Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/35

Rh That quivers to the passing breeze Is less instinct with thee,— Yet not the meanest worm. That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead, Less shares thy eternal breath. 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: 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; And on the verge of that obscure abyss 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;