Stanzas from "Don Juan" But let me to my story: I must own, While I soliloquize beyond expression; But these are my addresses from the throne, Forgetting each omission is a loss to The world, not quite so great as Ariosto. 5 poesy, unless perhaps the end; Nothing so difficult as a beginning In For oftentimes, when Pegasus seems winning 10 The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, 15 Some have accused me of a strange design I don't pretend that I quite understand PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Ode to the West Wind I O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 5 10 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, 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 On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear! 30 III Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Baia's bay, Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, IV If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 The impulse of thy strength, only less free The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed V Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: 40 35 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? The Cloud I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noon-day 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, 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; 25 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills; 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, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, 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, It ardors of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, As still as a brooding dove. May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 40 3365 330 |