19.

It was his fancy to invite

Men of science, wit, and learning,

Who came to lend each other light; _355

He proudly thought that his gold's might

Had set those spirits burning.

20.

And men of learning, science, wit,

Considered him as you and I

Think of some rotten tree, and sit _360

Lounging and dining under it,

Exposed to the wide sky.

21.

And all the while with loose fat smile,

The willing wretch sat winking there,

Believing 'twas his power that made _365

That jovial scene--and that all paid

Homage to his unnoticed chair.

22.

Though to be sure this place was Hell;

He was the Devil--and all they--

What though the claret circled well, _370

And wit, like ocean, rose and fell?--

Were damned eternally.

PART 5.

GRACE.

1.

Among the guests who often stayed

Till the Devil's petits-soupers,

A man there came, fair as a maid, _375

And Peter noted what he said,

Standing behind his master's chair.

2.

He was a mighty poet--and

A subtle-souled psychologist;

All things he seemed to understand, _380

Of old or new--of sea or land--

But his own mind--which was a mist.

3.

This was a man who might have turned

Hell into Heaven--and so in gladness

A Heaven unto himself have earned; _385

But he in shadows undiscerned

Trusted.--and damned himself to madness.

4.

He spoke of poetry, and how

'Divine it was--a light--a love--

A spirit which like wind doth blow _390

As it listeth, to and fro;

A dew rained down from God above;

5.

'A power which comes and goes like dream,

And which none can ever trace--

Heaven's light on earth--Truth's brightest beam.' _395

And when he ceased there lay the gleam

Of those words upon his face.

6.

Now Peter, when he heard such talk,

Would, heedless of a broken pate,

Stand like a man asleep, or balk _400

Some wishing guest of knife or fork,

Or drop and break his master's plate.

7.

At night he oft would start and wake

Like a lover, and began

In a wild measure songs to make _405

On moor, and glen, and rocky lake,

And on the heart of man--

8.

And on the universal sky--

And the wide earth's bosom green,--

And the sweet, strange mystery _410

Of what beyond these things may lie,

And yet remain unseen.

9.

For in his thought he visited

The spots in which, ere dead and damned,

He his wayward life had led; _415

Yet knew not whence the thoughts were fed

Which thus his fancy crammed.

10.

And these obscure remembrances

Stirred such harmony in Peter,

That, whensoever he should please, _420

He could speak of rocks and trees

In poetic metre.

11.

For though it was without a sense

Of memory, yet he remembered well

Many a ditch and quick-set fence; _425

Of lakes he had intelligence,

He knew something of heath and fell.

12.

He had also dim recollections

Of pedlars tramping on their rounds;

Milk-pans and pails; and odd collections _430

Of saws, and proverbs; and reflections

Old parsons make in burying-grounds.

13.

But Peter's verse was clear, and came

Announcing from the frozen hearth

Of a cold age, that none might tame _435

The soul of that diviner flame

It augured to the Earth:

14.

Like gentle rains, on the dry plains,

Making that green which late was gray,

Or like the sudden moon, that stains _440

Some gloomy chamber's window-panes

With a broad light like day.

15.

For language was in Peter's hand

Like clay while he was yet a potter;

And he made songs for all the land, _445

Sweet both to feel and understand,

As pipkins late to mountain Cotter.

16.

And Mr. --, the bookseller,

Gave twenty pounds for some;--then scorning

A footman's yellow coat to wear, _450

Peter, too proud of heart, I fear,

Instantly gave the Devil warning.

17.

Whereat the Devil took offence,

And swore in his soul a great oath then,

'That for his damned impertinence _455

He'd bring him to a proper sense

Of what was due to gentlemen!'

PART 6.

DAMNATION.

1.

'O that mine enemy had written

A book!'--cried Job:--a fearful curse,

If to the Arab, as the Briton, _460

'Twas galling to be critic-bitten:--

The Devil to Peter wished no worse.

2.

When Peter's next new book found vent,

The Devil to all the first Reviews

A copy of it slyly sent, _465

With five-pound note as compliment,

And this short notice--'Pray abuse.'

3.

Then seriatim, month and quarter,

Appeared such mad tirades.--One said--

'Peter seduced Mrs. Foy's daughter, _470

Then drowned the mother in Ullswater,

The last thing as he went to bed.'

4.

Another--'Let him shave his head!

Where's Dr. Willis?--Or is he joking?

What does the rascal mean or hope, _475

No longer imitating Pope,

In that barbarian Shakespeare poking?'

5.

One more, 'Is incest not enough?

And must there be adultery too?

Grace after meat? Miscreant and Liar! _480

Thief! Blackguard! Scoundrel! Fool! hell-fire

Is twenty times too good for you.

6.

'By that last book of yours WE think

You've double damned yourself to scorn;

We warned you whilst yet on the brink _485

You stood. From your black name will shrink

The babe that is unborn.'

7.

All these Reviews the Devil made

Up in a parcel, which he had

Safely to Peter's house conveyed. _490

For carriage, tenpence Peter paid--

Untied them--read them--went half mad.

8.

'What!' cried he, 'this is my reward

For nights of thought, and days, of toil?

Do poets, but to be abhorred _495

By men of whom they never heard,

Consume their spirits' oil?

9.

'What have I done to them?--and who

IS Mrs. Foy? 'Tis very cruel

To speak of me and Betty so! _500

Adultery! God defend me! Oh!

I've half a mind to fight a duel.

10.

'Or,' cried he, a grave look collecting,

'Is it my genius, like the moon,

Sets those who stand her face inspecting, _505

That face within their brain reflecting,

Like a crazed bell-chime, out of tune?'

11.

For Peter did not know the town,

But thought, as country readers do,

For half a guinea or a crown, _510

He bought oblivion or renown

From God's own voice (1) in a review.

12.

All Peter did on this occasion

Was, writing some sad stuff in prose.

It is a dangerous invasion _515

When poets criticize; their station

Is to delight, not pose.

13.

The Devil then sent to Leipsic fair

For Born's translation of Kant's book;

A world of words, tail foremost, where _520

Right--wrong--false--true--and foul--and fair

As in a lottery-wheel are shook.

14.

Five thousand crammed octavo pages

Of German psychologics,--he

Who his furor verborum assuages _525

Thereon, deserves just seven months' wages

More than will e'er be due to me.

15.

I looked on them nine several days,

And then I saw that they were bad;

A friend, too, spoke in their dispraise,-- _530

He never read them;--with amaze

I found Sir William Drummond had.

16.

When the book came, the Devil sent

It to P. Verbovale (2), Esquire,

With a brief note of compliment, _535

By that night's Carlisle mail. It went,

And set his soul on fire.

17.

Fire, which ex luce praebens fumum,

Made him beyond the bottom see

Of truth's clear well--when I and you, Ma'am, _540

Go, as we shall do, subter humum,

We may know more than he.

18.

Now Peter ran to seed in soul

Into a walking paradox;

For he was neither part nor whole, _545

Nor good, nor bad--nor knave nor fool;

--Among the woods and rocks

19.

