMPDEN: England, farewell! thou, who hast been my cradle, Shalt never be my dungeon or my grave! I held what I inherited in thee As pawn for that inheritance of freedom Which thou hast sold for thy despoiler's smile: _5 How can I call thee England, or my country?-- Does the wind hold?

VANE: The vanes sit steady Upon the Abbey towers. The silver lightnings Of the evening star, spite of the city's smoke, Tell that the north wind reigns in the upper air. _10 Mark too that flock of fleecy-winged clouds Sailing athwart St. Margaret's.

NOTE: _11 flock 1824; fleet 1870.

HAMPDEN: Hail, fleet herald Of tempest! that rude pilot who shall guide Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee, Beyond the shot of tyranny, _15 Beyond the webs of that swoln spider... Beyond the curses, calumnies, and [lies?] Of atheist priests! ... And thou Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic, Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm, _20 Bright as the path to a beloved home Oh, light us to the isles of the evening land! Like floating Edens cradled in the glimmer Of sunset, through the distant mist of years Touched by departing hope, they gleam! lone regions, _25 Where Power's poor dupes and victims yet have never Propitiated the savage fear of kings With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew Is yet unstained with tears of those who wake To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns; _30 Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites Wrest man's free worship, from the God who loves, To the poor worm who envies us His love! Receive, thou young ... of Paradise. _35 These exiles from the old and sinful world!

...

This glorious clime, this firmament, whose lights Dart mitigated influence through their veil Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green The pavement of this moist all-feeding earth; _40 This vaporous horizon, whose dim round Is bastioned by the circumfluous sea, Repelling invasion from the sacred towers, Presses upon me like a dungeon's grate, A low dark roof, a damp and narrow wall. _45 The boundless universe Becomes a cell too narrow for the soul That owns no master; while the loathliest ward Of this wide prison, England, is a nest Of cradling peace built on the mountain tops,-- _50 To which the eagle spirits of the free, Which range through heaven and earth, and scorn the storm Of time, and gaze upon the light of truth, Return to brood on thoughts that cannot die And cannot be repelled. _55 Like eaglets floating in the heaven of time, They soar above their quarry, and shall stoop Through palaces and temples thunderproof.

NOTES: _13 rude 1870; wild 1824. _16-_18 Beyond...priests 1870; omitted 1824. _25 Touched 1870; Tinged 1824. _34 To the poor 1870; Towards the 1824. _38 their 1870; the 1824. _46 boundless 1870; mighty 1824. _48 owns no 1824; owns a 1870. ward 1870; spot 1824. _50 cradling 1870; cradled 1824. _54, _55 Return...repelled 1870; Return to brood over the [ ] thoughts That cannot die, and may not he repelled 1824. _56-_58 Like...thunderproof 1870; omitted 1824.

SCENE 5:

ARCHY: I'll go live under the ivy that overgrows the terrace, and count the tears shed on its old [roots?] as the [wind?] plays the song of

'A widow bird sate mourning Upon a wintry bough.' _5 [SINGS] Heigho! the lark and the owl! One flies the morning, and one lulls the night:-- Only the nightingale, poor fond soul, Sings like the fool through darkness and light.

'A widow bird sate mourning for her love _10 Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare. No flower upon the ground, _15 And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel's sound.'

NOTE: Scene 5. _1-_9 I'll...light 1870; omitted 1824.

***

THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

[Composed at Lerici on the Gulf of Spezzia in the spring and early summer of 1822--the poem on which Shelley was engaged at the time of his death. Published by Mrs. Shelley in the "Posthumous Poems" of 1824, pages 73-95. Several emendations, the result of Dr. Garnett's examination of the Boscombe manuscript, were given to the world by Miss Mathilde Blind, "Westminster Review", July, 1870. The poem was, of course, included in the "Poetical Works", 1839, both editions. See Editor's Notes.]

