Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs-- To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music, lest it should not find An echo in another's mind, While the touch of Nature's art Harmonizes heart to heart. Radiant Sister of the Day Awake! arise! and come away! To the wild woods and the plains, To the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green, and ivy dun, Round stems that never kiss the sun; Where the lawns and pastures be And the sandhills of the sea; Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers and violets Which yet join not scent to hue Crown the pale year weak and new; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dim and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal Sun. _P. B. Shelley_ CCCVIII _THE RECOLLECTION_ Now the last day of many days All beautiful and bright as thou, The loveliest and the last, is dead: Rise, Memory, and write its praise! Up--to thy wonted work! come, trace The epitaph of glory fled, For now the earth has changed its face, A frown is on the heaven's brow. We wander'd to the Pine Forest That skirts the Ocean's foam; The lightest wind was in its nest, The tempest in its home. The whispering waves were half asleep, The clouds were gone to play, And on the bosom of the deep The smile of heaven lay; It seem'd as if the hour were one Sent from beyond the skies Which scatter'd from above the sun A light of Paradise! We paused amid the pines that stood The giants of the waste, Tortured by storms to shapes as rude As serpents interlaced,-- And soothed by every azure breath That under heaven is blown, To harmonies and hues beneath, As tender as its own: Now all the tree-tops lay asleep Like green waves on the sea, As still as in the silent deep The ocean-woods may be. How calm it was!--The silence there By such a chain was bound, That even the busy woodpecker Made stiller with her sound The inviolable quietness; The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew. There seem'd, from the remotest seat Of the white mountain waste To the soft flower beneath our feet, A magic circle traced,-- A spirit interfused around, A thrilling silent life; To momentary peace it bound Our mortal nature's strife;-- And still I felt the centre of The magic circle there Was one fair form that fill'd with love The lifeless atmosphere.