Furious he rode, where late he ran,

Lashing and spurring his tame hobby;

Turned to a formal puritan, _550

A solemn and unsexual man,--

He half believed "White Obi".

20.

This steed in vision he would ride,

High trotting over nine-inch bridges,

With Flibbertigibbet, imp of pride, _555

Mocking and mowing by his side--

A mad-brained goblin for a guide--

Over corn-fields, gates, and hedges.

21.

After these ghastly rides, he came

Home to his heart, and found from thence _560

Much stolen of its accustomed flame;

His thoughts grew weak, drowsy, and lame

Of their intelligence.

22.

To Peter's view, all seemed one hue;

He was no Whig, he was no Tory; _565

No Deist and no Christian he;--

He got so subtle, that to be

Nothing, was all his glory.

23.

One single point in his belief

From his organization sprung, _570

The heart-enrooted faith, the chief

Ear in his doctrines' blighted sheaf,

That 'Happiness is wrong';

24.

So thought Calvin and Dominic;

So think their fierce successors, who _575

Even now would neither stint nor stick

Our flesh from off our bones to pick,

If they might 'do their do.'

25.

His morals thus were undermined:--

The old Peter--the hard, old Potter-- _580

Was born anew within his mind;

He grew dull, harsh, sly, unrefined,

As when he tramped beside the Otter. (1)

26.

In the death hues of agony

Lambently flashing from a fish, _585

Now Peter felt amused to see

Shades like a rainbow's rise and flee,

Mixed with a certain hungry wish(2).

27.

So in his Country's dying face

He looked--and, lovely as she lay, _590

Seeking in vain his last embrace,

Wailing her own abandoned case,

With hardened sneer he turned away:

28.

And coolly to his own soul said;--

'Do you not think that we might make _595

A poem on her when she's dead:--

Or, no--a thought is in my head--

Her shroud for a new sheet I'll take:

29.

'My wife wants one.--Let who will bury

This mangled corpse! And I and you, _600

My dearest Soul, will then make merry,

As the Prince Regent did with Sherry,--'

'Ay--and at last desert me too.'

30.

And so his Soul would not be gay,

But moaned within him; like a fawn _605

Moaning within a cave, it lay

Wounded and wasting, day by day,

Till all its life of life was gone.

31.

As troubled skies stain waters clear,

The storm in Peter's heart and mind _610

Now made his verses dark and queer:

They were the ghosts of what they were,

Shaking dim grave-clothes in the wind.

32.

For he now raved enormous folly,

Of Baptisms, Sunday-schools, and Graves, _615

'Twould make George Colman melancholy

To have heard him, like a male Molly,

Chanting those stupid staves.

33.

Yet the Reviews, who heaped abuse

On Peter while he wrote for freedom, _620

So soon as in his song they spy

The folly which soothes tyranny,

Praise him, for those who feed 'em.

34.

'He was a man, too great to scan;--

A planet lost in truth's keen rays:-- _625

His virtue, awful and prodigious;--

He was the most sublime, religious,

Pure-minded Poet of these days.'

35.

As soon as he read that, cried Peter,

'Eureka! I have found the way _630

To make a better thing of metre

Than e'er was made by living creature

Up to this blessed day.'

36.

Then Peter wrote odes to the Devil;--

In one of which he meekly said: _635

'May Carnage and Slaughter,

Thy niece and thy daughter,

May Rapine and Famine,

Thy gorge ever cramming,

Glut thee with living and dead! _640

37.

'May Death and Damnation,

And Consternation,

Flit up from Hell with pure intent!

Slash them at Manchester,

Glasgow, Leeds, and Chester; _645

Drench all with blood from Avon to Trent.

38.

'Let thy body-guard yeomen

Hew down babes and women,

And laugh with bold triumph till Heaven be rent!

When Moloch in Jewry _650

Munched children with fury,

It was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent. (1)

PART 7.

DOUBLE DAMNATION.

1.

The Devil now knew his proper cue.--

Soon as he read the ode, he drove

To his friend Lord MacMurderchouse's, _655

A man of interest in both houses,

And said:--'For money or for love,

2.

'Pray find some cure or sinecure;

To feed from the superfluous taxes

A friend of ours--a poet--fewer _660

Have fluttered tamer to the lure

Than he.' His lordship stands and racks his

3.

Stupid brains, while one might count

As many beads as he had boroughs,--

At length replies; from his mean front, _665

Like one who rubs out an account,

Smoothing away the unmeaning furrows:

4.

'It happens fortunately, dear Sir,

I can. I hope I need require

No pledge from you, that he will stir _670

In our affairs;--like Oliver.

That he'll be worthy of his hire.'

5.

These words exchanged, the news sent off

To Peter, home the Devil hied,--

Took to his bed; he had no cough, _675

No doctor,--meat and drink enough.--

Yet that same night he died.

6.

The Devil's corpse was leaded down;

His decent heirs enjoyed his pelf,

Mourning-coaches, many a one, _680

Followed his hearse along the town:--

Where was the Devil himself?

7.

When Peter heard of his promotion,

His eyes grew like two stars for bliss:

There was a bow of sleek devotion _685

Engendering in his back; each motion

Seemed a Lord's shoe to kiss.

8.

He hired a house, bought plate, and made

A genteel drive up to his door,

With sifted gravel neatly laid,-- _690

As if defying all who said,

Peter was ever poor.

9.

But a disease soon struck into

The very life and soul of Peter--

He walked about--slept--had the hue _695

Of health upon his cheeks--and few

Dug better--none a heartier eater.

10.

And yet a strange and horrid curse

Clung upon Peter, night and day;

Month after month the thing grew worse, _700

And deadlier than in this my verse

I can find strength to say.

11.

Peter was dull--he was at first

Dull--oh, so dull--so very dull!

Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed-- _705

Still with this dulness was he cursed--

Dull--beyond all conception--dull.

12.

No one could read his books--no mortal,

But a few natural friends, would hear him;

The parson came not near his portal; _710

His state was like that of the immortal

Described by Swift--no man could bear him.

13.

His sister, wife, and children yawned,

With a long, slow, and drear ennui,

All human patience far beyond; _715

Their hopes of Heaven each would have pawned,

Anywhere else to be.

14.

But in his verse, and in his prose,

The essence of his dulness was

Concentred and compressed so close, _720

'Twould have made Guatimozin doze

On his red gridiron of brass.

15.

A printer's boy, folding those pages,

Fell slumbrously upon one side;

Like those famed Seven who slept three ages. _725

To wakeful frenzy's vigil--rages,

As opiates, were the same applied.

16.

Even the Reviewers who were hired

To do the work of his reviewing,

With adamantine nerves, grew tired;-- _730

Gaping and torpid they retired,

To dream of what they should be doing.

17.

And worse and worse, the drowsy curse

Yawned in him, till it grew a pest--

A wide contagious atmosphere, _735

Creeping like cold through all things near;

A power to infect and to infest.

18.

