In SHELLEY'S Queen Mab, we have this beautiful apostrophe to Night : How beautiful this Night! the balmiest sigh Which vernal zephyrs breathe in morning's ear Studded with stars unutterably bright, Through which the moon's unclouded splendour rolls, Seems like a canopy which love has spread, To curtain her sleeping world. Among the most admired productions of Shelley are the lines to The Cloud, and the Ode to the Skylark. Judge of the rich quality of these compositions by the following extracts: The Cloud: 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, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain, That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor Which only the angels hear, 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, tent, Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, Are each paved with the moon and these. The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, I am the daughter of earth and water, I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain, when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. To a Skylark: Hail to thee, blithe spirit! bird thou never wert, Higher still and higher, from the earth thou springest O'er which clouds are brightening, thou dost float and run, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight. All the earth and air with thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, from one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. What thou art we know not; what is most like thee? As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. Like a poet hidden in the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, till the world is wrought With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: Scattering unbeholden its aërial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view. Teach us, sprite or bird, what sweet thoughts are thine: That panted forth a rapture so divine. Chorus hymeneal, or triumphant chant, Matched with thine would be all but an empty vaunt— We look before and after, and pine for what is not; Teach me half the gladness that thy brain must know, Note the brilliant fancy gleaming throughout these stanzas: few poets, if any, since Spenser, have possessed such an exuberance of beautiful imagery as Shelley and Keats. Had they not died so young, it is impossible to conjecture what wonders they might have achieved in the world of song. Now let us gather a few fair flowers from Shelley's various Music: Music, when soft voices die, Odours, when sweet violets sicken, And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Sensitive Plant : A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew; And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. But none ever trembled and panted with bliss, In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want, Autumn : The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying; |