Percy Bysshe Shelley.

1792-1822

612   Hymn of Pan

FROM the forests and highlands
   We come, we come;
From the river-girt islands,
   Where loud waves are dumb,
Listening to my sweet pipings.
   The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
     The bees on the bells of thyme,
   The birds on the myrtle bushes,
     The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
   Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,
   And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing
   The light of the dying day,
Speeded by my sweet pipings.
   The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns,
     And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
   To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
     And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
   With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,
   I sang of the dædal earth,
And of heaven, and the giant wars,
   And love, and death, and birth.
And then I changed my pipings—
   Singing how down the vale of Mænalus
     I pursued a maiden, and clasp’d a reed:
   Gods and men, we are all deluded thus;
     It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed.
All wept—as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood—
   At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

613   The Invitation

BEST and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born.
Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
It kiss’d the forehead of the Earth;
And smiled upon the silent sea;
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all their fountains;
And breathed upon the frozen mountains;
And like a prophetess of May
Strew’d flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs—
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another’s mind,
While the touch of Nature’s art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustom’d visitor:—
‘I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields.
Reflection, you may come to-morrow;
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.

You with the unpaid bill, Despair,—
You tiresome verse-reciter, Care,—
I will pay you in the grave,—
Death will listen to your stave.
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough.
Hope, in pity, mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on your sweet food,
At length I find one moment’s good
After long pain: with all your love,
This you never told me of.’

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains;
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves;
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;
When the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.

614   Hellas

THE world’s great age begins anew,
   The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
   Her winter weeds outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.