His servant-maids and dogs grew dull;

His kitten, late a sportive elf;

The woods and lakes, so beautiful, _740

Of dim stupidity were full.

All grew dull as Peter's self.

19.

The earth under his feet--the springs,

Which lived within it a quick life,

The air, the winds of many wings, _745

That fan it with new murmurings,

Were dead to their harmonious strife.

20.

The birds and beasts within the wood,

The insects, and each creeping thing,

Were now a silent multitude; _750

Love's work was left unwrought--no brood

Near Peter's house took wing.

21.

And every neighbouring cottager

Stupidly yawned upon the other:

No jackass brayed; no little cur _755

Cocked up his ears;--no man would stir

To save a dying mother.

22.

Yet all from that charmed district went

But some half-idiot and half-knave,

Who rather than pay any rent, _760

Would live with marvellous content,

Over his father's grave.

23.

No bailiff dared within that space,

For fear of the dull charm, to enter;

A man would bear upon his face, _765

For fifteen months in any case,

The yawn of such a venture.

24.

Seven miles above--below--around--

This pest of dulness holds its sway;

A ghastly life without a sound; _770

To Peter's soul the spell is bound--

How should it ever pass away?

NOTES:

(_8 To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between

Whale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to

the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is

indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to

discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct

genera.--[SHELLEY's NOTE.)

(_183 One of the attributes in Linnaeus's description of the Cat. To a

similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus

is to be referred;--except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is

compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is

supposed only to quarrel with those of others.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_186 What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its

kernel prostitution, or the kernel prostitution without this husk of a

virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an association,

like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what

may be called the 'King, Church, and Constitution' of their order. But

this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_222 This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our

countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly asseverating the

most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active

Attorney General than that here alluded to.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

_292 one Fleay cj., Rossetti, Forman, Dowden, Woodberry;

out 1839, 2nd edition.

_500 Betty]Emma 1839, 2nd edition. See letter from Shelley to Ollier,

May 14, 1820 (Shelley Memorials, page 139).

(_512 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. Godwin truly observes of a more

famous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally destitute

of philosophical accuracy.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_534 Quasi, Qui valet verba:--i.e. all the words which have been,

are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A

sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor

who selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTICIPATED

COGNITION of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his

posterity.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

_602-3 See Editor's Note.

(_583 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic

Pantisocratists.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_588 See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the

agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long

poem in blank verse, published within a few years. ["The Excursion", 8

2 568-71.--Ed.] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual

hardening of a strong but circumscribed sensibility, of the perversion

of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might

have derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet

and sublime verses:--

'This lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,

Taught both by what she (Nature) shows and what conceals,

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.'--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_652 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and

Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a

sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than

Peter, because he pollutes a holy and how unconquerable cause with the

principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one

ridiculous and odious.

If either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more

indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied

in the moral perversion laid to their charge.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

NOTE ON PETER BELL THE THIRD, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

In this new edition I have added "Peter Bell the Third". A critique on

Wordsworth's "Peter Bell" reached us at Leghorn, which amused Shelley

exceedingly, and suggested this poem.

I need scarcely observe that nothing personal to the author of "Peter

Bell" is intended in this poem. No man ever admired Wordsworth's

poetry more;--he read it perpetually, and taught others to appreciate

its beauties. This poem is, like all others written by Shelley, ideal.

He conceived the idealism of a poet--a man of lofty and creative

genius--quitting the glorious calling of discovering and announcing

the beautiful and good, to support and propagate ignorant prejudices

and pernicious errors; imparting to the unenlightened, not that ardour

for truth and spirit of toleration which Shelley looked on as the

sources of the moral improvement and happiness of mankind, but false

and injurious opinions, that evil was good, and that ignorance and

force were the best allies of purity and virtue. His idea was that a

man gifted, even as transcendently as the author of "Peter Bell", with

the highest qualities of genius, must, if he fostered such errors, be

infected with dulness. This poem was written as a warning--not as a

narration of the reality. He was unacquainted personally with

Wordsworth, or with Coleridge (to whom he alludes in the fifth part of

the poem), and therefore, I repeat, his poem is purely ideal;--it

contains something of criticism on the compositions of those great

poets, but nothing injurious to the men themselves.

No poem contains more of Shelley's peculiar views with regard to the

errors into which many of the wisest have fallen, and the pernicious

effects of certain opinions on society. Much of it is beautifully

written: and, though, like the burlesque drama of "Swellfoot", it must

be looked on as a plaything, it has so much merit and poetry--so much

of HIMSELF in it--that it cannot fail to interest greatly, and by

right belongs to the world for whose instruction and benefit it was

written.

***

LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE.

[Composed during Shelley's occupation of the Gisbornes' house at

Leghorn, July, 1820; published in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Sources of

the text are (1) a draft in Shelley's hand, 'partly illegible'

(Forman), amongst the Boscombe manuscripts; (2) a transcript by Mrs.

Shelley; (3) the editio princeps, 1824; the text in "Poetical Works",

1839, let and 2nd editions. Our text is that of Mrs. Shelley's

transcript, modified by the Boscombe manuscript. Here, as elsewhere in

this edition, the readings of the editio princeps are preserved in the

footnotes.]

LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.]

The spider spreads her webs, whether she be

In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree;

The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves

His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves;

So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, _5

Sit spinning still round this decaying form,

From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought--

No net of words in garish colours wrought

To catch the idle buzzers of the day--

But a soft cell, where when that fades away, _10

Memory may clothe in wings my living name

And feed it with the asphodels of fame,

Which in those hearts which must remember me

Grow, making love an immortality.

Whoever should behold me now, I wist, _15

Would think I were a mighty mechanist,

Bent with sublime Archimedean art

To breathe a soul into the iron heart

Of some machine portentous, or strange gin,

Which by the force of figured spells might win _20

Its way over the sea, and sport therein;

For round the walls are hung dread engines, such

As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch

Ixion or the Titan:--or the quick

Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic, _25

To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic,

Or those in philanthropic council met,

Who thought to pay some interest for the debt

They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation,

By giving a faint foretaste of damnation _30

To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest

Who made our land an island of the blest,

When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire

On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire:--

With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and jag, _35

Which fishers found under the utmost crag

Of Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles,

Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles

Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn

When the exulting elements in scorn, _40

Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay

Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey,

As panthers sleep;--and other strange and dread

Magical forms the brick floor overspread,--

Proteus transformed to metal did not make _45

More figures, or more strange; nor did he take

Such shapes of unintelligible brass,

Or heap himself in such a horrid mass

Of tin and iron not to be understood;

And forms of unimaginable wood, _50

To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood:

Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved blocks,

The elements of what will stand the shocks

Of wave and wind and time.--Upon the table

More knacks and quips there be than I am able _55

To catalogize in this verse of mine:--

A pretty bowl of wood--not full of wine,

But quicksilver; that dew which the gnomes drink

When at their subterranean toil they swink,

Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who _60

Reply to them in lava--cry halloo!

