Page:Prometheus Unbound - Shelley.djvu/166

 Each and all like ministering angels were For the sensitive plant sweet joy to bear, Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.

And when evening descended from heaven above, And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love, And delight, tho' less bright, was far more deep, And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Whose waves never mark, tho' they ever impress The light sand which paves it, consciousness;

(Only over head the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, And snatches of its Elysian chant Were mixed with the dreams of the sensitive plant.)

The sensitive plant was the earliest Up-gathered into the bosom of rest;