File: verse/vol15Shelley - item number: 0

THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD. Part 1. How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep! One pale as yonder wan and horned moon, With lips of lurid blue, The other glowing like the vital morn, _5 When throned on ocean's wave It breathes over the world: Yet both so passing strange and wonderful! Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, _10 To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form, Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, whose azure veins Steal like dark streams along a field of snow, _15 Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed In light of some sublimest mind, decay? Nor putrefaction's breath Leave aught of this pure spectacle But loathsomeness and ruin?-- _20 Spare aught but a dark theme, On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose? _25 Will they, when morning's beam Flows through those wells of light, Seek far from noise and day some western cave, Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds A lulling murmur weave?-- _30 Ianthe doth not sleep The dreamless sleep of death: Nor in her moonlight chamber silently Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb, Or mark her delicate cheek _35 With interchange of hues mock the broad moon, Outwatching weary night, Without assured reward. Her dewy eyes are closed; On their translucent lids, whose texture fine _40 Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below With unapparent fire, The baby Sleep is pillowed: Her golden tresses shade The bosom's stainless pride, _45 Twining like tendrils of the parasite Around a marble column. Hark! whence that rushing sound? 'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps Around a lonely ruin _50 When west winds sigh and evening waves respond In whispers from the shore: 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves The genii of the breezes sweep. _55 Floating on waves of music and of light, The chariot of the Daemon of the World Descends in silent power: Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud That catches but the palest tinge of day _60 When evening yields to night, Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue Its transitory robe. Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light _65 Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold Their wings of braided air: The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car Gazed on the slumbering maid. Human eye hath ne'er beheld _70 A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful, As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep Waving a starry wand, Hung like a mist of light. Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds _75 Of wakening spring arose, Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky. Maiden, the world's supremest spirit Beneath the shadow of her wings Folds all thy memory doth inherit _80 From ruin of divinest things, Feelings that lure thee to betray, And light of thoughts that pass away. For thou hast earned a mighty boon, The truths which wisest poets see _85 Dimly, thy mind may make its own, Rewarding its own majesty, Entranced in some diviner mood Of self-oblivious solitude. Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest; _90 From hate and awe thy heart is free; Ardent and pure as day thou burnest, For dark and cold mortality A living light, to cheer it long, The watch-fires of the world among. _95 Therefore from nature's inner shrine, Where gods and fiends in worship bend, Majestic spirit, be it thine The flame to seize, the veil to rend, Where the vast snake Eternity _100 In charmed sleep doth ever lie. All that inspires thy voice of love, Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes, Or through thy frame doth burn or move, Or think or feel, awake, arise! _105 Spirit, leave for mine and me Earth's unsubstantial mimicry! It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame A radiant spirit arose, All beautiful in naked purity. _110 Robed in its human hues it did ascend, Disparting as it went the silver clouds, It moved towards the car, and took its seat Beside the Daemon shape. Obedient to the sweep of aery song, _115 The mighty ministers Unfurled their prismy wings. The magic car moved on; The night was fair, innumerable stars Studded heaven's dark blue vault; _120 The eastern wave grew pale With the first smile of morn. The magic car moved on. From the swift sweep of wings The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew; _125 And where the burning wheels Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak Was traced a line of lightning. Now far above a rock the utmost verge Of the wide earth it flew, _130 The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow Frowned o'er the silver sea. Far, far below the chariot's stormy path, Calm as a slumbering babe, Tremendous ocean lay. _135 Its broad and silent mirror gave to view The pale and waning stars, The chariot's fiery track, And the grey light of morn Tingeing those fleecy clouds _140 That cradled in their folds the infant dawn. The chariot seemed to fly Through the abyss of an immense concave, Radiant with million constellations, tinged With shades of infinite colour, _145 And semicircled with a belt Flashing incessant meteors. As they approached their goal, The winged shadows seemed to gather speed. The