And call out to the cities o'er their head,--

Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead,

Crash through the chinks of earth--and then all quaff

Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. _65

This quicksilver no gnome has drunk--within

The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin,

In colour like the wake of light that stains

The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains

The inmost shower of its white fire--the breeze _70

Is still--blue Heaven smiles over the pale seas.

And in this bowl of quicksilver--for I

Yield to the impulse of an infancy

Outlasting manhood--I have made to float

A rude idealism of a paper boat:-- _75

A hollow screw with cogs--Henry will know

The thing I mean and laugh at me,--if so

He fears not I should do more mischief.--Next

Lie bills and calculations much perplexed,

With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint _80

Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.

Then comes a range of mathematical

Instruments, for plans nautical and statical,

A heap of rosin, a queer broken glass

With ink in it;--a china cup that was _85

What it will never be again, I think,--

A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink

The liquor doctors rail at--and which I

Will quaff in spite of them--and when we die

We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea, _90

And cry out,--'Heads or tails?' where'er we be.

Near that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks,

A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books,

Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms,

To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, _95

Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray

Of figures,--disentangle them who may.

Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie,

And some odd volumes of old chemistry.

Near those a most inexplicable thing, _100

With lead in the middle--I'm conjecturing

How to make Henry understand; but no--

I'll leave, as Spenser says, with many mo,

This secret in the pregnant womb of time,

Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. _105

And here like some weird Archimage sit I,

Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery,

The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind

Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind

The gentle spirit of our meek reviews _110

Into a powdery foam of salt abuse,

Ruffling the ocean of their self-content;--

I sit--and smile or sigh as is my bent,

But not for them--Libeccio rushes round

With an inconstant and an idle sound, _115

I heed him more than them--the thunder-smoke

Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak

Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare;

The ripe corn under the undulating air

Undulates like an ocean;--and the vines _120

Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines--

The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill

The empty pauses of the blast;--the hill

Looks hoary through the white electric rain,

And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, _125

The interrupted thunder howls; above

One chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love

On the unquiet world;--while such things are,

How could one worth your friendship heed the war

Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, _130

Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise?

You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees,

In vacant chairs, your absent images,

And points where once you sat, and now should be

But are not.--I demand if ever we _135

Shall meet as then we met;--and she replies.

Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes;

'I know the past alone--but summon home

My sister Hope,--she speaks of all to come.'

But I, an old diviner, who knew well _140

Every false verse of that sweet oracle,

Turned to the sad enchantress once again,

And sought a respite from my gentle pain,

In citing every passage o'er and o'er

Of our communion--how on the sea-shore _145

We watched the ocean and the sky together,

Under the roof of blue Italian weather;

How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm,

And felt the transverse lightning linger warm

Upon my cheek--and how we often made _150

Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed

The frugal luxury of our country cheer,

As well it might, were it less firm and clear

Than ours must ever be;--and how we spun

A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun _155

Of this familiar life, which seems to be

But is not:--or is but quaint mockery

Of all we would believe, and sadly blame

The jarring and inexplicable frame

Of this wrong world:--and then anatomize _160

The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes

Were closed in distant years;--or widely guess

The issue of the earth's great business,

When we shall be as we no longer are--

Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war _165

Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not;--or how

You listened to some interrupted flow

Of visionary rhyme,--in joy and pain

Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain,

With little skill perhaps;--or how we sought _170

Those deepest wells of passion or of thought

Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years,

Staining their sacred waters with our tears;

Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed!

Or how I, wisest lady! then endued _175

The language of a land which now is free,

And, winged with thoughts of truth and majesty,

Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud,

And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud,

'My name is Legion!'--that majestic tongue _180

Which Calderon over the desert flung

Of ages and of nations; and which found

An echo in our hearts, and with the sound

Startled oblivion;--thou wert then to me

As is a nurse--when inarticulately _185

A child would talk as its grown parents do.

If living winds the rapid clouds pursue,

If hawks chase doves through the aethereal way,

Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey,

Why should not we rouse with the spirit's blast _190

Out of the forest of the pathless past

These recollected pleasures?

You are now

In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow

At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore

Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. _195

Yet in its depth what treasures! You will see

That which was Godwin,--greater none than he

Though fallen--and fallen on evil times--to stand

Among the spirits of our age and land,

Before the dread tribunal of "to come" _200

The foremost,--while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb.

You will see Coleridge--he who sits obscure

In the exceeding lustre and the pure

Intense irradiation of a mind,

Which, with its own internal lightning blind, _200

Flags wearily through darkness and despair--

A cloud-encircled meteor of the air,

A hooded eagle among blinking owls.--

You will see Hunt--one of those happy souls

Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom _210

This world would smell like what it is--a tomb;

Who is, what others seem; his room no doubt

Is still adorned with many a cast from Shout,

With graceful flowers tastefully placed about;

And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, _215

And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung;

The gifts of the most learned among some dozens

Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins.

And there is he with his eternal puns,

Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns _220

Thundering for money at a poet's door;

Alas! it is no use to say, 'I'm poor!'

Or oft in graver mood, when he will look

Things wiser than were ever read in book,

Except in Shakespeare's wisest tenderness.-- _225

You will see Hogg,--and I cannot express

His virtues,--though I know that they are great,

Because he locks, then barricades the gate

Within which they inhabit;--of his wit

And wisdom, you'll cry out when you are bit. _230

He is a pearl within an oyster shell.

One of the richest of the deep;--and there

Is English Peacock, with his mountain Fair,

Turned into a Flamingo;--that shy bird

That gleams i' the Indian air--have you not heard _235

When a man marries, dies, or turns Hindoo,

His best friends hear no more of him?--but you

Will see him, and will like him too, I hope,

With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope

Matched with this cameleopard--his fine wit _240

Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it;

A strain too learned for a shallow age,

Too wise for selfish bigots; let his page,

Which charms the chosen spirits of the time,

Fold itself up for the serener clime _245

Of years to come, and find its recompense

In that just expectation.--Wit and sense,

Virtue and human knowledge; all that might

Make this dull world a business of delight,

Are all combined in Horace Smith.--And these. _250

With some exceptions, which I need not tease

Your patience by descanting on,--are all

You and I know in London.

I recall

My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night.

As water does a sponge, so the moonlight _255

Fills the void, hollow, universal air--

What see you?--unpavilioned Heaven is fair,

Whether the moon, into her chamber gone,

Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan

Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; _260

Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep,

Piloted by the many-wandering blast,

And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast:--

All this is beautiful in every land.--

But what see you beside?--a shabby stand _265

Of Hackney coaches--a brick house or wall

Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl

Of our unhappy politics;--or worse--

A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse

Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, _270

You must accept in place of serenade--

Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring

To Henry, some unutterable thing.

