Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FRAGMENTS OF AN ODE TO SHELLEY, by JAMES ELROY FLECKER Poet's Biography First Line: Since men have always crowned the tomb Last Line: And bathed his forehead in the pool of night. Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822) | ||||||||
I Since men have always crowned the tomb With those sweet diadems of doom, The twinings of memorial flowers, So that their brother's first few hours Of waiting in his lonely room May pass in peace while Time devours The body's brief and bitter bloom, The last extortion of sad powers, And downwards through the grudging soil The piteous perfumes strain and toil, II Let the kind ritual remain: We seek an emblem of our pain -- The dry scant holly of the shore, The grass upon the dunes -- What more Can sorrow bring? We cannot drain The spacious Sea for his rich store Of coloured weeds that shine in vain Upon the wide inhuman floor, The lonely yard where drowned men lie And gaze through water to white sky. III Forgive, thou calm and godlike shade, The drooping wreath, the flowers that fade, This passionless pale offering From one who scarcely dares to sing His love and praises, being afraid At the sweet brilliance of thy spring, Seeing his lute is rudely made, His thoughts too dull and weak of wing, More fit for noons that lull and warm Than for the stress of fire and storm. IV The slender boat that stretched her sail To fly before the sultry gale, That from her moorings leapt and sped Before the forest leaves were red, Before the purple noon was pale, Round whom delight and fancy spread Their guardian wings, without avail, Is shipwrecked, and her captain dead. The children of the stainless sea Laid him ashore mysteriously. V O none of those who came to mourn The body cold and water-worn, Nor any of us in later days Who walk at evening in soft ways Could bring thee tribute of the morn Or any music that repays The soul of Adonais, borne To heaven on thy fluted phrase. Poets have wept; but which of them Were fit to sing thy requiem? VI That song shall wait till delving time Finds the lost treasures of earth's prime, When moil and tears and dire distress Shall flee the down of joyousness, When some new monarch of sweet rhyme Or mild surprising poetess, Some Sappho in a mood sublime Or Pindar freed and fetterless, In a far island in far seas Shall send their sorrow down the breeze. * * * O shining servant of the evening star Whom no soft footfall of Lethean song Delighted, but a strong celestial war To batter down the gates of earthly wrong, To thee old Rhea yielded up her foison, Thou rash knight-errant of heroic love, That dreams and trances, being most vital poison To whoso looks but dares not live above, For thee, who wast more bold, Might lead to earth along light chains of gold, Lest some rebellious airs of spirit Should blow each image into windy space Nor leave it vocal, to inherit The toil and triumph of our mortal race. O thou hast shown us legions in the skies, And passed the earth before us in review Till shadows came and went before our eyes, And shafts of dim desire pierced us through, And draughts of joyous day And winds that calmly blew Swift strength and splendour in our dreams, and songs from far away. * * * Light and the subtler light of wizard fire, And winds that strike forth hope on some grand lyre, And spirits of blue air like April clouds, And all the water-company that crowds The river-spaces and dark open sea, Conspired at his creation: Liberty, Watching his prowess from her tower above, Took to her side a royal-winged Love. And when he died and they could do no more To strengthen him who graced that southern shore They bade a clearer, stronger sun arise And drive old darkness from the Italian skies. * * * Many there be to-day whose foolish praise Has dulled the roar of thy old fighting days, So that thy hymns of intellectual joy Seem but fine utterance of a wayward boy, Thy call of war, thy thunderbolts of hate A madman's cry, that rails against his fate; Who find in them a vague and phantom truth Or dim ideal of a lovelorn youth. * * * He was too beautiful; he died too young, Before the mellow season of his prime; Sweet songs he left, but sweeter songs unsung, Whose thin ghosts wander out of space and time. All his philosophy was Love and Hate, His life a rainbow for the sun to fashion, His thoughts most royally importunate, Forged by the beats of elemental passion. Like some young tressed tree That sighs to each . . . wind, so he Stretched arms to welcome Love, who softly winging Came down to earth from lands beyond the dawn; Her strength and gentleness inspired his singing, Until she stood amazed, from whom 'twas drawn. Spirit of love, draw near this monument And veil the ancient glory of thy head, For he is dead, whose silver days were spent In thy eternal service, he is dead And borne aloft away On gloomy wings outspread More strong and sure than thy bright plumes, O mistress of a day! * * * [EPODE] Nothing of him is left us, save this scroll, The fire-thrown shadow of his silent soul, The glass whose even rondure is to keep The immortal country of his mortal sleep. Where terrors move and angry phantoms cry, Titans and tyrants in a ragged sky, Where in tall caves magicians read the rune, And white limbs glitter in the plenilune; And where a voice more human, more divine, Commends a brother dead to Proserpine But now that Queen of undivided rest Reopening the closures of her breast Has taken our royal-winged child of light, And bathed his forehead in the pool of night. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GENERAL PUBLIC by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET SHELLEY'S ARETHUSA SET TO NEW MEASURES by ROBERT DUNCAN OZYMANDIAS REVISITED by MORRIS GILBERT BISHOP MEMORABILIA by ROBERT BROWNING ROME. AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY by THOMAS HARDY SHELLEY'S SKYLARK by THOMAS HARDY TO SHELLEY by JOHN BANISTER TABB SANTORIN (A LEGEND OF THE AEGEAN) by JAMES ELROY FLECKER |
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