675 From vernal blooms fresh fragrance!8 O, that God,
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
Which but one living man9 has drained, who now,
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
No proud exemption in the blighting curse
680 He bears, over the world wanders for ever,
Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream
Of dark magician in his visioned cave,1
Raking the cinders of a crucible
For life and power, even when his feeble hand
685 Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled Like some frail exhalation;0 which the dawn mist Robes in its golden beams,?ah! thou hast fled!
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
5. I.e., the moon. 'Meteor' was once used for any ses 7.275ff.). phenomenon in the skies, as our modern term 9. The Wandering Jew. According to a medieval
'meteorology' suggests. legend, he had taunted Christ on the way to the
6. The ebbing of the Poet's life parallels the crucifixion and was condemned to wander the descent of the 'horned moon,' to the moment world, deathless, until Christ's second coming.
when only the two 'points of light'?its horns? 1. Cave in which he has visions. 'Dark magician':
show above the hills. an alchemist attempting to produce the elixir of
7. Attended, acted as a servant to. enduring life. Alchemy intrigued both Shellieys. 8. Medea brewed a magic potion to rejuvenate the See Mary Shelley's 'The Mortal Immortal' dying Aeson; where some of the potion spilled on (p. 960). the ground, flowers sprang up (Ovid, Metamorpho
.
762 / PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
690 The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, In vesper2 low or joyous orison,0 prayer
695 Lifts still its solemn voice:?but thou art fled?
Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas!
Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
700 So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
That image sleep in death, upon that form
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
Be shed?not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
705 Worn by the senseless0 wind, shall live alone unfeelingIn the frail pauses of this simple strain,
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
710 Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, And all the shews o' the world are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe too 'deep for tears,'3 when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
715 Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans,
The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;
But pale despair and cold tranquillity,