sea no longer was distinguished; earth _150 Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended In the black concave of heaven With the sun's cloudless orb, Whose rays of rapid light Parted around the chariot's swifter course, _155 And fell like ocean's feathery spray Dashed from the boiling surge Before a vessel's prow. The magic car moved on. Earth's distant orb appeared _160 The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens, Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems widely rolled, And countless spheres diffused An ever varying glory. _165 It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned, And like the moon's argentine crescent hung In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed _170 Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire, Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven; Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed Bedimmed all other light. Spirit of Nature! here _175 In this interminable wilderness Of worlds, at whose involved immensity Even soaring fancy staggers, Here is thy fitting temple. Yet not the lightest leaf _180 That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee,-- Yet not the meanest worm. That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. _185 Spirit of Nature! thou Imperishable as this glorious scene, Here is thy fitting temple. If solitude hath ever led thy steps To the shore of the immeasurable sea, _190 And thou hast lingered there Until the sun's broad orb Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean, Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold That without motion hang _195 Over the sinking sphere: Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds, Edged with intolerable radiancy, Towering like rocks of jet Above the burning deep: _200 And yet there is a moment When the sun's highest point Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge, When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea: _205 Then has thy rapt imagination soared Where in the midst of all existing things The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands. Yet not the golden islands That gleam amid yon flood of purple light, _210 Nor the feathery curtains That canopy the sun's resplendent couch, Nor the burnished ocean waves Paving that gorgeous dome, So fair, so wonderful a sight _215 As the eternal temple could afford. The elements of all that human thought Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught Of earth may image forth its majesty. _220 Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall, As heaven low resting on the wave it spread Its floors of flashing light, Its vast and azure dome; And on the verge of that obscure abyss _225 Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulf Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse Their lustre through its adamantine gates. The magic car no longer moved; The Daemon and the Spirit _230 Entered the eternal gates. Those clouds of aery gold That slept in glittering billows Beneath the azure canopy, With the ethereal footsteps trembled not; _235 While slight and odorous mists Floated to strains of thrilling melody Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines. The Daemon and the Spirit Approached the overhanging battlement, _240 Below lay stretched the boundless universe! There, far as the remotest line That limits swift imagination's flight. Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion, Immutably fulfilling _245 Eternal Nature's law. Above, below, around, The circling systems formed A wilderness of harmony. Each with undeviating aim _250 In eloquent silence through the depths of space Pursued its wondrous way.-- Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy. Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by, Strange things within their belted orbs appear. _255 Like animated frenzies, dimly moved Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes, Thronging round human graves, and o'er the dead Sculpturing records for each memory In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce, _260 Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell Confounded burst in ruin o'er the world: And they did build vast trophies, instruments Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold, Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls _265 With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven, Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness, The sanguine codes of venerable crime. The likeness of a throned king came by. _270 When these had passed, bearing upon his brow A threefold crown; his countenance was calm. His eye severe and cold; but his right hand Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart _275 Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes, A multitudinous throng, around him knelt. With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by. Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame, _280 Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly, Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies Against the Daemon of the World, and high Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit, _285 Serene and inaccessibly secure, Stood on an isolated pinnacle. The flood of ages combating below, The depth of the unbounded universe Above, and all around _290 Necessity's unchanging harmony.