Swift as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, and the mask

Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth-- The smokeless altars of the mountain snows _5 Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth

Of light, the Ocean's orison arose, To which the birds tempered their matin lay. All flowers in field or forest which unclose

Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, _10 Swinging their censers in the element, With orient incense lit by the new ray

Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air; And, in succession due, did continent, _15

Isle, ocean, and all things that in them wear The form and character of mortal mould, Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

Their portion of the toil, which he of old Took as his own, and then imposed on them: _20 But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem The cone of night, now they were laid asleep Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep _25 Of a green Apennine: before me fled The night; behind me rose the day; the deep

Was at my feet, and Heaven above my head,-- When a strange trance over my fancy grew Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread _30

Was so transparent, that the scene came through As clear as when a veil of light is drawn O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew

That I had felt the freshness of that dawn Bathe in the same cold dew my brow and hair, _35 And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

Under the self-same bough, and heard as there The birds, the fountains and the ocean hold Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air, And then a vision on my train was rolled. _40

...

As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay, This was the tenour of my waking dream:-- Methought I sate beside a public way

Thick strewn with summer dust, and a great stream Of people there was hurrying to and fro, _45 Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know Whither he went, or whence he came, or why He made one of the multitude, and so

Was borne amid the crowd, as through the sky _50 One of the million leaves of summer's bier; Old age and youth, manhood and infancy,

Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear, Some flying from the thing they feared, and some Seeking the object of another's fear; _55

And others, as with steps towards the tomb, Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath, And others mournfully within the gloom

Of their own shadow walked, and called it death; And some fled from it as it were a ghost, _60 Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath:

But more, with motions which each other crossed, Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw, Or birds within the noonday aether lost,

Upon that path where flowers never grew,-- And, weary with vain toil and faint for thirst, Heard not the fountains, whose melodious dew

Out of their mossy cells forever burst; Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told Of grassy paths and wood-lawns interspersed _70

With overarching elms and caverns cold, And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they Pursued their serious folly as of old.

And as I gazed, methought that in the way The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June _75 When the south wind shakes the extinguished day,

And a cold glare, intenser than the noon, But icy cold, obscured with blinding light The sun, as he the stars. Like the young moon--

When on the sunlit limits of the night _80 Her white shell trembles amid crimson air, And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might--

Doth, as the herald of its coming, bear The ghost of its dead mother, whose dim form Bends in dark aether from her infant's chair,-- _85

So came a chariot on the silent storm Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape So sate within, as one whom years deform,

Beneath a dusky hood and double cape, Crouching within the shadow of a tomb; _90 And o'er what seemed the head a cloud-like crape

Was bent, a dun and faint aethereal gloom Tempering the light. Upon the chariot-beam A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

The guidance of that wonder-winged team; _95 The shapes which drew it in thick lightenings Were lost:--I heard alone on the air's soft stream

The music of their ever-moving wings. All the four faces of that Charioteer Had their eyes banded; little profit brings _100

Speed in the van and blindness in the rear, Nor then avail the beams that quench the sun,-- Or that with banded eyes could pierce the sphere

Of all that is, has been or will be done; So ill was the car guided--but it passed _105 With solemn speed majestically on.

The crowd gave way, and I arose aghast, Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance, And saw, like clouds upon the thunder-blast,

The million with fierce song and maniac dance _110 Raging around--such seemed the jubilee As when to greet some conqueror's advance

Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea From senate-house, and forum, and theatre, When ... upon the free _115

Had bound a yoke, which soon they stooped to bear. Nor wanted here the just similitude Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er

The chariot rolled, a captive multitude Was driven;--all those who had grown old in power _120 Or misery,--all who had their age subdued

By action or by suffering, and whose hour Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe, So that the trunk survived both fruit and flower;--

All those whose fame or infamy must grow _125 Till the great winter lay the form and name Of this green earth with them for ever low;--

All but the sacred few who could not tame Their spirits to the conquerors--but as soon As they had touched the world with living flame, _130

Fled back like eagles to their native noon, Or those who put aside the diadem Of earthly thrones or gems...

Were there, of Athens or Jerusalem. Were neither mid the mighty captives seen, _135 Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them,

Nor those who went before fierce and obscene. The wild dance maddens in the van, and those Who lead it--fleet as shadows on the green,

Outspeed the chariot, and without repose _140 Mix with each other in tempestuous measure To savage music, wilder as it grows,

They, tortured by their agonizing pleasure, Convulsed and on the rapid whirlwinds spun Of that fierce Spirit, whose unholy leisure _145

Was soothed by mischief since the world begun, Throw back their heads and loose their streaming hair; And in their dance round her who dims the sun,

Maidens and youths fling their wild arms in air As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now _150 Bending within each other's atmosphere,

Kindle invisibly--and as they glow, Like moths by light attracted and repelled, Oft to their bright destruction come and go,

Till like two clouds into one vale impelled, _155 That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle And die in rain--the fiery band which held

Their natures, snaps--while the shock still may tingle One falls and then another in the path Senseless--nor is the desolation single, _160

Yet ere I can say WHERE--the chariot hath Passed over them--nor other trace I find But as of foam after the ocean's wrath

Is spent upon the desert shore;--behind, Old men and women foully disarrayed, _165 Shake their gray hairs in the insulting wind,

And follow in the dance, with limbs decayed, Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still Farther behind and deeper in the shade.

But not the less with impotence of will _170 They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose Round them and round each other, and fulfil

Their work, and in the dust from whence they rose Sink, and corruption veils them as they lie, And past in these performs what ... in those. _175

Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry, Half to myself I said--'And what is this? Whose shape is that within the car? And why--'

I would have added--'is all here amiss?--' But a voice answered--'Life!'--I turned, and knew _180 (O Heaven, have mercy on such wretchedness!)

That what I thought was an old root which grew To strange distortion out of the hill side, Was indeed one of those deluded crew,

And that the grass, which methought hung so wide _185 And white, was but his thin discoloured hair, And that the holes he vainly sought to hide,

Were or had been eyes:--'If thou canst forbear To join the dance, which I had well forborne,' Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware, _190

'I will unfold that which to this deep scorn Led me and my companions, and relate The progress of the pageant since the morn;

'If thirst of knowledge shall not then abate, Follow it thou even to the night, but I _195 Am weary.'--Then like one who with the weight

Of his own words is staggered, wearily He paused; and ere he could resume, I cried: 'First, who art thou?'--'Before thy memory,

'I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did and died, _200 And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit Had been with purer nutriment supplied,

'Corruption would not now thus much inherit Of what was once Rousseau,--nor this disguise Stain that which ought to have disdained to wear it; _205

'If I have been extinguished, yet there rise A thousand beacons from the spark I bore'-- 'And who are those chained to the car?'--'The wise,

'The great, the unforgotten,--they who wore Mitres and helms and crowns, or wreaths of light, _210 Signs of thought's empire over thought--their lore

'Taught them not this, to know themselves; their might Could not repress the mystery within, And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

'Caught them ere evening.'--'Who is he with chin _215 Upon his breast, and hands crossed on his chain?'-- 'The child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

'The world, and lost all that it did contain Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; and more Of fame and peace than virtue's self can gain _220

'Without the opportunity which bore Him on its eagle pinions to the peak From which a thousand climbers have before

'Fallen, as Napoleon fell.'--I felt my cheek Alter, to see the shadow pass away, _225 Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

That every pigmy kicked it as it lay; And much I grieved to think how power and will In opposition rule our mortal day,

And why God made irreconcilable _230 Good and the means of good; and for despair I half disdained mine eyes' desire to fill

With the spent vision of the times that were And scarce have ceased to be.--'Dost thou behold,' Said my guide, 'those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire, _235

'Frederick, and Paul, Catherine, and Leopold, And hoary anarchs, demagogues, and sage-- names which the world thinks always old,

'For in the battle Life and they did wage, She remained conqueror. I was overcome _240 By my own heart alone, which neither age,

'Nor tears, nor infamy, nor now the tomb Could temper to its object.'--'Let them pass,' I cried, 'the world and its mysterious doom

'Is not so much more glorious than it was, _245 That I desire to worship those who drew New figures on its false and fragile glass

'As the old faded.'--'Figures ever new Rise on the bubble, paint them as you may; We have but thrown, as those before us threw, _250

'Our shadows on it as it passed away. But mark how chained to the triumphal chair The mighty phantoms of an elder day;

'All that is mortal of great Plato there Expiates the joy and woe his master knew not; _255 The star that ruled his doom was far too fair.