I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit

Built round dark caverns, even to the root _275

Of the living stems that feed them--in whose bowers

There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers;

Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn

Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne

In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance, _280

Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance,

Pale in the open moonshine, but each one

Under the dark trees seems a little sun,

A meteor tamed; a fixed star gone astray

From the silver regions of the milky way;-- _285

Afar the Contadino's song is heard,

Rude, but made sweet by distance--and a bird

Which cannot be the Nightingale, and yet

I know none else that sings so sweet as it

At this late hour;--and then all is still-- _290

Now--Italy or London, which you will!

Next winter you must pass with me; I'll have

My house by that time turned into a grave

Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care,

And all the dreams which our tormentors are; _295

Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,

With everything belonging to them fair!--

We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;

And ask one week to make another week

As like his father, as I'm unlike mine, _300

Which is not his fault, as you may divine.

Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,

Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;

Custards for supper, and an endless host

Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies, _305

And other such lady-like luxuries,--

Feasting on which we will philosophize!

And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,

To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.

And then we'll talk;--what shall we talk about? _310

Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout

Of thought-entangled descant;--as to nerves--

With cones and parallelograms and curves

I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare

To bother me--when you are with me there. _315

And they shall never more sip laudanum,

From Helicon or Himeros (1);--well, come,

And in despite of God and of the devil,

We'll make our friendly philosophic revel

Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers _320

Warn the obscure inevitable hours,

Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;--

'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'

NOTES:

_13 must Bos. manuscript; most edition 1824.

_27 philanthropic Bos. manuscript; philosophic edition 1824.

_29 so 1839, 2nd edition; They owed... edition 1824.

_36 Which fishers Bos. manuscript; Which fishes edition 1824;

With fishes editions 1839.

_38 rarely transcript; seldom editions 1824, 1839.

_61 lava--cry]lava-cry editions 1824, 1839.

_63 towers transcript; towns editions 1824, 1839.

_84 queer Bos. manuscript; green transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_92 odd hooks transcript; old books editions 1839 (an evident misprint);

old hooks edition 1824.

_93 A]An edition 1824.

_100 those transcript; them editions 1824, 1839.

_101 lead Bos. manuscript; least transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_127 eye Bos. manuscript, transcript, editions 1839; age edition 1824.

_140 knew Bos. manuscript; know transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_144 citing Bos. manuscript; acting transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_151 Feasts transcript; Treats editions 1824, 1839.

_153 As well it]As it well editions 1824, 1839.

_158 believe, and]believe; or editions 1824, 1839.

_173 their transcript; the editions 1824, 1839.

_188 aethereal transcript; aereal editions 1824, 1839.

_197-201 See notes Volume 3.

_202 Coleridge]C-- edition 1824. So too H--t l. 209; H-- l. 226;

P-- l. 233; H.S. l. 250; H-- -- and -- l. 296.

_205 lightning Bos. manuscript, transcript; lustre editions 1824, 1839.

_224 read Bos. manuscript; said transcript, editions 1824, 1839.

_244 time Bos. manuscript, transcript; age editions 1824, 1839.

_245 the transcript: a editions 1824, 1839.

_272, _273 found in the 2nd edition of P. W., 1839;

wanting in transcript, edition 1824 and 1839, 1st. edition.

_276 that transcript; who editions 1824, 1839.

_288 the transcript; a editions 1824, 1839.

_296 See notes Volume 3.

_299, _300 So 1839, 2nd edition; wanting in editions 1824, 1839, 1st.

_301 So transcript; wanting in editions 1824, 1839.

_317 well, come 1839, 2nd edition; we'll come editions 1824, 1839. 1st.

_318 despite of God] transcript; despite of... edition 1824;

spite of... editions 1839.

(_317 Imeros, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some

slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.]

***

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

[Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820;

published in Posthumous Poems, edition Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The

dedication To Mas-y first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st

edition Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1824; (2)

editions 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow edition

1824); (3) an early and incomplete manuscript in Shelley's handwriting

(now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully

collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, who printed the results in his

Examination of the Shelley manuscripts, etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press,

1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Shelley, the

variations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. The original

text is modified in many places by variants from the manuscripts, but

the readings of edition 1824 are, in every instance, given in the

footnotes.]

TO MARY

(ON HER OBJECTING TO THE FOLLOWING POEM, UPON THE

SCORE OF ITS CONTAINING NO HUMAN INTEREST).

1.

How, my dear Mary,--are you critic-bitten

(For vipers kill, though dead) by some review,

That you condemn these verses I have written,

Because they tell no story, false or true?

What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, _5

May it not leap and play as grown cats do,

Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time,

Content thee with a visionary rhyme.

2.

What hand would crush the silken-winged fly,

The youngest of inconstant April's minions, _10

Because it cannot climb the purest sky,

Where the swan sings, amid the sun's dominions?

Not thine. Thou knowest 'tis its doom to die,

When Day shall hide within her twilight pinions

The lucent eyes, and the eternal smile, _15

Serene as thine, which lent it life awhile.

3.

To thy fair feet a winged Vision came,

Whose date should have been longer than a day,

And o'er thy head did beat its wings for fame,

And in thy sight its fading plumes display; _20

The watery bow burned in the evening flame.

But the shower fell, the swift Sun went his way--

And that is dead.--O, let me not believe

That anything of mine is fit to live!

4.

Wordsworth informs us he was nineteen years _25

Considering and retouching Peter Bell;

Watering his laurels with the killing tears

Of slow, dull care, so that their roots to Hell

Might pierce, and their wide branches blot the spheres

Of Heaven, with dewy leaves and flowers; this well _30

May be, for Heaven and Earth conspire to foil

The over-busy gardener's blundering toil.

5.

My Witch indeed is not so sweet a creature

As Ruth or Lucy, whom his graceful praise

Clothes for our grandsons--but she matches Peter, _35

Though he took nineteen years, and she three days

In dressing. Light the vest of flowing metre

She wears; he, proud as dandy with his stays,

Has hung upon his wiry limbs a dress

Like King Lear's 'looped and windowed raggedness.' _40

6.

If you strip Peter, you will see a fellow

Scorched by Hell's hyperequatorial climate

Into a kind of a sulphureous yellow:

A lean mark, hardly fit to fling a rhyme at;

In shape a Scaramouch, in hue Othello. _45

If you unveil my Witch, no priest nor primate

Can shrive you of that sin,--if sin there be

In love, when it becomes idolatry.

THE WITCH OF ATLAS.

1.

Before those cruel Twins, whom at one birth

Incestuous Change bore to her father Time, _50

Error and Truth, had hunted from the Earth

All those bright natures which adorned its prime,

And left us nothing to believe in, worth

The pains of putting into learned rhyme,

A lady-witch there lived on Atlas' mountain _55

Within a cavern, by a secret fountain.

2.

Her mother was one of the Atlantides:

The all-beholding Sun had ne'er beholden

In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas

So fair a creature, as she lay enfolden _60

In the warm shadow of her loveliness;--

He kissed her with his beams, and made all golden

The chamber of gray rock in which she lay--

She, in that dream of joy, dissolved away.

3.

'Tis said, she first was changed into a vapour, _65

And then into a cloud, such clouds as flit,

Like splendour-winged moths about a taper,

Round the red west when the sun dies in it:

And then into a meteor, such as caper

On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit: _70

Then, into one of those mysterious stars

Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars.

