The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2Shelley, Percy Bysshe
General
The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
English poetry
5.
And now from their fountains
In Enna's mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks, _75
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep _80
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep _85
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore;--
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
When they love but live no more. _90
NOTES:
_6 unsealed B.; concealed 1824.
_31 And the B.; The 1824.
_69 Ocean's B.; ocean 1824.
***
SONG OF PROSERPINE WHILE GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. There
is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian
Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination," etc., 1903, page 24.]
1.
Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,
Thou from whose immortal bosom
Gods, and men, and beasts have birth,
Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,
Breathe thine influence most divine _5
On thine own child, Proserpine.
2.
If with mists of evening dew
Thou dost nourish these young flowers
Till they grow, in scent and hue,
Fairest children of the Hours, _10
Breathe thine influence most divine
On thine own child, Proserpine.
***
HYMN OF APOLLO.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. There is a fair
draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D.
Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 25.]
1.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,--
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, _5
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.
2.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves _10
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
3.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill _15
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.
4.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowers
With their aethereal colours; the moon's globe _20
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine
Are portions of one power, which is mine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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