4
The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, 85 Ocean, and all the living things that dwell
Within the daedal9 earth; lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 90 Holds every future leaf and flower;?the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound 95 Are born and die; revolve, subside and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains IOO Teach the adverting0 mind. The glaciers creep observant Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 105 A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing 110 Its destined path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shattered stand: the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place lis Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost. The race Of man, flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 120 And their place is not known. Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling' Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,2 The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 125 Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
5
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:?the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
9. Intricately formed; derived from Daedalus, lished 'Kubla Khan,' lines 12-24. builder of the labyrinth in Crete. 2. The Arve, which flows into Lake Geneva. 1. This description (as well as that in lines 9?11) Nearby the river Rhone flows out of Lake Geneva seems to be an echo of Coleridge's description of to begin its course through France and into the the chasm and sacred river in the recently pub-Mediterranean.
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76 6 / PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
And many sounds, and much of life and death. 130 In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them:?Winds contend 135 Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things 140 Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou,? and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy? Mont Blanc 1816 1817
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty1
The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats though unseen amongst us,?visiting This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower.?
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,2 It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,? Like clouds in starlight widely spread,? Like memory of music fled,? Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
2
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? Ask why the sunlight not forever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river,
Why aught? should fail and fade that once is shewn, anything Why fear and dream and death and birth Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom,?why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