4.

Ten times the Mother of the Months had bent

Her bow beside the folding-star, and bidden

With that bright sign the billows to indent _75

The sea-deserted sand--like children chidden,

At her command they ever came and went--

Since in that cave a dewy splendour hidden

Took shape and motion: with the living form

Of this embodied Power, the cave grew warm. _80

5.

A lovely lady garmented in light

From her own beauty--deep her eyes, as are

Two openings of unfathomable night

Seen through a Temple's cloven roof--her hair

Dark--the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight. _85

Picturing her form; her soft smiles shone afar,

And her low voice was heard like love, and drew

All living things towards this wonder new.

6.

And first the spotted cameleopard came,

And then the wise and fearless elephant; _90

Then the sly serpent, in the golden flame

Of his own volumes intervolved;--all gaunt

And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame.

They drank before her at her sacred fount;

And every beast of beating heart grew bold, _95

Such gentleness and power even to behold.

7.

The brinded lioness led forth her young,

That she might teach them how they should forego

Their inborn thirst of death; the pard unstrung

His sinews at her feet, and sought to know _100

With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue

How he might be as gentle as the doe.

The magic circle of her voice and eyes

All savage natures did imparadise.

8.

And old Silenus, shaking a green stick _105

Of lilies, and the wood-gods in a crew

Came, blithe, as in the olive copses thick

Cicadae are, drunk with the noonday dew:

And Dryope and Faunus followed quick,

Teasing the God to sing them something new; _110

Till in this cave they found the lady lone,

Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone.

9.

And universal Pan, 'tis said, was there,

And though none saw him,--through the adamant

Of the deep mountains, through the trackless air, _115

And through those living spirits, like a want,

He passed out of his everlasting lair

Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant,

And felt that wondrous lady all alone,--

And she felt him, upon her emerald throne. _120

10.

And every nymph of stream and spreading tree,

And every shepherdess of Ocean's flocks,

Who drives her white waves over the green sea,

And Ocean with the brine on his gray locks,

And quaint Priapus with his company, _125

All came, much wondering how the enwombed rocks

Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth;--

Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth.

11.

The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came,

And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant-- _130

Their spirits shook within them, as a flame

Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt:

Pigmies, and Polyphemes, by many a name,

Centaurs, and Satyrs, and such shapes as haunt

Wet clefts,--and lumps neither alive nor dead, _135

Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.

12.

For she was beautiful--her beauty made

The bright world dim, and everything beside

Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade:

No thought of living spirit could abide, _140

Which to her looks had ever been betrayed,

On any object in the world so wide,

On any hope within the circling skies,

But on her form, and in her inmost eyes.

13.

Which when the lady knew, she took her spindle _145

And twined three threads of fleecy mist, and three

Long lines of light, such as the dawn may kindle

The clouds and waves and mountains with; and she

As many star-beams, ere their lamps could dwindle

In the belated moon, wound skilfully; _150

And with these threads a subtle veil she wove--

A shadow for the splendour of her love.

14.

The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling

Were stored with magic treasures--sounds of air,

Which had the power all spirits of compelling, _155

Folded in cells of crystal silence there;

Such as we hear in youth, and think the feeling

Will never die--yet ere we are aware,

The feeling and the sound are fled and gone,

And the regret they leave remains alone. _160

15.

And there lay Visions swift, and sweet, and quaint,

Each in its thin sheath, like a chrysalis,

Some eager to burst forth, some weak and faint

With the soft burthen of intensest bliss.

It was its work to bear to many a saint _165

Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is,

Even Love's:--and others white, green, gray, and black,

And of all shapes--and each was at her beck.

16.

And odours in a kind of aviary

Of ever-blooming Eden-trees she kept, _170

Clipped in a floating net, a love-sick Fairy

Had woven from dew-beams while the moon yet slept;

As bats at the wired window of a dairy,

They beat their vans; and each was an adept,

When loosed and missioned, making wings of winds, _175

To stir sweet thoughts or sad, in destined minds.

17.

And liquors clear and sweet, whose healthful might

Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep,

And change eternal death into a night

Of glorious dreams--or if eyes needs must weep, _180

Could make their tears all wonder and delight,

She in her crystal vials did closely keep:

If men could drink of those clear vials, 'tis said

The living were not envied of the dead.

18.

Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device, _185

The works of some Saturnian Archimage,

Which taught the expiations at whose price

Men from the Gods might win that happy age

Too lightly lost, redeeming native vice;

And which might quench the Earth-consuming rage _190

Of gold and blood--till men should live and move

Harmonious as the sacred stars above;

19.

And how all things that seem untameable,

Not to be checked and not to be confined,

Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill; _195

Time, earth, and fire--the ocean and the wind,

And all their shapes--and man's imperial will;

And other scrolls whose writings did unbind

The inmost lore of Love--let the profane

Tremble to ask what secrets they contain. _200

20.

And wondrous works of substances unknown,

To which the enchantment of her father's power

Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone,

Were heaped in the recesses of her bower;

Carved lamps and chalices, and vials which shone _205

In their own golden beams--each like a flower,

Out of whose depth a fire-fly shakes his light

Under a cypress in a starless night.

21.

At first she lived alone in this wild home,

And her own thoughts were each a minister, _210

Clothing themselves, or with the ocean foam,

Or with the wind, or with the speed of fire,

To work whatever purposes might come

Into her mind; such power her mighty Sire

Had girt them with, whether to fly or run, _215

Through all the regions which he shines upon.

22.

The Ocean-nymphs and Hamadryades,

Oreads and Naiads, with long weedy locks,

Offered to do her bidding through the seas,

Under the earth, and in the hollow rocks, _220

And far beneath the matted roots of trees,

And in the gnarled heart of stubborn oaks,

So they might live for ever in the light

Of her sweet presence--each a satellite.

23.

'This may not be,' the wizard maid replied; _225

'The fountains where the Naiades bedew

Their shining hair, at length are drained and dried;

The solid oaks forget their strength, and strew

Their latest leaf upon the mountains wide;

The boundless ocean like a drop of dew _230

Will be consumed--the stubborn centre must

Be scattered, like a cloud of summer dust.

24.

'And ye with them will perish, one by one;--

If I must sigh to think that this shall be,

If I must weep when the surviving Sun _235

Shall smile on your decay--oh, ask not me

To love you till your little race is run;

I cannot die as ye must--over me

Your leaves shall glance--the streams in which ye dwell

Shall be my paths henceforth, and so--farewell!'-- _240

25.

She spoke and wept:--the dark and azure well

Sparkled beneath the shower of her bright tears,

And every little circlet where they fell

Flung to the cavern-roof inconstant spheres

And intertangled lines of light:--a knell _245

Of sobbing voices came upon her ears

From those departing Forms, o'er the serene

Of the white streams and of the forest green.

26.

