FROM PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.' Semichorus I. of Spirits (as Asia and Panthea pass into the forest). The path through which that lovely twain Is curtained out from heaven's wide blue. Nor aught save where some cloud of dew, Or, when some star, of many a one That climbs and wanders through steep night, Has found the cleft through which alone Beams fall from high those depths upon,— By the swift heavens that cannot stay,- And the gloom divine is all around, Semichorus II. There the voluptuous nightingales Are awake through all the broad noonday. When one with bliss or sadness fails, And through the windless ivy-boughs, Sick with sweet love, droops dying away Watching to catch the languid close The song, and all the woods are mute; Like many a lake-surrounded flute, Sounds overflow the listener's brain So sweet that joy is almost pain. [From the same.] VOICE in the air, singing. Life of Life! thy lips enkindle With their love the breath between them; Make the cold air fire,-then screen them Child of Light! thy limbs are burning Through the vest which seems to hide them, As the radiant lines of morning Through the clouds, ere they divide them; And this atmosphere divinest Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. Fair are others; none beholds thee (But thy voice sounds low and tender, Like the fairest), for it folds thee From the sight-that liquid splendour; Lamp of Earth! where'er thou movest, And the souls of whom thou lovest Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing! (1820.) HYMN OF PAN. From the forests and highlands Where loud waves are dumb Listening to my sweet pipings. The wind in the reeds and the rushes, Liquid Peneus was flowing, The Sileni and Sylvans and Fauns, And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, And all that did then attend and follow, I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the dædal earth, And of heaven, and the Giant wars, I pursued a maiden, and clasped a reed: It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed. (1820.) THE CLOUD. I. I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers I bear light shade for the leaves when laid From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their Mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. II. I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the Blast. In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, Over earth and ocean with gentle motion Lured by the love of the Genii that move Over the rills and the crags and the hills, Wherever he dream under mountain or stream And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains. III. The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, When the morning star shines dead: As on the jag of a mountain-crag Which an earthquake rocks and swings An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And, when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardour of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. IV. That orbed maiden with white fire laden Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,— Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, V. I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, The volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, |