Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/787

§I Then, like an useless and worn-out machine,

Rots, perishes, and passes.

Fairy.

'Spirit! who hast dived so deep;

Spirit! who hast soared so high;

Thou the fearless, thou the mild,

Accept the boon thy worth hath earned,

Ascend the car with me.'

Spirit.

'Do I dream? Is this new feeling

But a visioned ghost of slumber?

If indeed I am a soul,

A free, a disembodied soul,

Speak again to me.'

Fairy.

'I am the Fairy : to me 'tis given

The wonders of the human world to keep:

The secrets of the immeasurable past,

In the unfailing consciences of men,

Those stern, unflattering chroniclers, I find:

The future, from the causes which arise

In each event, I gather: not the sting

Which retributive memory implants

In the hard bosom of the selfish man;

Nor that ecstatic and exulting throb

Which virtue's votary feels when he sums up

The thoughts and actions of a well-spent day,

Are unforeseen, unregistered by me:

And it is yet permitted me, to rend

The veil of mortal frailty, that the spirit,

Clothed in its changeless purity, may know

How soonest to accomplish the great end

For which it hath its being, and may taste

That peace, which in the end all life will share.

This is the meed of virtue; happy Soul,

Ascend the car with me!'

The chains of earth's immurement

Fell from Ianthe's spirit;

They shrank and brake like bandages of straw

Beneath a wakened giant's strength.

She knew her glorious change,

And felt in apprehension uncontrolled

New raptures opening round:

Each day-dream of her mortal life,

Each frenzied vision of the slumbers

That closed each well-spent day,

Seemed now to meet reality.

The Fairy and the Soul proceeded;

The silver clouds disparted;

And as the car of magic they ascended,

Again the speechless music swelled,

Again the coursers of the air

Unfurled their azure pennons, and the Queen

Shaking the beamy reins

Bade them pursue their way.

The magic car moved on.

The night was fair, and countless stars

Studded Heaven's dark blue vault,—

Just o'er the eastern wave

Peeped the first faint smile of morn:—

The magic car moved on—

From the celestial hoofs

The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew,

And where the burning wheels

Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak,

Was traced a line of lightning.

Now it flew far above a rock,

The utmost verge of earth,

The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow

Lowered o'er the silver sea.

Far, far below the chariot's path,

Calm as a slumbering babe,

Tremendous Ocean lay.

The mirror of its stillness showed

The pale and waning stars,

The chariot's fiery track,

And the gray light of morn