Methought a star came down from heaven, And rested mid the plants of India,
Which I had given a shelter from the frost Within my chamber. There the meteor lay, Panting forth light among the leaves and flowers, As if it lived, and was outworn with speed; Or that it loved, and passion made the pulse Of its bright life throb like an anxious heart, Till it diffused itself, and all the chamber And walls seemed melted into emerald fire That burned not; in the midst of which appeared A spirit like a child, and laughed aloud A thrilling peal of such sweet merriment As made the blood tingle in my warm feet; Then bent over a vase, and murmuring Low, unintelligible melodies,
Placed something in the mould like melon-seeds, And slowly faded, and in place of it
A soft hand issued from the veil of fire, Holding a cup like a magnolia flower, And poured upon the earth within the vase The element with which it overflowed, Brighter than morning light and purer than The water of the springs of Himalah.
Not until my dream became
Like a child's legend on the tideless sand, Which the first foam erases half, and half Leaves legible. At length I rose, and went, Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought
To set new cuttings in the empty urns,
And when I came to that beside the lattice, I saw two little dark-green leaves
Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then I half-remembered my forgotten dream. And day by day, green as a gourd in June, The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew What plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed Like emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded With azure mail and streaks of woven silver ; And all the sheaths that folded the dark buds Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel,
Until the golden eye of the bright flower Through the dark lashes of those veinèd lids, Disencumbered of their silent sleep, Gazed like a star into the morning light. Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw The pulses
With which the purple velvet flower was fed To overflow, and, like a poet's heart Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment, Changed half the light to fragrance. It soon fell, And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit Left all its treasured beauty. Day by day I nursed the plant, and on the double flute Played to it on the sunny winter days Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain
On silent leaves, and sang those words in which Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings ; And I would send tales of forgotten love Late into the lone night, and sing wild songs Of maids deserted in the olden time,
And weep like a soft cloud in April's bosom
Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant,
So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come,
And crept abroad into the moonlight air,
And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon,
The sun averted less his oblique beam.
And the plant died not in the frost?
And went out of the lattice which I left Half open for it, trailing its quaint spires Along the garden and across the lawn,
And down the slope of moss and through the tufts Of wild-flower roots, and stumps of trees o'ergrown
With simple lichens, and old hoary stones, On to the margin of the glassy pool, Even to a nook of unblown violets And lilies-of-the-valley yet unborn, Under a pine with ivy overgrown.
And there its fruit lay like a sleeping lizard Under the shadows; but when Spring indeed Came to unswathe her infants, and the lilies Peeped from their bright green masks to wonder at This shape of autumn couched in their recess,
Then it dilated, and it grew until
One half lay floating on the fountain wave, Whose pulse, elapsed in unlike sympathies, Kept time
Among the snowy water-lily buds.
Its shape was such as summer melody Of the south wind in spicy vales might give
To some light cloud bound from the golden dawn To fairy isles of evening, and it seemed
In hue and form that it had been a mirror Of all the hues and forms around it and Upon it pictured by the sunny beams
Which, from the bright vibrations of the pool, Were thrown upon the rafters and the roof Of boughs and leaves, and on the pillared stems Of the dark sylvan temple, and reflections Of every infant flower and star of moss And veined leaf in the azure odorous air. And thus it lay in the Elysian calm Of its own beauty, floating on the line Which, like a film in purest space, divided
The heaven beneath the water from the heaven Above the clouds; and every day I went Watching its growth and wondering; And as the day grew hot, methought I saw A glassy vapor dancing on the pool, And on it little quaint and filmy shapes, With dizzy motion, wheel and rise and fall, Like clouds of gnats with perfect lineaments.
O friend, sleep was a veil uplift from heaven — As if heaven dawned upon the world of dream — When darkness rose on the extinguished day Out of the eastern wilderness.
Have found a moment's paradise in sleep Half compensate a hell of waking sorrow.
SWIFT as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory and of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendor, and the mask
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth; The smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, and at the birth
Of light the Ocean's orison arose,
To which the birds tempered their matin lay. All flowers in field or forest, which unclose
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day, Swinging their censers in the element, With orient incense lit by the new ray
Burned slow and inconsumably, and sent Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air; And, in succession due, did continent,
The Triumph of Life. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, dated,
Out of the eastern shadow of the Earth
Amid the clouds upon its margin gray,
Scattered by night to swathe in its bright birth
In gold and fleecy snow the infant Day,
The glorious Sun arose, beneath his light
« iepriekšējāTurpināt » |