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\title{Alastor}
\date{1816}
\author{Percy Bysshe Shelley}
\subtitle{The Spirit of Solitude}
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pdfencoding=auto,
pdftitle={Alastor},%
pdfauthor={Percy Bysshe Shelley},%
pdfsubject={The Spirit of Solitude},%
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\begin{document}
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\begin{center}
{\usekomafont{title}{\huge Alastor\par}}%
\vskip 1em
{\usekomafont{subtitle}{The Spirit of Solitude\par}}%
\vskip 2em
{\usekomafont{author}{Percy Bysshe Shelley\par}}%
\vskip 1.5em
{\usekomafont{date}{1816\par}}%
\end{center}
\vskip 3em
\par
Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!
\forcelinebreak
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
\forcelinebreak
With aught of natural piety to feel
\forcelinebreak
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
\forcelinebreak
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
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With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
\forcelinebreak
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
\forcelinebreak
If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
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And winter robing with pure snow and crowns
\forcelinebreak
Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs;
\forcelinebreak
If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
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Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;
\forcelinebreak
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
\forcelinebreak
I consciously have injured, but still loved
\forcelinebreak
And cherished these my kindred; then forgive
\forcelinebreak
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
\forcelinebreak
No portion of your wonted favour now!
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Mother of this unfathomable world!
\forcelinebreak
Favour my solemn song, for I have loved
\forcelinebreak
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
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Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
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And my heart ever gazes on the depth
\forcelinebreak
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
\forcelinebreak
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
\forcelinebreak
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
\forcelinebreak
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
\forcelinebreak
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
\forcelinebreak
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
\forcelinebreak
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
\forcelinebreak
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
\forcelinebreak
Like an inspired and desperate alchymist
\forcelinebreak
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
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Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
\forcelinebreak
With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
\forcelinebreak
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
\forcelinebreak
Such magic as compels the charmed night
\forcelinebreak
To render up thy charge:\dots{}and, though ne'er yet
\forcelinebreak
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
\forcelinebreak
Enough from incommunicable dream,
\forcelinebreak
And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought,
\forcelinebreak
Has shone within me, that serenely now
\forcelinebreak
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
\forcelinebreak
Suspended in the solitary dome
\forcelinebreak
Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
\forcelinebreak
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
\forcelinebreak
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
\forcelinebreak
And motions of the forests and the sea,
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And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
\forcelinebreak
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
\forcelinebreak
No human hands with pious reverence reared,
\forcelinebreak
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
\forcelinebreak
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
\forcelinebreak
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:—
\forcelinebreak
A lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked
\forcelinebreak
With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,
\forcelinebreak
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:—
\forcelinebreak
Gentle, and brave, and generous,—no lorn bard
\forcelinebreak
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
\forcelinebreak
He lived, he died, he sung in solitude.
\forcelinebreak
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,
\forcelinebreak
And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined
\forcelinebreak
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
\forcelinebreak
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
\forcelinebreak
And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
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Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
By solemn vision, and bright silver dream
\forcelinebreak
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
\forcelinebreak
And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,
\forcelinebreak
Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
\forcelinebreak
The fountains of divine philosophy
\forcelinebreak
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,
\forcelinebreak
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
\forcelinebreak
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
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And knew. When early youth had passed, he left
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His cold fireside and alienated home
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To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
\forcelinebreak
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
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Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
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With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
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His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
\forcelinebreak
He like her shadow has pursued, where'er
\forcelinebreak
The red volcano overcanopies
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Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice
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With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes
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On black bare pointed islets ever beat
\forcelinebreak
With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves,
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Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
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Of fire and poison, inaccessible
\forcelinebreak
To avarice or pride, their starry domes
\forcelinebreak
Of diamond and of gold expand above
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Numberless and immeasurable halls,
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Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
\forcelinebreak