'And life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not, Conquered that heart by love, which gold, or pain, Or age, or sloth, or slavery could subdue not.

'And near him walk the ... twain, _260 The tutor and his pupil, whom Dominion Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.

'The world was darkened beneath either pinion Of him whom from the flock of conquerors Fame singled out for her thunder-bearing minion; _265

'The other long outlived both woes and wars, Throned in the thoughts of men, and still had kept The jealous key of Truth's eternal doors,

'If Bacon's eagle spirit had not lept Like lightning out of darkness--he compelled _270 The Proteus shape of Nature, as it slept

'To wake, and lead him to the caves that held The treasure of the secrets of its reign. See the great bards of elder time, who quelled

'The passions which they sung, as by their strain _275 May well be known: their living melody Tempers its own contagion to the vein

'Of those who are infected with it--I Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain! And so my words have seeds of misery-- _180

'Even as the deeds of others, not as theirs.' And then he pointed to a company,

'Midst whom I quickly recognized the heirs Of Caesar's crime, from him to Constantine; The anarch chiefs, whose force and murderous snares _285

Had founded many a sceptre-bearing line, And spread the plague of gold and blood abroad: And Gregory and John, and men divine,

Who rose like shadows between man and God; Till that eclipse, still hanging over heaven, _290 Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode,

For the true sun it quenched--'Their power was given But to destroy,' replied the leader:--'I Am one of those who have created, even

'If it be but a world of agony.'-- _295 'Whence camest thou? and whither goest thou? How did thy course begin?' I said, 'and why?

'Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow Of people, and my heart sick of one sad thought-- Speak!'--'Whence I am, I partly seem to know, _300

'And how and by what paths I have been brought To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;-- Why this should be, my mind can compass not;

'Whither the conqueror hurries me, still less;-- But follow thou, and from spectator turn _305 Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

'And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn From thee. Now listen:--In the April prime, When all the forest-tips began to burn

'With kindling green, touched by the azure clime _310 Of the young season, I was laid asleep Under a mountain, which from unknown time

'Had yawned into a cavern, high and deep; And from it came a gentle rivulet, Whose water, like clear air, in its calm sweep _315

'Bent the soft grass, and kept for ever wet The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove With sounds, which whoso hears must needs forget

'All pleasure and all pain, all hate and love, Which they had known before that hour of rest; _320 A sleeping mother then would dream not of

'Her only child who died upon the breast At eventide--a king would mourn no more The crown of which his brows were dispossessed

'When the sun lingered o'er his ocean floor _325 To gild his rival's new prosperity. 'Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore

'Ills, which if ills can find no cure from thee, The thought of which no other sleep will quell, Nor other music blot from memory, _330

'So sweet and deep is the oblivious spell; And whether life had been before that sleep The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell

'Like this harsh world in which I woke to weep, I know not. I arose, and for a space _335 The scene of woods and waters seemed to keep,

Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace Of light diviner than the common sun Sheds on the common earth, and all the place

'Was filled with magic sounds woven into one _340 Oblivious melody, confusing sense Amid the gliding waves and shadows dun;

'And, as I looked, the bright omnipresence Of morning through the orient cavern flowed, And the sun's image radiantly intense _345

'Burned on the waters of the well that glowed Like gold, and threaded all the forest's maze With winding paths of emerald fire; there stood

'Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze _350 Of his own glory, on the vibrating Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,

'A Shape all light, which with one hand did fling Dew on the earth, as if she were the dawn, And the invisible rain did ever sing

'A silver music on the mossy lawn; _355 And still before me on the dusky grass, Iris her many-coloured scarf had drawn:

'In her right hand she bore a crystal glass, Mantling with bright Nepenthe; the fierce splendour Fell from her as she moved under the mass _360

'Of the deep cavern, and with palms so tender, Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow, Glided along the river, and did bend her

'Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream _365 That whispered with delight to be its pillow.