All day the wizard lady sate aloof,

Spelling out scrolls of dread antiquity, _250

Under the cavern's fountain-lighted roof;

Or broidering the pictured poesy

Of some high tale upon her growing woof,

Which the sweet splendour of her smiles could dye

In hues outshining heaven--and ever she _255

Added some grace to the wrought poesy.

27.

While on her hearth lay blazing many a piece

Of sandal wood, rare gums, and cinnamon;

Men scarcely know how beautiful fire is--

Each flame of it is as a precious stone _260

Dissolved in ever-moving light, and this

Belongs to each and all who gaze upon.

The Witch beheld it not, for in her hand

She held a woof that dimmed the burning brand.

28.

This lady never slept, but lay in trance _265

All night within the fountain--as in sleep.

Its emerald crags glowed in her beauty's glance;

Through the green splendour of the water deep

She saw the constellations reel and dance

Like fire-flies--and withal did ever keep _270

The tenour of her contemplations calm,

With open eyes, closed feet, and folded palm.

29.

And when the whirlwinds and the clouds descended

From the white pinnacles of that cold hill,

She passed at dewfall to a space extended, _275

Where in a lawn of flowering asphodel

Amid a wood of pines and cedars blended,

There yawned an inextinguishable well

Of crimson fire--full even to the brim,

And overflowing all the margin trim. _280

30.

Within the which she lay when the fierce war

Of wintry winds shook that innocuous liquor

In many a mimic moon and bearded star

O'er woods and lawns;--the serpent heard it flicker

In sleep, and dreaming still, he crept afar-- _285

And when the windless snow descended thicker

Than autumn leaves, she watched it as it came

Melt on the surface of the level flame.

31.

She had a boat, which some say Vulcan wrought

For Venus, as the chariot of her star; _290

But it was found too feeble to be fraught

With all the ardours in that sphere which are,

And so she sold it, and Apollo bought

And gave it to this daughter: from a car

Changed to the fairest and the lightest boat _295

Which ever upon mortal stream did float.

32.

And others say, that, when but three hours old,

The first-born Love out of his cradle lept,

And clove dun Chaos with his wings of gold,

And like a horticultural adept, _300

Stole a strange seed, and wrapped it up in mould,

And sowed it in his mother's star, and kept

Watering it all the summer with sweet dew,

And with his wings fanning it as it grew.

33.

The plant grew strong and green, the snowy flower _305

Fell, and the long and gourd-like fruit began

To turn the light and dew by inward power

To its own substance; woven tracery ran

Of light firm texture, ribbed and branching, o'er

The solid rind, like a leaf's veined fan-- _310

Of which Love scooped this boat--and with soft motion

Piloted it round the circumfluous ocean.

34.

This boat she moored upon her fount, and lit

A living spirit within all its frame,

Breathing the soul of swiftness into it. _315

Couched on the fountain like a panther tame,

One of the twain at Evan's feet that sit--

Or as on Vesta's sceptre a swift flame--

Or on blind Homer's heart a winged thought,--

In joyous expectation lay the boat. _320

35.

Then by strange art she kneaded fire and snow

Together, tempering the repugnant mass

With liquid love--all things together grow

Through which the harmony of love can pass;

And a fair Shape out of her hands did flow-- _325

A living Image, which did far surpass

In beauty that bright shape of vital stone

Which drew the heart out of Pygmalion.

36.

A sexless thing it was, and in its growth

It seemed to have developed no defect _330

Of either sex, yet all the grace of both,--

In gentleness and strength its limbs were decked;

The bosom swelled lightly with its full youth,

The countenance was such as might select

Some artist that his skill should never die, _335

Imaging forth such perfect purity.

37.

From its smooth shoulders hung two rapid wings,

Fit to have borne it to the seventh sphere,

Tipped with the speed of liquid lightenings,

Dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere: _340

She led her creature to the boiling springs

Where the light boat was moored, and said: 'Sit here!'

And pointed to the prow, and took her seat

Beside the rudder, with opposing feet.

38.

And down the streams which clove those mountains vast, _345

Around their inland islets, and amid

The panther-peopled forests whose shade cast

Darkness and odours, and a pleasure hid

In melancholy gloom, the pinnace passed;

By many a star-surrounded pyramid _350

Of icy crag cleaving the purple sky,

And caverns yawning round unfathomably.

39.

The silver noon into that winding dell,

With slanted gleam athwart the forest tops,

Tempered like golden evening, feebly fell; _355

A green and glowing light, like that which drops

From folded lilies in which glow-worms dwell,

When Earth over her face Night's mantle wraps;

Between the severed mountains lay on high,

Over the stream, a narrow rift of sky. _360

40.

And ever as she went, the Image lay

With folded wings and unawakened eyes;

And o'er its gentle countenance did play

The busy dreams, as thick as summer flies,

Chasing the rapid smiles that would not stay, _365

And drinking the warm tears, and the sweet sighs

Inhaling, which, with busy murmur vain,

They had aroused from that full heart and brain.

41.

And ever down the prone vale, like a cloud

Upon a stream of wind, the pinnace went: _370

Now lingering on the pools, in which abode

The calm and darkness of the deep content

In which they paused; now o'er the shallow road

Of white and dancing waters, all besprent

With sand and polished pebbles:--mortal boat _375

In such a shallow rapid could not float.

42.

And down the earthquaking cataracts which shiver

Their snow-like waters into golden air,

Or under chasms unfathomable ever

Sepulchre them, till in their rage they tear _380

A subterranean portal for the river,

It fled--the circling sunbows did upbear

Its fall down the hoar precipice of spray,

Lighting it far upon its lampless way.

43.

And when the wizard lady would ascend _385

The labyrinths of some many-winding vale,

Which to the inmost mountain upward tend--

She called 'Hermaphroditus!'--and the pale

And heavy hue which slumber could extend

Over its lips and eyes, as on the gale _390

A rapid shadow from a slope of grass,

Into the darkness of the stream did pass.

44.

And it unfurled its heaven-coloured pinions,

With stars of fire spotting the stream below;

And from above into the Sun's dominions _395

Flinging a glory, like the golden glow

In which Spring clothes her emerald-winged minions,

All interwoven with fine feathery snow

And moonlight splendour of intensest rime,

With which frost paints the pines in winter time. _400

45.

And then it winnowed the Elysian air

Which ever hung about that lady bright,

With its aethereal vans--and speeding there,

Like a star up the torrent of the night,

Or a swift eagle in the morning glare _405

Breasting the whirlwind with impetuous flight,

The pinnace, oared by those enchanted wings,

Clove the fierce streams towards their upper springs.

46.

The water flashed, like sunlight by the prow

Of a noon-wandering meteor flung to Heaven; _410

The still air seemed as if its waves did flow

In tempest down the mountains; loosely driven

The lady's radiant hair streamed to and fro:

Beneath, the billows having vainly striven

Indignant and impetuous, roared to feel _415

The swift and steady motion of the keel.

47.