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
\forcelinebreak
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
\forcelinebreak
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
\forcelinebreak
And the green earth lost in his heart its claims
\forcelinebreak
To love and wonder; he would linger long
\forcelinebreak
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
\forcelinebreak
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
\forcelinebreak
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
\forcelinebreak
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,
\forcelinebreak
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
\forcelinebreak
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
\forcelinebreak
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form
\forcelinebreak
More graceful than her own.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
His wandering step,
\forcelinebreak
Obedient to high thoughts, has visited
\forcelinebreak
The awful ruins of the days of old:
\forcelinebreak
Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste
\forcelinebreak
Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers
\forcelinebreak
Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,
\forcelinebreak
Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange,
\forcelinebreak
Sculptured on alabaster obelisk,
\forcelinebreak
Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,
\forcelinebreak
Dark Aethiopia in her desert hills
\forcelinebreak
Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,
\forcelinebreak
Stupendous columns, and wild images
\forcelinebreak
Of more than man, where marble daemons watch
\forcelinebreak
The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men
\forcelinebreak
Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,
\forcelinebreak
He lingered, poring on memorials
\forcelinebreak
Of the world's youth: through the long burning day
\forcelinebreak
Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon
\forcelinebreak
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades
\forcelinebreak
Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
\forcelinebreak
And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
\forcelinebreak
Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw
\forcelinebreak
The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,
\forcelinebreak
Her daily portion, from her father's tent,
\forcelinebreak
And spread her matting for his couch, and stole
\forcelinebreak
From duties and repose to tend his steps,
\forcelinebreak
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
\forcelinebreak
To speak her love:—and watched his nightly sleep,
\forcelinebreak
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
\forcelinebreak
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
\forcelinebreak
Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn
\forcelinebreak
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home
\forcelinebreak
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie,
\forcelinebreak
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
\forcelinebreak
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down
\forcelinebreak
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
\forcelinebreak
In joy and exultation held his way;
\forcelinebreak
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
\forcelinebreak
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
\forcelinebreak
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
\forcelinebreak
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
\forcelinebreak
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
\forcelinebreak
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
\forcelinebreak
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
\forcelinebreak
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
\forcelinebreak
Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,
\forcelinebreak
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
\forcelinebreak
His inmost sense suspended in its web
\forcelinebreak
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
\forcelinebreak
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
\forcelinebreak
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
\forcelinebreak
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
\forcelinebreak
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
\forcelinebreak
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
\forcelinebreak
A permeating fire; wild numbers then
\forcelinebreak
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
\forcelinebreak
Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands
\forcelinebreak
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
\forcelinebreak
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
\forcelinebreak
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
\forcelinebreak
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
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The pauses of her music, and her breath
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Tumultuously accorded with those fits
\forcelinebreak
Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose,
\forcelinebreak
As if her heart impatiently endured
\forcelinebreak
Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,
\forcelinebreak
And saw by the warm light of their own life
\forcelinebreak
Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil
\forcelinebreak
Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,
\forcelinebreak
Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,
\forcelinebreak
Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips
\forcelinebreak
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
\forcelinebreak
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
\forcelinebreak
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
\forcelinebreak
His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet
\forcelinebreak
Her panting bosom:\dots{}she drew back a while,
\forcelinebreak
Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,
\forcelinebreak
With frantic gesture and short breathless cry
\forcelinebreak
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
\forcelinebreak
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
\forcelinebreak
Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,
\forcelinebreak
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
\forcelinebreak
Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Roused by the shock he started from his trance—
\forcelinebreak
The cold white light of morning, the blue moon
\forcelinebreak
Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,
\forcelinebreak
The distinct valley and the vacant woods,
\forcelinebreak
Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled
\forcelinebreak
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
\forcelinebreak
Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,
\forcelinebreak
The mystery and the majesty of Earth,
\forcelinebreak
The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes
\forcelinebreak
Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
\forcelinebreak
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.
\forcelinebreak
The spirit of sweet human love has sent
\forcelinebreak
A vision to the sleep of him who spurned
\forcelinebreak
Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues
\forcelinebreak
Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;
\forcelinebreak
He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!