'As one enamoured is upborne in dream O'er lily-paven lakes, mid silver mist To wondrous music, so this shape might seem

'Partly to tread the waves with feet which kissed _370 The dancing foam; partly to glide along The air which roughened the moist amethyst,

'Or the faint morning beams that fell among The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees; And her feet, ever to the ceaseless song _375

'Of leaves, and winds, and waves, and birds, and bees, And falling drops, moved in a measure new Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze,

'Up from the lake a shape of golden dew Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon, _380 Dances i' the wind, where never eagle flew;

'And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune To which they moved, seemed as they moved to blot The thoughts of him who gazed on them; and soon

'All that was, seemed as if it had been not; _385 And all the gazer's mind was strewn beneath Her feet like embers; and she, thought by thought,

'Trampled its sparks into the dust of death As day upon the threshold of the east Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath _390

'Of darkness re-illumine even the least Of heaven's living eyes--like day she came, Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased

'To move, as one between desire and shame Suspended, I said--If, as it doth seem, _395 Thou comest from the realm without a name

'Into this valley of perpetual dream, Show whence I came, and where I am, and why-- Pass not away upon the passing stream.

'Arise and quench thy thirst, was her reply. _400 And as a shut lily stricken by the wand Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,

'I rose; and, bending at her sweet command, Touched with faint lips the cup she raised, And suddenly my brain became as sand _405

'Where the first wave had more than half erased The track of deer on desert Labrador; Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,

'Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore, Until the second bursts;--so on my sight _410 Burst a new vision, never seen before,

'And the fair shape waned in the coming light, As veil by veil the silent splendour drops From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

'Of sunrise, ere it tinge the mountain-tops; _415 And as the presence of that fairest planet, Although unseen, is felt by one who hopes

'That his day's path may end as he began it, In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it, _420

'Or the soft note in which his dear lament The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress That turned his weary slumber to content;

'So knew I in that light's severe excess The presence of that Shape which on the stream _425 Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,

'More dimly than a day-appearing dream, The host of a forgotten form of sleep; A light of heaven, whose half-extinguished beam

'Through the sick day in which we wake to weep _430 Glimmers, for ever sought, for ever lost; So did that shape its obscure tenour keep

'Beside my path, as silent as a ghost; But the new Vision, and the cold bright car, With solemn speed and stunning music, crossed _435

'The forest, and as if from some dread war Triumphantly returning, the loud million Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.

'A moving arch of victory, the vermilion And green and azure plumes of Iris had _440 Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,

'And underneath aethereal glory clad The wilderness, and far before her flew The tempest of the splendour, which forbade

'Shadow to fall from leaf and stone; the crew _445 Seemed in that light, like atomies to dance Within a sunbeam;--some upon the new

'Embroidery of flowers, that did enhance The grassy vesture of the desert, played, Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance; _450

'Others stood gazing, till within the shade Of the great mountain its light left them dim; Others outspeeded it; and others made

'Circles around it, like the clouds that swim Round the high moon in a bright sea of air; _455 And more did follow, with exulting hymn,

'The chariot and the captives fettered there:-- But all like bubbles on an eddying flood Fell into the same track at last, and were

'Borne onward.--I among the multitude _460 Was swept--me, sweetest flowers delayed not long; Me, not the shadow nor the solitude;

'Me, not that falling stream's Lethean song; Me, not the phantom of that early Form Which moved upon its motion--but among _465

'The thickest billows of that living storm I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.

'Before the chariot had begun to climb The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, _470 Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme

'Of him who from the lowest depths of hell, Through every paradise and through all glory, Love led serene, and who returned to tell

'The words of hate and awe; the wondrous story _475 How all things are transfigured except Love; For deaf as is a sea, which wrath makes hoary,

'The world can hear not the sweet notes that move The sphere whose light is melody to lovers-- A wonder worthy of his rhyme.--The grove _480

'Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers, The earth was gray with phantoms, and the air Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers

'A flock of vampire-bats before the glare Of the tropic sun, bringing, ere evening, _485 Strange night upon some Indian isle;--thus were

'Phantoms diffused around; and some did fling Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves, Behind them; some like eaglets on the wing

'Were lost in the white day; others like elves _490 Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes Upon the sunny streams and grassy shelves;

'And others sate chattering like restless apes On vulgar hands,... Some made a cradle of the ermined capes _495

'Of kingly mantles; some across the tiar Of pontiffs sate like vultures; others played Under the crown which girt with empire

