Page:Shelley The Daemon of the World.djvu/21

 Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton, Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres, To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form, Which love and admiration cannot view Without a beating heart, whose azure veins Steal like dark streams along a field of snow. Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed In light of some sublimest mind, decay? Nor putrefaction's breath Leave aught of this pure spectacle But loathsomeness and ruin?— Spare aught but a dark theme. On which the lightest heart might moralize? Or is it but that downy-wingèd slumbers Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids To watch their own repose? Will they, when morning's beam Flows through those wells of light, Seek far from noise and day some western cave,