The lyrics and minor poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. With a prefatory notice, by J. Skipsey

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Page 281 - The breath whose might I have invoked in song Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven, Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng Whose sails were never to the tempest given; The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.
Page 178 - Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : What if my leaves are falling like its own ! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth...
Page 233 - The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Page 233 - The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead...
Page 105 - Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear : 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair !
Page 280 - Thy footsteps to a slope of green access Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead, A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, Pavilioning the dust of him who planned This refuge for his memory, doth stand Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath, A field is spread, on which a newer band Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death Welcoming...
Page 264 - Oh, weep for Adonais ! though our tears Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, And teach them thine own sorrow, say : " With me Died Adonais ; till the Future dares Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be An echo and a light unto eternity...
Page 68 - Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Of human thought or form, - where art thou gone? Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Page 277 - tis Death is dead, not he; Mourn not for Adonais. - Thou young Dawn, Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee The spirit thou lamentest is not gone...
Page 273 - Thus ceased she: and the mountain shepherds came, Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent; The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like Heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow...

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