'A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made Their nests in it. The old anatomies _500 Sate hatching their bare broods under the shade

'Of daemon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes To reassume the delegated power, Arrayed in which those worms did monarchize,

'Who made this earth their charnel. Others more _505 Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist Of common men, and round their heads did soar;

Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist On evening marshes, thronged about the brow Of lawyers, statesmen, priest and theorist;-- _510

'And others, like discoloured flakes of snow On fairest bosoms and the sunniest hair, Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

'Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained _515 In drops of sorrow. I became aware

'Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained The track in which we moved. After brief space, From every form the beauty slowly waned;

'From every firmest limb and fairest face _520 The strength and freshness fell like dust, and left The action and the shape without the grace

'Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft With care; and in those eyes where once hope shone, Desire, like a lioness bereft _525

'Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

'In autumn evening from a poplar tree. _530 Each like himself and like each other were At first; but some distorted seemed to be

'Obscure clouds, moulded by the casual air; And of this stuff the car's creative ray Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there,

'As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way _535 Mask after mask fell from the countenance And form of all; and long before the day

'Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died; And some grew weary of the ghastly dance, _540

'And fell, as I have fallen, by the wayside;-- Those soonest from whose forms most shadows passed, And least of strength and beauty did abide.

'Then, what is life? I cried.'--

CANCELLED OPENING OF THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE.

[Published by Miss M. Blind, "Westminster Review", July, 1870.]

Out of the eastern shadow of the Earth, Amid the clouds upon its margin gray Scattered by Night to swathe in its bright birth

In gold and fleecy snow the infant Day, The glorious Sun arose: beneath his light, _5 The earth and all...

_10-_17 A widow...sound 1870; omitted here 1824; printed as 'A Song,' 1824, page 217. _34, _35 dawn Bathe Mrs. Shelley (later editions); dawn, Bathed 1824, 1839. _63 shunned Boscombe manuscript; spurned 1824, 1839. _70 Of...interspersed Boscombe manuscript; Of grassy paths and wood, lawn-interspersed 1824; wood-lawn-interspersed 1839. _84 form]frown 1824. _93 light...beam]light upon the chariot beam; 1824. _96 it omitted 1824. _109 thunder Boscombe manuscript; thunders 1824; thunder's 1839. _112 greet Boscombe manuscript; meet 1824, 1839. _129 conqueror or conqueror's cj. A.C. Bradley. _131-_134 See Editor's Note. _158 while Boscombe manuscript; omitted 1824, 1839. _167 And...dance 1839 To seek, to [ ], to strain 1824. _168 Seeking 1839; Limping 1824. _188 canst, Mrs. Shelley 1824, 1839, 1847. _189 forborne!' 1824, 1839, 1847. _190 Feature, (of my thought aware); Mrs. Shelley 1847. _188-_190 The punctuation is A.C. Bradley's. _202 nutriment Boscombe manuscript; sentiment 1824, 1839. _205 Stain]Stained 1824, 1839. _235 Said my 1824, 1839; Said then my cj. Forman. _238 names which the 1839: name the 1824. _252 how]now cj. Forman. _260 him 1839; omitted 1824. _265 singled for cj. Forman. _280 See Editor's Note. _281, _282 Even...then Boscombe manuscript; omitted 1824, 1839. _296 camest Boscombe manuscript; comest 1824, 1839. _311 season Boscombe manuscript; year's dawn 1824, 1839. _322 the Boscombe manuscript; her 1824, 1839. _334 woke cj. A.C. Bradley; wake 1824, 1839. Cf. _296, footnote. _361 Of...and Boscombe manuscript; Out of the deep cavern with 1824, 1839. _363 Glided Boscombe manuscript; She glided 1824, 1839. _377 in Boscombe manuscript; to 1824. _422 The favourite song, Stanco di pascolar le pecorelle, is a Brescian national air.--[MRS. SHELLEY'S NOTE.] _464 early]aery cj. Forman. _475 awe Boscombe manuscript; care 1824. _486 isle Boscombe manuscript; vale 1824. _497 sate like vultures Boscombe manuscript; rode like demons 1824. _515 those]eyes cj. Rossetti. _534 Wrought Boscombe manuscript; Wrapt 1824.