202 SWIFT TO NIGHT WIFTLY walk over the western wave, Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, When I arose and saw the dawn, When light rode high, and the dew was gone, Thy brother Death came, and cried, Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, Murmured like a noontide bee, "Shall I nestle near thy side? Death will come when thou art dead, Sleep will come when thou art fled; Of neither would I ask the boon Percy Bysshe Shelley 203 I THE CLOUD BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, I sift the snow on the mountains below, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. In a cavern under is fettered the thunder. It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, Lured by the love of the genii that move Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile, The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, When the morning star shines dead, As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, And the crimson pall of eve may fall That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in wind-built tent, my Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove, I am the daughter of earth and water, I And the nursling of the sky; pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again. Percy Bysshe Shelley 204 ODE TO THE WEST WIND I O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; II Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread |