Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation

Like shadows: as if day had cloven the skies At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes.

XII

Thou heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee then,

In ominous eclipse? a thousand years, Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears, Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; How like Bacchanals of blood

Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred

brood!

When one, like them, but mightier far than they,

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, Rose; armies mingled in obscure array,

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred
bowers

Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued,
Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours,
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ances-
tral towers.

XIII

England yet sleeps: was she not called of old? Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder Vesuvius wakens Etna, and the cold

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder; O'er the lit waves every Æolian isle

From Pithecusa to Pelorus

Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus ; They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us!

Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile

And they dissolve; but Spain's were links of steel,

Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file.

Twins of a single destiny! appeal

To the eternal years enthroned before us
In the dim West; impress us from a seal,
All ye have thought and done! Time cannot
dare conceal.

XIV

Tomb of Arminius! render up thy dead

Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, His soul may stream over the tyrant's head; Thy victory shall be his epitaph, Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, King-deluded Germany,

His dead spirit lives in thee.

Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free! And thou, lost Paradise of this divine

And glorious world! thou flowery wilderness!

Thou island of eternity! thou shrine

Where desolation clothed with loveliness

Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy,
Gather thy blood into thy heart; repress

The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces.

xiii. 14 us || as, Forman conj.

XV

Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name
Of King into the dust! or write it there,
So that this blot upon the page of fame

Were as a serpent's path, which the light air
Erases, and the flat sands close behind!
Ye the oracle have heard.

Lift the victory-flashing sword,

And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,

Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind
Into a mass, irrefragably firm,

The axes and the rods which awe mankind ;
The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,

To set thine armèd heel on this reluctant worm.

XVI

Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, That the pale name of Priest might shrink and

dwindle

Into the hell from which it first was hurled, A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; Till human thoughts might kneel alone, Each before the judgment-throne

Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown! Oh, that the words which make the thoughts

obscure

XV. 2 King, Boscombe MS. || .

...

Shelley, 1820.

From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew

From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture, Were stripped of their thin masks and various

hue

And frowns and smiles and splendors not their

own,

Till in the nakedness of false and true

They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due.

XVII

He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever

Can be between the cradle and the grave Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavor! If on his own high will, a willing slave,

He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. What if earth can clothe and feed

Amplest millions at their need,

And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?

Oh, what if Art, an ardent intercessor,

Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, Checks the great mother stooping to caress her And cries: "Give me, thy child, dominion Over all height and depth?" if Life can breed New wants, and wealth from those who toil and

groan

Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for

one.

XVIII

Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave
Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star

xvii. 9 Oh, Shelley, 1820 || Or, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

Beckons the sun from the Eoan wave,

Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not;

Rulers of eternal thought,

To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot? Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? O Liberty! if such could be thy name

Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from
thee

If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free
Wept tears, and blood like tears? The solemn

harmony

XIX

Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing
To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ;
Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,
Sinks headlong through the aërial golden light
On the heavy sounding plain,

When the bolt has pierced its brain;
As summer clouds dissolve unburdened of their

rain;

As a far taper fades with fading night, As a brief insect dies with dying day, My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, Drooped; o'er it closed the echoes far away Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, As waves which lately paved his watery way Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play.