Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/80

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Will look on thy more warm and equal light Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow, And love thee. ''Sp. of the Earth.'' What! as Asia loves Prometheus? Asia. Peace, wanton! thou art not yet old enough.

In Act IV., that glorious afterthought, composed several months subsequently, lone and Panthea describe at length the wonderful vision of these Spirits triumphant: that of the Moon a winged infant in a chariot like the crescent; that of the Earth laid asleep "Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil," within the rushing sphere which is as many thousand spheres. Immediately after these descriptions comes the sublime rapturous and enamoured antiphonal chanting, not of the Spirits, but simply of the Earth and the Moon, according to the headings of the alternate strophes. Yet not the Moon but only her Spirit is in the Dramatis Personæ; and she addresses the Earth not as the great Mother, but as "Brother mine" and "Orb most beautiful"; and when their chanting is over, Panthea says:—

On the other hand, the chaste Sister of the Moon expresses to her Brother of the Earth, still a winged child, that very love Asia predicted, but for which she said to him, "Thou art not yet old enough." Passing over the distinction between the Moon and her Spirit, which to me is as subtile and inappreciable as that between the Hours and the Spirits of the Hours, either used indifferently, I conceive that though we have here the Spirit of the Earth in the description and the Earth named in the lyrical duologue, the chanting Earth of