PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow, A living Image, which did far surpass In beauty that bright shape of vital stone Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion. 36 A sexless thing it was, and in its growth It seemed to have developed no defect Of either sex, yet all the grace of both; In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked; The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth, The countenance was such as might se- Some artist that his skill should never die, 40 Between the severed mountains lay on high, Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. 37 From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid 41 And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud wings, Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere, Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings, Dyed in the ardors of the atmosphere. She led her creature to the boiling springs Where the light boat was moored, and said, "Sit here!" And pointed to the prow, and took her seat Beside the rudder, with opposing feet. Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: Now lingering on the pools, in which abode The calm and darkness of the deep content In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road Of white and dancing waters, all be sprent With sand and polished pebbles: mortal boat In such a shallow rapid could not float. 38 And down the streams which clove those 42 And down the earthquaking cataracts, mountains vast, Around their inland islets, and amid The panther-peopled forests, whose shade cast Darkness and odors, and a pleasure hid In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed; By many a star-surrounded pyramid Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky, And caverns yawning round unfathomably. 39 The silver noon into that winding dell, With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops, Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; A green and glowing light, like that which drops From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell, When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps; 43 1 Pygmalion fell in love with the statue of a woman which he had carved, and which came 44 to life. See Morris's Pygmalion and the Image in The Earthly Paradise (1868-70) and Gilbert's Pygmalion and Galatea (1871). Which to the inmost mountain upward tend, She called "Hermaphroditus!"; and the pale And heavy hue which slumber could extend And it unfurled its heaven-colored pinions, With stars of fire spotting the stream below; And from above into the Sun's dominions All interwoven with fine feathery snow 49 And moonlight splendor of intensest rime,1 With which frost paints the pines in winter time. 45 And then it winnowed the Elysian air Which ever hung about that lady bright, With its ethereal vans; and speeding there, Like a star upon the torrent of the night, Or a swift eagle in the morning glare Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight, The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings, Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs. 46 The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to The still air seemed as if its waves did flow The Lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro; Beneath, the billows having vainly striven Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel 47 Or, when the weary moon was in the wane, 50 51 The bastions of the storm, when through the sky The spirits of the tempest thundered by; A haven, beneath whose translucent floor The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably, And around which the solid vapors hoar, Based on the level waters, to the sky Lifted their dreadful crags, and, like a shore Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly Hemmed in, with rifts and precipices gray And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing, And the incessant hail with stony clash Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash Looked like the wreck of some windwandering Fragment of inky thunder-smoke-this haven Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven; On which that Lady played her many pranks, Circling the image of a shooting star, Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are, In her light boat; and many quips and cranks1 She played upon the water, till the car Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, To journey from the misty east began. And then she called out of the hollow turrets Of those high clouds, white, golden, and vermilion, The armies of her ministering spirits; In mighty legions, million after million, They came, each troop emblazoning its merits On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion Of the intertexture of the atmosphere They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere. Out of the clouds whose moving turrets 53 They framed the imperial tent of their make 1 hoarfrost That is, in the interval between the old moon and the new. Of woven exhalations, underlaid great Queen 1 See L'Allegro, 27. And mystic snatches of harmonious sound Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed, Egypt and Æthiopia, from the steep Of cities and proud temples gleam amid, By Moris and the Mareotid lakes, Strewn with faint blooms, like bridal chamber floors, Where naked boys bridling tame watersnakes, Or charioteering ghastly alligators, Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes Of those huge forms-within the brazen doors Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast, Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast. And where within the surface of the river The shadows of the massy temples lie, And never are erased-but tremble ever Like things which every cloud can doom to die; Through lotus-paven canals, and whereso ever The works of man pierced that serenest sky With tombs, and towers, and fanes,- 'twas her delight To wander in the shadow of the night. With motion like the spirit of that wind Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind, Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet; Through fane and palace-court, and labyrinth mined With many a dark and subterranean street Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep She passed, observing mortals in their sleep. And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to 61 A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see last. Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. Here lay two sister-twins in infancy; There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep; Within, two lovers linkèd innocently creep |