III

Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor!
For thy victim is no redresser ;

Thou art sole lord and possessor

Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions-they pave
Thy path to the grave.

IV

Hearest thou the festival din

Of Death, and Destruction, and Sin,

And Wealth crying Havoc! within?

"Tis the bacchanal triumph that makes Truth dumb,
Thine Epithalamium.

V

Ay, marry thy ghastly wife!

Let Fear and Disquiet and Strife

Spread thy couch in the chamber of Life!

Marry Ruin, thou Tyrant! and Hell be thy guide
To the bed of the bride!

SONG TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND
Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed.]

[Published by Mrs. Shelley,

15

20

25

The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps ;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears. 20

VI

Sow seed,-but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,-let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,-let not the idle wear;
Forge arms,-in your defence to bear.

VII

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;

25

In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought?
Ye see

The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

VIII

With plough and spade, and hoe and loom,

Trace your grave, and build your

tomb,

30

And weave your winding-sheet, till fair

England be your sepulchre.

16 festival Harvard, Fred., 1839; festal 1832. 22 Disquiet Harvard, Fred., 1839; Disgust 1832. 1832, 1839. 25 the bride Harvard, Fred., 1839;

19 that Fred.; which Harvard, 1832. 24 Hell Fred.; God Harvard, thy bride 1832.

SIMILES FOR TWO POLITICAL CHARACTERS OF 1819 [Published by Medwin, The Athenæum, Aug. 25, 1832; reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839. Our title is that of 1839, 2nd ed. The poem

is found amongst the Harvard MSS., headed To S―th and Cgh.]

FRAGMENT: TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND

[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

PEOPLE of England, ye who toil and groan,
Who reap the harvests which are not your own,
Who weave the clothes which your oppressors wear,
And for your own take the inclement air;
Who build warm houses

And are like gods who give them all they have,
And nurse them from the cradle to the grave

1

FRAGMENT: WHAT MEN GAIN FAIRLY "

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]
WHAT men gain fairly-that they should possess,
And children may inherit idleness,

From him who earns it-This is understood;
Private injustice may be general good.

5

But he who gains by base and armed wrong,

5

Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,
May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress
Is stripped from a convicted thief, and he
Left in the nakedness of infamy.

Similes-7 yew 1832; hue 1839.

1 Perhaps connected with that immediately preceding (Forman).—ED.

A NEW NATIONAL ANTHEM

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]

AN old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,-
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,-mud from a muddy spring,-
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,-
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,-
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,-
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless-a book sealed;
A Senate, Time's worst statute unrepealed,-
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.

5

ΙΟ

AN ODE

WRITTEN OCTOBER, 1819, BEFORE THE SPANIARDS HAD RECOVERED THEIR LIBERTY

[Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820.] ARISE, arise, arise!

There is blood on the earth that denies ye bread;

Be your wounds like eyes

To weep for the dead, the dead, the dead.

What other grief were it just to pay?

Your sons, your wives, your brethren, were they;
Who said they were slain on the battle day?

Awaken, awaken, awaken!

The slave and the tyrant are twin-born foes;
Be the cold chains shaken

To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:
Their bones in the grave will start and move,
When they hear the voices of those they love,
Most loud in the holy combat above.

Wave, wave high the banner!

When Freedom is riding to conquest by:
Though the slaves that fan her

Be Famine and Toil, giving sigh for sigh.
And ye who attend her imperial car,
Lift not your hands in the banded war,
But in her defence whose children ye are.

Glory, glory, glory,

To those who have greatly suffered and done!
Never name in story

Was greater than that which ye shall have won.

Conquerors have conquered their foes alone,

Whose revenge, pride, and power they have overthrown:

5

10

15

20

25

Ride ye, more victorious, over your own.

Bind, bind every brow

With crownals of violet, ivy, and pine:

Hide the blood-stains now

With hues which sweet Nature has made divine:

Green strength, azure hope, and eternity:
But let not the pansy among them be;

Ye were injured, and that means memory.

CANCELLED STANZA

[Published in The Times (Rossetti).]

GATHER, O gather,

Foeman and friend in love and peace!

Waves sleep together

When the blasts that called them to battle,
For fangless Power grown tame and mild
Is at play with Freedom's fearless child-
The dove and the serpent reconciled!

30

35

cease.

5

ODE TO HEAVEN

[Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820. Dated 'Florence, December, 1819' in Harvard MS. (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst the Shelley MSS. at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C. D. Locock's Examination, &c., p. 39.] Round which its young fancies

CHORUS OF SPIRITS

First Spirit.

Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Their unremaining gods and they
Like a river roll away:
Thou remainest such-alway!—
Second Spirit.

26

Thou art but the mind's first chamber,

clamber,

30

Like weak insects in a cave,
Lighted up by stalactites;
But the portal of the grave,
Where a world of new delights
Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam 35
From the shadow of a dream!
Third Spirit.

Peace! the abyss is wreathed with

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken

50

On an unimagined world:
Constellated suns unshaken,
Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.

CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN
[Published by Mr. C. D. Locock, Examination, &c., 1903.]

THE [living frame which sustains

my soul]

Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]
Down through the lampless deep

of song

I am drawn and driven along—

Like an eagle from the cloud

When a ...

When the night...

Watch the look askance and

old

9

See neglect, and falsehood fold....