Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/741

Rh Scoop and draw.

But he ware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

Ah me! my eyesight is parched up to cinders.

What a sweet paean! sing me that again!

Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me!

But, wretched nothings, think ye not to flee

Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet,

Will bar the way and catch you as you pass.

What are you roaring out, Cyclops?

I perish!

For you are wicked.

And besides miserable.

What, did you fall into the fire when drunk?

'Twas Nobody destroyed me.

Why then no one

Can be to blame.

I say 'twas Nobody

Who blinded me.

Why then you are not blind.

I wish you were as blind as I am.

Nay,

It cannot be that no one made you blind.

You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?

Nowhere, O Cyclops.

It was that stranger ruined me:—the wretch

First gave me wine and then burned out my eye,

For wine is strong and hard to struggle with.

Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

They stand under the darkness of the rock

And cling to it.

At my right hand or left?

Close on your right.

Where?

Near the rock itself.

You have them.

Oh, misfortune on misfortune!

I've cracked my skull.

Now they escape you—there.

Not there, although you say so.

Not on that side.

Where then?

They creep about you on your left.

Ah! I am mocked! They jeer me in my ills.

Not there! he is a little there beyond you.

Detested wretch! where are you?

Far from you

I keep with care this body of Ulysses.

What do you say? You proffer a new name.

My father named me so; and I have taken

 693 So B.; Now they escape you there 1824.