\forcelinebreak
Were limbs, and breath, and being intertwined
\forcelinebreak
Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost
\forcelinebreak
In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,
\forcelinebreak
That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death
\forcelinebreak
Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,
\forcelinebreak
O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds
\forcelinebreak
And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,
\forcelinebreak
Lead only to a black and watery depth,
\forcelinebreak
While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,
\forcelinebreak
Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
\forcelinebreak
Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
\forcelinebreak
Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?
\forcelinebreak
This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;
\forcelinebreak
The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung
\forcelinebreak
His brain even like despair.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
While daylight held
\forcelinebreak
The sky, the Poet kept mute conference
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With his still soul. At night the passion came,
\forcelinebreak
Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,
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And shook him from his rest, and led him forth
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Into the darkness.—As an eagle, grasped
\forcelinebreak
In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast
\forcelinebreak
Burn with the poison, and precipitates
\forcelinebreak
Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,
\forcelinebreak
Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight
\forcelinebreak
O'er the wide aery wilderness: thus driven
\forcelinebreak
By the bright shadow of that lovely dream,
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,
\forcelinebreak
Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,
\forcelinebreak
Startling with careless step the moonlight snake,
\forcelinebreak
He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,
\forcelinebreak
Shedding the mockery of its vital hues
\forcelinebreak
Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on
\forcelinebreak
Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep
\forcelinebreak
Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;
\forcelinebreak
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
\forcelinebreak
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
\forcelinebreak
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
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Day after day a weary waste of hours,
\forcelinebreak
Bearing within his life the brooding care
\forcelinebreak
That ever fed on its decaying flame.
\forcelinebreak
And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair,
\forcelinebreak
Sered by the autumn of strange suffering
\forcelinebreak
Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand
\forcelinebreak
Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;
\forcelinebreak
Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone
\forcelinebreak
As in a furnace burning secretly
\forcelinebreak
From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,
\forcelinebreak
Who ministered with human charity
\forcelinebreak
His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
\forcelinebreak
Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,
\forcelinebreak
Encountering on some dizzy precipice
\forcelinebreak
That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind
\forcelinebreak
With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet
\forcelinebreak
Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
\forcelinebreak
In its career: the infant would conceal
\forcelinebreak
His troubled visage in his mother's robe
\forcelinebreak
In terror at the glare of those wild eyes,
\forcelinebreak
To remember their strange light in many a dream
\forcelinebreak
Of after-times; but youthful maidens, taught
\forcelinebreak
By nature, would interpret half the woe
\forcelinebreak
That wasted him, would call him with false names
\forcelinebreak
Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand
\forcelinebreak
At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path
\forcelinebreak
Of his departure from their father's door.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
\forcelinebreak
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
\forcelinebreak
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged
\forcelinebreak
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
\forcelinebreak
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
\forcelinebreak
It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings
\forcelinebreak
Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course
\forcelinebreak
High over the immeasurable main.
\forcelinebreak
His eyes pursued its flight:—"Thou hast a home,
\forcelinebreak
Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,
\forcelinebreak
Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck
\forcelinebreak
With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes
\forcelinebreak
Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy.
\forcelinebreak
And what am I that I should linger here,
\forcelinebreak
With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,
\forcelinebreak
Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned
\forcelinebreak
To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers
\forcelinebreak
In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
\forcelinebreak
That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smile
\forcelinebreak
Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.
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For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
\forcelinebreak
Its precious charge, and silent death exposed,
\forcelinebreak
Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,
\forcelinebreak
With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.
\forcelinebreak
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight
\forcelinebreak
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind.
\forcelinebreak
A little shallop floating near the shore
\forcelinebreak
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.
\forcelinebreak
It had been long abandoned, for its sides
\forcelinebreak
Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints
\forcelinebreak
Swayed with the undulations of the tide.
\forcelinebreak
A restless impulse urged him to embark
\forcelinebreak
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;
\forcelinebreak
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
\forcelinebreak
The slimy caverns of the populous deep.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky
\forcelinebreak
Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind
\forcelinebreak
Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.