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THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD.
 
 Part 1.
 
 How wonderful is Death,
 Death and his brother Sleep!
 One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,
 With lips of lurid blue,
 The other glowing like the vital morn,                               _5
 When throned on ocean's wave
 It breathes over the world:
 Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!
 
 Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
 Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,                            _10
 To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
 Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,
 Which love and admiration cannot view
 Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
 Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,                       _15
 Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
 In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
 Nor putrefaction's breath
 Leave aught of this pure spectacle
 But loathsomeness and ruin?--                                        _20
 Spare aught but a dark theme,
 On which the lightest heart might moralize?
 Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
 Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
 To watch their own repose?                                           _25
 Will they, when morning's beam
 Flows through those wells of light,
 Seek far from noise and day some western cave,
 Where woods and streams with soft and pausing winds
 A lulling murmur weave?--                                            _30
 Ianthe doth not sleep
 The dreamless sleep of death:
 Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
 Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
 Or mark her delicate cheek                                           _35
 With interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
 Outwatching weary night,
 Without assured reward.
 Her dewy eyes are closed;
 On their translucent lids, whose texture fine                        _40
 Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
 With unapparent fire,
 The baby Sleep is pillowed:
 Her golden tresses shade
 The bosom's stainless pride,                                         _45
 Twining like tendrils of the parasite
 Around a marble column.
 
 Hark! whence that rushing sound?
 'Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
 Around a lonely ruin                                                 _50
 When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
 In whispers from the shore:
 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
 Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
 The genii of the breezes sweep.                                      _55
 Floating on waves of music and of light,
 The chariot of the Daemon of the World
 Descends in silent power:
 Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud
 That catches but the palest tinge of day                             _60
 When evening yields to night,
 Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
 Its transitory robe.
 Four shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
 Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light                       _65
 Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
 Their wings of braided air:
 The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car
 Gazed on the slumbering maid.
 Human eye hath ne'er beheld                                          _70
 A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
 As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep
 Waving a starry wand,
 Hung like a mist of light.
 Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds                    _75
 Of wakening spring arose,
 Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
 Maiden, the world's supremest spirit
 Beneath the shadow of her wings
 Folds all thy memory doth inherit                                    _80
 From ruin of divinest things,
 Feelings that lure thee to betray,
 And light of thoughts that pass away.
 For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
 The truths which wisest poets see                                    _85
 Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
 Rewarding its own majesty,
 Entranced in some diviner mood
 Of self-oblivious solitude.
 
 Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;                          _90
 From hate and awe thy heart is free;
 Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
 For dark and cold mortality
 A living light, to cheer it long,
 The watch-fires of the world among.                                  _95
 
 Therefore from nature's inner shrine,
 Where gods and fiends in worship bend,
 Majestic spirit, be it thine
 The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
 Where the vast snake Eternity                                        _100
 In charmed sleep doth ever lie.
 
 All that inspires thy voice of love,
 Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,
 Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
 Or think or feel, awake, arise!                                      _105
 Spirit, leave for mine and me
 Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!
 
 It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
 A radiant spirit arose,
 All beautiful in naked purity.                                       _110
 Robed in its human hues it did ascend,
 Disparting as it went the silver clouds,
 It moved towards the car, and took its seat
 Beside the Daemon shape.
 
 Obedient to the sweep of aery song,                                  _115
 The mighty ministers
 Unfurled their prismy wings.
 The magic car moved on;
 The night was fair, innumerable stars
 Studded heaven's dark blue vault;                                    _120
 The eastern wave grew pale
 With the first smile of morn.
 The magic car moved on.
 From the swift sweep of wings
 The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew;                             _125
 And where the burning wheels
 Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak
 Was traced a line of lightning.
 Now far above a rock the utmost verge
 Of the wide earth it flew,                                           _130
 The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
 Frowned o'er the silver sea.
 Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,
 Calm as a slumbering babe,
 Tremendous ocean lay.                                                _135
 Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
 The pale and waning stars,
 The chariot's fiery track,
 And the grey light of morn
 Tingeing those fleecy clouds                                         _140
 That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
 The chariot seemed to fly
 Through the abyss of an immense concave,
 Radiant with million constellations, tinged
 With shades of infinite colour,                                      _145
 And semicircled with a belt
 Flashing incessant meteors.
 
 As they approached their goal,
 The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
 The sea no longer was distinguished; earth                           _150
 Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
 In the black concave of heaven
 With the sun's cloudless orb,
 Whose rays of rapid light
 Parted around the chariot's swifter course,                          _155
 And fell like ocean's feathery spray
 Dashed from the boiling surge
 Before a vessel's prow.
 
