Selected Poetry and Prose. Percy Bysshe Shelley

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immeasurable void,

      Scattering its waters to the passing winds.

      Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine

      And torrent were not all;—one silent nook

      Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,

      Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,

      It overlooked in its serenity

      The dark earth and the bending vault of stars.

      It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile

      Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped

      The fissured stones with its entwining arms,

      And did embower with leaves forever green

      And berries dark the smooth and even space

      Of its inviolated floor; and here

      The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore

      In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay,

      Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,

      Rivals the pride of summer. ’tis the haunt

      Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach

      The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,

      One human step alone, has ever broken

      The stillness of its solitude; one voice

      Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voice

      Which hither came, floating among the winds,

      And led the loveliest among human forms

      To make their wild haunts the depository

      Of all the grace and beauty that endued

      Its motions, render up its majesty,

      Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,

      And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,

      Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,

      Commit the colors of that varying cheek,

      That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

      The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured

      A sea of lustre on the horizon’s verge

      That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist

      Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank

      Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star

      Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,

      Danger’s grim playmates, on that precipice

      Slept, clasped in his embrace.—O storm of death,

      Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night!

      And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still

      Guiding its irresistible career

      In thy devastating omnipotence,

      Art king of this frail world! from the red field

      Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,

      The patriot’s sacred couch, the snowy bed

      Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,

      A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls

      His brother Death! A rare and regal prey

      He hath prepared, prowling around the world;

      Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men

      Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,

      Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine

      The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

      When on the threshold of the green recess

      The wanderer’s footsteps fell, he knew that death

      Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,

      Did he resign his high and holy soul

      To images of the majestic past,

      That paused within his passive being now,

      Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe

      Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place

      His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk

      Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone

      Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest,

      Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink

      Of that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,

      Surrendering to their final impulses

      The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair,

      The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear

      Marred his repose; the influxes of sense

      And his own being, unalloyed by pain,

      Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

      The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there

      At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight

      Was the great moon, which o’er the western line

      Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,

      With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed

      To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills

      It rests; and still as the divided frame

      Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet’s blood,

      That ever beat in mystic sympathy

      With Nature’s ebb and flow, grew feebler still;

      And when two lessening points of light alone

      Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp

      Of his faint respiration scarce did stir

      The

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