\forcelinebreak
Following his eager soul, the wanderer
\forcelinebreak
Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloft
\forcelinebreak
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
\forcelinebreak
And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea
\forcelinebreak
Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
As one that in a silver vision floats
\forcelinebreak
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
\forcelinebreak
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
\forcelinebreak
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
\forcelinebreak
The straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on,
\forcelinebreak
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
\forcelinebreak
Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.
\forcelinebreak
The waves arose. Higher and higher still
\forcelinebreak
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
\forcelinebreak
Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
\forcelinebreak
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
\forcelinebreak
Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
\forcelinebreak
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
\forcelinebreak
With dark obliterating course, he sate:
\forcelinebreak
As if their genii were the ministers
\forcelinebreak
Appointed to conduct him to the light
\forcelinebreak
Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate,
\forcelinebreak
Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,
\forcelinebreak
The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
\forcelinebreak
High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
\forcelinebreak
That canopied his path o'er the waste deep;
\forcelinebreak
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
\forcelinebreak
Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks
\forcelinebreak
O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;
\forcelinebreak
Night followed, clad with stars. On every side
\forcelinebreak
More horribly the multitudinous streams
\forcelinebreak
Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
\forcelinebreak
Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
\forcelinebreak
The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
\forcelinebreak
Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam
\forcelinebreak
Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;
\forcelinebreak
Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;
\forcelinebreak
Now leaving far behind the bursting mass
\forcelinebreak
That fell, convulsing ocean: safely fled—
\forcelinebreak
As if that frail and wasted human form,
\forcelinebreak
Had been an elemental god.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
At midnight
\forcelinebreak
The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs
\forcelinebreak
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
\forcelinebreak
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
\forcelinebreak
Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves
\forcelinebreak
Bursting and eddying irresistibly
\forcelinebreak
Rage and resound forever.—Who shall save?—
\forcelinebreak
The boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,—
\forcelinebreak
The crags closed round with black and jagged arms,
\forcelinebreak
The shattered mountain overhung the sea,
\forcelinebreak
And faster still, beyond all human speed,
\forcelinebreak
Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,
\forcelinebreak
The little boat was driven. A cavern there
\forcelinebreak
Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths
\forcelinebreak
Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
\forcelinebreak
With unrelaxing speed.—"Vision and Love!"
\forcelinebreak
The Poet cried aloud, "I have beheld
\forcelinebreak
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
\forcelinebreak
Shall not divide us long."
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
The boat pursued
\forcelinebreak
The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone
\forcelinebreak
At length upon that gloomy river's flow;
\forcelinebreak
Now, where the fiercest war among the waves
\forcelinebreak
Is calm, on the unfathomable stream
\forcelinebreak
The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,
\forcelinebreak
Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,
\forcelinebreak
Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell
\forcelinebreak
Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound
\forcelinebreak
That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
\forcelinebreak
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm:
\forcelinebreak
Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
\forcelinebreak
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
\forcelinebreak
With alternating dash the gnarled roots
\forcelinebreak
Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
\forcelinebreak
In darkness over it. I' the midst was left,
\forcelinebreak
Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,
\forcelinebreak
A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.
\forcelinebreak
Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,
\forcelinebreak
With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,
\forcelinebreak
Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,
\forcelinebreak
Till on the verge of the extremest curve,
\forcelinebreak
Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,
\forcelinebreak
The waters overflow, and a smooth spot
\forcelinebreak
Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides
\forcelinebreak
Is left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sink
\forcelinebreak
Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress
\forcelinebreak
Of that resistless gulf embosom it?
\forcelinebreak
Now shall it fall?—A wandering stream of wind,
\forcelinebreak
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
\forcelinebreak
And, lo! with gentle motion, between banks
\forcelinebreak
Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream,
\forcelinebreak
Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!
\forcelinebreak
The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,
\forcelinebreak
With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.
