For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
The truths which wisest poets see
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;
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.
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
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!
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.

Disparting as it went the silver clouds,

Robed in its human hues it did ascend,

It moved towards the car, and took its seat

Beside the Daemon shape.

Obedient to the sweep of aëry song,

The mighty ministers

Unfurled their prismy wings.

The magic car moved on;

The night was fair, innumerable stars

Studded heaven's dark blue vault;
The eastern wave grew pale

With the first smile of morn.

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Now far above a rock the utmost verge
Of the wide earth it flew,

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The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o'er the silver sea.

Through the abyss of an immense concave,

Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,

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

Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
In the black concave of heaven

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With the sun's cloudless orb,

Parted around the chariot's swifter course,

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Whose rays of rapid light

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

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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.

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
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

In this interminable wilderness

Of worlds, at whose involved immensity

Even soaring fancy staggers,

Here is thy fitting temple.

Yet not the lightest leaf

That quivers to the passing breeze

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Is less instinct with thee,—

Yet not the meanest worm,

That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead,

Less shares thy eternal breath.

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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,
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

Over the sinking sphere:

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Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,

Edged with intolerable radiancy,

Towering like rocks of jet

Above the burning deep:

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:
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,
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
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.
Yet likest evening's vault that faëry hall,
As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
Its floors of flashing light,

Its vast and azure dome;

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And on the verge of that obscure abyss

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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

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Floated to strains of thrilling melody

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Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.

The Daemon and the Spirit

Approached the overhanging battlement.

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

Eternal Nature's law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed

Each with undeviating aim

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A wilderness of harmony,

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In eloquent silence through the depths of space

Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstasy.

Pursued its wondrous way.—

Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
Strange things within their belted orbs appear.
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,
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
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,
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
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,

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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 armèd 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
Necessity's unchanging harmony.

PART II

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[Sections viii and ix of Queen Mab rehandled by Shelley. First printed in 1876 by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. See Editor's Introductory Note to Queen Mab.]

O HAPPY Earth! reality of Heaven!

To which those restless powers that ceaselessly
Throng through the human universe aspire;
Thou consummation of all mortal hope!
Thou glorious prize of blindly-working will!
Whose rays, diffused throughout all space and time,
Verge to one point and blend for ever there:
Of purest spirits thou pure dwelling-place!
Where care and sorrow, impotence and crime,
Languor, disease, and ignorance dare not come:
O happy Earth, reality of Heaven!

Genius has seen thee in her passionate dreams,
And dim forebodings of thy loveliness,

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Haunting the human heart, have there entwined

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Those rooted hopes, that the proud Power of Evil

Shall not for ever on this fairest world

To overwhelm in envy and revenge

The dauntless and the good, who dare to hurl

Defiance at his throne, girt tho' it be

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With Death's omnipotence. Thou hast beheld

His empire, o'er the present and the past;

It was a desolate sight-now gaze on mine,

Futurity. Thou hoary giant Time,

Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,-
And from the cradles of eternity,

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Where millions lie lulled to their portioned sleep