 The magic car moved on.
 Earth's distant orb appeared                                         _160
 The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
 Whilst round the chariot's way
 Innumerable systems widely rolled,
 And countless spheres diffused
 An ever varying glory.                                               _165
 It was a sight of wonder! Some were horned,
 And like the moon's argentine crescent hung
 In the dark dome of heaven; some did shed
 A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
 Yet glows with fading sunlight; others dashed                        _170
 Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,
 Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven;
 Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed
 Bedimmed all other light.
 
 Spirit of Nature! here                                               _175
 In this interminable wilderness
 Of worlds, at whose involved immensity
 Even soaring fancy staggers,
 Here is thy fitting temple.
 Yet not the lightest leaf                                            _180
 That quivers to the passing breeze
 Is less instinct with thee,--
 Yet not the meanest worm.
 That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,
 Less shares thy eternal breath.                                      _185
 Spirit of Nature! thou
 Imperishable as this glorious scene,
 Here is thy fitting temple.
 
 If solitude hath ever led thy steps
 To the shore of the immeasurable sea,                                _190
 And thou hast lingered there
 Until the sun's broad orb
 Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,
 Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold
 That without motion hang                                             _195
 Over the sinking sphere:
 Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,
 Edged with intolerable radiancy,
 Towering like rocks of jet
 Above the burning deep:                                              _200
 And yet there is a moment
 When the sun's highest point
 Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
 When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
 Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea:                          _205
 Then has thy rapt imagination soared
 Where in the midst of all existing things
 The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.
 
 Yet not the golden islands
 That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,                           _210
 Nor the feathery curtains
 That canopy the sun's resplendent couch,
 Nor the burnished ocean waves
 Paving that gorgeous dome,
 So fair, so wonderful a sight                                        _215
 As the eternal temple could afford.
 The elements of all that human thought
 Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join
 To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
 Of earth may image forth its majesty.                                _220
 Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall,
 As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
 Its floors of flashing light,
 Its vast and azure dome;
 And on the verge of that obscure abyss                               _225
 Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulf
 Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
 Their lustre through its adamantine gates.
 
 The magic car no longer moved;
 The Daemon and the Spirit                                            _230
 Entered the eternal gates.
 Those clouds of aery gold
 That slept in glittering billows
 Beneath the azure canopy,
 With the ethereal footsteps trembled not;                            _235
 While slight and odorous mists
 Floated to strains of thrilling melody
 Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.
 
 The Daemon and the Spirit
 Approached the overhanging battlement,                               _240
 Below lay stretched the boundless universe!
 There, far as the remotest line
 That limits swift imagination's flight.
 Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion,
 Immutably fulfilling                                                 _245
 Eternal Nature's law.
 Above, below, around,
 The circling systems formed
 A wilderness of harmony.
 Each with undeviating aim                                            _250
 In eloquent silence through the depths of space
 Pursued its wondrous way.--
 
 Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.
 Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
 Strange things within their belted orbs appear.                      _255
 Like animated frenzies, dimly moved
 Shadows, and skeletons, and fiendly shapes,
 Thronging round human graves, and o'er the dead
 Sculpturing records for each memory
 In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,                          _260
 Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell
 Confounded burst in ruin o'er the world:
 And they did build vast trophies, instruments
 Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,
 Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls                     _265
 With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,
 Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained
 With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,
 The sanguine codes of venerable crime.
 The likeness of a throned king came by.                              _270
 When these had passed, bearing upon his brow
 A threefold crown; his countenance was calm.
 His eye severe and cold; but his right hand
 Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw
 By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart                           _275
 Concealed beneath his robe; and motley shapes,
 A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.
 With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks
 Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by.
 Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,                         _280
 Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues
 Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly,
 Breathing in self-contempt fierce blasphemies
 Against the Daemon of the World, and high
 Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,                     _285
 Serene and inaccessibly secure,
 Stood on an isolated pinnacle.
 The flood of ages combating below,
 The depth of the unbounded universe
 Above, and all around                                                _290
 Necessity's unchanging harmony.

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