\forcelinebreak
Where the embowering trees recede, and leave
\forcelinebreak
A little space of green expanse, the cove
\forcelinebreak
Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
\forcelinebreak
For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,
\forcelinebreak
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
\forcelinebreak
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
\forcelinebreak
Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,
\forcelinebreak
Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
\forcelinebreak
Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed
\forcelinebreak
To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,
\forcelinebreak
But on his heart its solitude returned,
\forcelinebreak
And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid
\forcelinebreak
In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame
\forcelinebreak
Had yet performed its ministry: it hung
\forcelinebreak
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
\forcelinebreak
Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
\forcelinebreak
Of night close over it.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
The noonday sun
\forcelinebreak
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
\forcelinebreak
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
\forcelinebreak
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
\forcelinebreak
Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks,
\forcelinebreak
Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.
\forcelinebreak
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
\forcelinebreak
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led
\forcelinebreak
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,
\forcelinebreak
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank,
\forcelinebreak
Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark
\forcelinebreak
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
\forcelinebreak
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
\forcelinebreak
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
\forcelinebreak
Of the tall cedar overarching frame
\forcelinebreak
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
\forcelinebreak
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
\forcelinebreak
The ash and the acacia floating hang
\forcelinebreak
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
\forcelinebreak
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
\forcelinebreak
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
\forcelinebreak
The grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
\forcelinebreak
With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
\forcelinebreak
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
\forcelinebreak
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs
\forcelinebreak
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
\forcelinebreak
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
\forcelinebreak
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
\forcelinebreak
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
\forcelinebreak
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
\forcelinebreak
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
\forcelinebreak
Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
\forcelinebreak
Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,
\forcelinebreak
A soul-dissolving odour to invite
\forcelinebreak
To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,
\forcelinebreak
Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep
\forcelinebreak
Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,
\forcelinebreak
Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well,
\forcelinebreak
Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,
\forcelinebreak
Images all the woven boughs above,
\forcelinebreak
And each depending leaf, and every speck
\forcelinebreak
Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;
\forcelinebreak
Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves
\forcelinebreak
Its portraiture, but some inconstant star
\forcelinebreak
Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,
\forcelinebreak
Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,
\forcelinebreak
Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,
\forcelinebreak
Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings
\forcelinebreak
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
\forcelinebreak
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
\forcelinebreak
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
\forcelinebreak
Of that still fountain; as the human heart,
\forcelinebreak
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
\forcelinebreak
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard
\forcelinebreak
The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung
\forcelinebreak
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
\forcelinebreak
An unaccustomed presence, and the sound
\forcelinebreak
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
\forcelinebreak
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
\forcelinebreak
To stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes
\forcelinebreak
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
\forcelinebreak
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
\forcelinebreak
Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;—
\forcelinebreak
But, undulating woods, and silent well,
\forcelinebreak
And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom
\forcelinebreak
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
\forcelinebreak
Held commune with him, as if he and it
\forcelinebreak
Were all that was,—only\dots{}when his regard
\forcelinebreak
Was raised by intense pensiveness,\dots{}two eyes,
\forcelinebreak
Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,
\forcelinebreak
And seemed with their serene and azure smiles
\forcelinebreak
To beckon him.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Obedient to the light
\forcelinebreak
That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing
\forcelinebreak
The windings of the dell.—The rivulet,
\forcelinebreak
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
\forcelinebreak
Among the moss with hollow harmony
\forcelinebreak
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
\forcelinebreak
It danced; like childhood laughing as it went:
\forcelinebreak
Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,
\forcelinebreak
Reflecting every herb and drooping bud
\forcelinebreak
That overhung its quietness.—"O stream!
\forcelinebreak
Whose source is inaccessibly profound,
\forcelinebreak
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?
\forcelinebreak
Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,
\forcelinebreak
Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,
\forcelinebreak
Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course
\forcelinebreak
Have each their type in me; and the wide sky.
\forcelinebreak
And measureless ocean may declare as soon
\forcelinebreak
What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud
\forcelinebreak
Contains thy waters, as the universe
\forcelinebreak
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
\forcelinebreak
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
\forcelinebreak
I' the passing wind!"
