Even thy name is as a god, Heaven! for thou art the abode _20 Of that Power which is the glass Wherein man his nature sees. Generations as they pass Worship thee with bended knees. Their unremaining gods and they _25 Like a river roll away: Thou remainest such--alway!-- SECOND SPIRIT: Thou art but the mind's first chamber, Round which its young fancies clamber, Like weak insects in a cave, _30 Lighted up by stalactites; But the portal of the grave, Where a world of new delights Will make thy best glories seem But a dim and noonday gleam _35 From the shadow of a dream! THIRD SPIRIT: Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is Heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? _40 What are suns and spheres which flee With the instinct of that Spirit Of which ye are but a part? Drops which Nature's mighty heart Drives through thinnest veins! Depart! _45 What is Heaven? a globe of dew, Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world: Constellated suns unshaken, _50 Orbits measureless, are furled In that frail and fading sphere, With ten millions gathered there, To tremble, gleam, and disappear. *** CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN. [Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, "Examination", etc., 1903.] The [living frame which sustains my soul] Is [sinking beneath the fierce control] Down through the lampless deep of song I am drawn and driven along-- When a Nation screams aloud _5 Like an eagle from the cloud When a... ... When the night... ... Watch the look askance and old-- See neglect, and falsehood fold... _10 *** ODE TO THE WEST WIND. (This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.]) [Published with "Prometheus Unbound", 1820.] 1. O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,