Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. _70 What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? _75 With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest--but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. _80 Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? _85 We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. _90 Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. _95 Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! _100 Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then--as I am listening now. _105 NOTE: _55 those Harvard manuscript: these 1820, 1839. *** ODE TO LIBERTY. [Composed early in 1820, and published, with "Prometheus Unbound", in the same year. A transcript in Shelley's hand of lines 1-21 is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and amongst the Boscombe manuscripts there is a fragment of a rough draft (Garnett). For further particulars concerning the text see Editor's Notes.] Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying, Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.--BYRON. 1. A glorious people vibrated again The lightning of the nations: Liberty From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, _5 And in the rapid plumes of song Clothed itself, sublime and strong; As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey; Till from its station in the Heaven of fame _10 The Spirit's whirlwind rapped it, and the ray Of the remotest sphere of living flame Which paves the void was from behind it flung, As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came A voice out of the deep: I will record the same. _15