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Beside the grassy shore
\forcelinebreak
Of the small stream he went; he did impress
\forcelinebreak
On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
\forcelinebreak
Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
\forcelinebreak
Roused by some joyous madness from the couch
\forcelinebreak
Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him,
\forcelinebreak
Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame
\forcelinebreak
Of his frail exultation shall be spent,
\forcelinebreak
He must descend. With rapid steps he went
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
\forcelinebreak
Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now
\forcelinebreak
The forest's solemn canopies were changed
\forcelinebreak
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
\forcelinebreak
Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
\forcelinebreak
The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae
\forcelinebreak
Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
\forcelinebreak
And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pines
\forcelinebreak
Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
\forcelinebreak
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,
\forcelinebreak
Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
\forcelinebreak
The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
\forcelinebreak
And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
\forcelinebreak
Had shone, gleam stony orbs:—so from his steps
\forcelinebreak
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
\forcelinebreak
Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
\forcelinebreak
And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued
\forcelinebreak
The stream, that with a larger volume now
\forcelinebreak
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there
\forcelinebreak
Fretted a path through its descending curves
\forcelinebreak
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
\forcelinebreak
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
\forcelinebreak
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
\forcelinebreak
In the light of evening, and its precipice
\forcelinebreak
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
\forcelinebreak
Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,
\forcelinebreak
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
\forcelinebreak
To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands
\forcelinebreak
Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,
\forcelinebreak
And seems, with its accumulated crags,
\forcelinebreak
To overhang the world: for wide expand
\forcelinebreak
Beneath the wan stars and descending moon
\forcelinebreak
Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
\forcelinebreak
Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
\forcelinebreak
Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills
\forcelinebreak
Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge
\forcelinebreak
Of the remote horizon. The near scene,
\forcelinebreak
In naked and severe simplicity,
\forcelinebreak
Made contrast with the universe. A pine,
\forcelinebreak
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
\forcelinebreak
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
\forcelinebreak
Yielding one only response, at each pause
\forcelinebreak
In most familiar cadence, with the howl
\forcelinebreak
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
\forcelinebreak
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river
\forcelinebreak
Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,
\forcelinebreak
Fell into that immeasurable void
\forcelinebreak
Scattering its waters to the passing winds.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Yet the grey precipice and solemn pine
\forcelinebreak
And torrent were not all;—one silent nook
\forcelinebreak
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,
\forcelinebreak
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
\forcelinebreak
It overlooked in its serenity
\forcelinebreak
The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.
\forcelinebreak
It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile
\forcelinebreak
Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped
\forcelinebreak
The fissured stones with its entwining arms,
\forcelinebreak
And did embower with leaves for ever green,
\forcelinebreak
And berries dark, the smooth and even space
\forcelinebreak
Of its inviolated floor, and here
\forcelinebreak
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,
\forcelinebreak
In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,
\forcelinebreak
Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,
\forcelinebreak
Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt
\forcelinebreak
Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
\forcelinebreak
The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
\forcelinebreak
One human step alone, has ever broken
\forcelinebreak
The stillness of its solitude:—one voice
\forcelinebreak
Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voice
\forcelinebreak
Which hither came, floating among the winds,
\forcelinebreak
And led the loveliest among human forms
\forcelinebreak
To make their wild haunts the depository
\forcelinebreak
Of all the grace and beauty that endued
\forcelinebreak
Its motions, render up its majesty,
\forcelinebreak
Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,
\forcelinebreak
And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,
\forcelinebreak
Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,
\forcelinebreak
Commit the colours of that varying cheek,
\forcelinebreak
That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured
\forcelinebreak
A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
\forcelinebreak
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
\forcelinebreak
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
\forcelinebreak
Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star
\forcelinebreak
Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,
\forcelinebreak
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
\forcelinebreak
Slept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death!
\forcelinebreak
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night:
\forcelinebreak
And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
\forcelinebreak
Guiding its irresistible career
\forcelinebreak
In thy devastating omnipotence,
\forcelinebreak
Art king of this frail world, from the red field
\forcelinebreak
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital,
\forcelinebreak
The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
\forcelinebreak
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
\forcelinebreak
A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls
\forcelinebreak
His brother Death. A rare and regal prey
\forcelinebreak
He hath prepared, prowling around the world;
\forcelinebreak
Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men
\forcelinebreak
Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,
\forcelinebreak
Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine
\forcelinebreak
The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
When on the threshold of the green recess
\forcelinebreak
The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death
\forcelinebreak
Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,
\forcelinebreak
Did he resign his high and holy soul
\forcelinebreak
To images of the majestic past,
\forcelinebreak
That paused within his passive being now,
\forcelinebreak
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
\forcelinebreak
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
\forcelinebreak
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
\forcelinebreak
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone
\forcelinebreak
Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,
\forcelinebreak
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
\forcelinebreak
Of that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,
\forcelinebreak
Surrendering to their final impulses
\forcelinebreak
The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,
\forcelinebreak
The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear
\forcelinebreak
Marred his repose; the influxes of sense,
\forcelinebreak
And his own being unalloyed by pain,
\forcelinebreak
Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed
\forcelinebreak
The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there
\forcelinebreak
At peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight
\forcelinebreak
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
\forcelinebreak
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
\forcelinebreak
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
\forcelinebreak
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
\forcelinebreak
It rests; and still as the divided frame
\forcelinebreak
Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,
\forcelinebreak
That ever beat in mystic sympathy
\forcelinebreak
With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:
\forcelinebreak
And when two lessening points of light alone
\forcelinebreak
Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp
\forcelinebreak
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
\forcelinebreak
The stagnate night:—till the minutest ray
\forcelinebreak
Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
\forcelinebreak
It paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained
\forcelinebreak
Utterly black, the murky shades involved
\forcelinebreak
An image, silent, cold, and motionless,
\forcelinebreak
As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
\forcelinebreak
Even as a vapour fed with golden beams
\forcelinebreak
That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
\forcelinebreak
Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame—
\forcelinebreak
No sense, no motion, no divinity—
\forcelinebreak
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
\forcelinebreak
The breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream
\forcelinebreak
Once fed with many-voiced waves—a dream
\forcelinebreak
Of youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,
\forcelinebreak
Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.
\forcelinebreak
\noindent
Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,
\forcelinebreak
Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam
\forcelinebreak
With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale
\forcelinebreak
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,
\forcelinebreak
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
\forcelinebreak
Which but one living man has drained, who now,
\forcelinebreak
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
\forcelinebreak
No proud exemption in the blighting curse
\forcelinebreak
He bears, over the world wanders for ever,
\forcelinebreak
Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream
\forcelinebreak
Of dark magician in his visioned cave,
\forcelinebreak
Raking the cinders of a crucible
\forcelinebreak
For life and power, even when his feeble hand
\forcelinebreak
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
\forcelinebreak
Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled,
\forcelinebreak
Like some frail exhalation; which the dawn
\forcelinebreak
Robes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled!
\forcelinebreak
The brave, the gentle and the beautiful,
\forcelinebreak
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
\forcelinebreak
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
\forcelinebreak
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
\forcelinebreak
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness,
\forcelinebreak
In vesper low or joyous orison,
\forcelinebreak
Lifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled—
\forcelinebreak
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
\forcelinebreak
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
\forcelinebreak
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
\forcelinebreak
Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
\forcelinebreak
So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
\forcelinebreak
That image sleep in death, upon that form
\forcelinebreak
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
\forcelinebreak
Be shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
\forcelinebreak
Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
\forcelinebreak
Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
\forcelinebreak
In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
\forcelinebreak
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
\forcelinebreak
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
\forcelinebreak
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
\forcelinebreak
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,
\forcelinebreak
And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain
\forcelinebreak
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
\forcelinebreak
It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all
\forcelinebreak
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
\forcelinebreak
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
\forcelinebreak
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
\forcelinebreak
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
\forcelinebreak
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
\forcelinebreak
Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,
\forcelinebreak
Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.
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The Anarchist Library (Mirror)
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Anti-Copyright
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\begin{center}
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Alastor
The Spirit of Solitude
1816
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https:\Slash{}\Slash{}en.wikisource.org\Slash{}wiki\Slash{}Alastor,\_or\_The\_Spirit\_of\_Solitude
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\textbf{usa.anarchistlibraries.net}
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