Or, when the weary moon was in the wane,

Or in the noon of interlunar night,

The lady-witch in visions could not chain

Her spirit; but sailed forth under the light _420

Of shooting stars, and bade extend amain

Its storm-outspeeding wings, the Hermaphrodite;

She to the Austral waters took her way,

Beyond the fabulous Thamondocana,--

48.

Where, like a meadow which no scythe has shaven, _425

Which rain could never bend, or whirl-blast shake,

With the Antarctic constellations paven,

Canopus and his crew, lay the Austral lake--

There she would build herself a windless haven

Out of the clouds whose moving turrets make _430

The bastions of the storm, when through the sky

The spirits of the tempest thundered by:

49.

A haven beneath whose translucent floor

The tremulous stars sparkled unfathomably,

And around which the solid vapours hoar, _435

Based on the level waters, to the sky

Lifted their dreadful crags, and like a shore

Of wintry mountains, inaccessibly

Hemmed in with rifts and precipices gray,

And hanging crags, many a cove and bay. _440

50.

And whilst the outer lake beneath the lash

Of the wind's scourge, foamed like a wounded thing,

And the incessant hail with stony clash

Ploughed up the waters, and the flagging wing

Of the roused cormorant in the lightning flash _445

Looked like the wreck of some wind-wandering

Fragment of inky thunder-smoke--this haven

Was as a gem to copy Heaven engraven,--

51.

On which that lady played her many pranks,

Circling the image of a shooting star, _450

Even as a tiger on Hydaspes' banks

Outspeeds the antelopes which speediest are,

In her light boat; and many quips and cranks

She played upon the water, till the car

Of the late moon, like a sick matron wan, _455

To journey from the misty east began.

52.

And then she called out of the hollow turrets

Of those high clouds, white, golden and vermilion,

The armies of her ministering spirits--

In mighty legions, million after million, _460

They came, each troop emblazoning its merits

On meteor flags; and many a proud pavilion

Of the intertexture of the atmosphere

They pitched upon the plain of the calm mere.

53.

They framed the imperial tent of their great Queen _465

Of woven exhalations, underlaid

With lambent lightning-fire, as may be seen

A dome of thin and open ivory inlaid

With crimson silk--cressets from the serene

Hung there, and on the water for her tread _470

A tapestry of fleece-like mist was strewn,

Dyed in the beams of the ascending moon.

54.

And on a throne o'erlaid with starlight, caught

Upon those wandering isles of aery dew,

Which highest shoals of mountain shipwreck not, _475

She sate, and heard all that had happened new

Between the earth and moon, since they had brought

The last intelligence--and now she grew

Pale as that moon, lost in the watery night--

And now she wept, and now she laughed outright. _480

55.

These were tame pleasures; she would often climb

The steepest ladder of the crudded rack

Up to some beaked cape of cloud sublime,

And like Arion on the dolphin's back

Ride singing through the shoreless air;--oft-time _485

Following the serpent lightning's winding track,

She ran upon the platforms of the wind,

And laughed to bear the fire-balls roar behind.

56.

And sometimes to those streams of upper air

Which whirl the earth in its diurnal round, _490

She would ascend, and win the spirits there

To let her join their chorus. Mortals found

That on those days the sky was calm and fair,

And mystic snatches of harmonious sound

Wandered upon the earth where'er she passed, _495

And happy thoughts of hope, too sweet to last.

57.

But her choice sport was, in the hours of sleep,

To glide adown old Nilus, where he threads

Egypt and Aethiopia, from the steep

Of utmost Axume, until he spreads, _500

Like a calm flock of silver-fleeced sheep,

His waters on the plain: and crested heads

Of cities and proud temples gleam amid,

And many a vapour-belted pyramid.

58.

By Moeris and the Mareotid lakes, _505

Strewn with faint blooms like bridal chamber floors,

Where naked boys bridling tame water-snakes,

Or charioteering ghastly alligators,

Had left on the sweet waters mighty wakes

Of those huge forms--within the brazen doors _510

Of the great Labyrinth slept both boy and beast,

Tired with the pomp of their Osirian feast.

59.

And where within the surface of the river

The shadows of the massy temples lie,

And never are erased--but tremble ever _515

Like things which every cloud can doom to die,

Through lotus-paven canals, and wheresoever

The works of man pierced that serenest sky

With tombs, and towers, and fanes, 'twas her delight

To wander in the shadow of the night. _520

60.

With motion like the spirit of that wind

Whose soft step deepens slumber, her light feet

Passed through the peopled haunts of humankind.

Scattering sweet visions from her presence sweet,

Through fane, and palace-court, and labyrinth mined _525

With many a dark and subterranean street

Under the Nile, through chambers high and deep

She passed, observing mortals in their sleep.

61.

A pleasure sweet doubtless it was to see

Mortals subdued in all the shapes of sleep. _530

Here lay two sister twins in infancy;

There, a lone youth who in his dreams did weep;

Within, two lovers linked innocently

In their loose locks which over both did creep

Like ivy from one stem;--and there lay calm _535

Old age with snow-bright hair and folded palm.

62.

But other troubled forms of sleep she saw,

Not to be mirrored in a holy song--

Distortions foul of supernatural awe,

And pale imaginings of visioned wrong; _540

And all the code of Custom's lawless law

Written upon the brows of old and young:

'This,' said the wizard maiden, 'is the strife

Which stirs the liquid surface of man's life.'

63.

And little did the sight disturb her soul.-- _545

We, the weak mariners of that wide lake

Where'er its shores extend or billows roll,

Our course unpiloted and starless make

O'er its wild surface to an unknown goal:--

But she in the calm depths her way could take, _550

Where in bright bowers immortal forms abide

Beneath the weltering of the restless tide.

64.

And she saw princes couched under the glow

Of sunlike gems; and round each temple-court

In dormitories ranged, row after row, _555

She saw the priests asleep--all of one sort--

For all were educated to be so.--

The peasants in their huts, and in the port

The sailors she saw cradled on the waves,

And the dead lulled within their dreamless graves. _560

65.

And all the forms in which those spirits lay

Were to her sight like the diaphanous

Veils, in which those sweet ladies oft array

Their delicate limbs, who would conceal from us

Only their scorn of all concealment: they _565

Move in the light of their own beauty thus.

But these and all now lay with sleep upon them,

And little thought a Witch was looking on them.

66.

She, all those human figures breathing there,

Beheld as living spirits--to her eyes _570

The naked beauty of the soul lay bare,

And often through a rude and worn disguise

She saw the inner form most bright and fair--

And then she had a charm of strange device,

Which, murmured on mute lips with tender tone, _575

Could make that spirit mingle with her own.

67.

Alas! Aurora, what wouldst thou have given

For such a charm when Tithon became gray?

Or how much, Venus, of thy silver heaven

Wouldst thou have yielded, ere Proserpina _580

Had half (oh! why not all?) the debt forgiven

Which dear Adonis had been doomed to pay,

To any witch who would have taught you it?

The Heliad doth not know its value yet.

68.

'Tis said in after times her spirit free _585

Knew what love was, and felt itself alone--

But holy Dian could not chaster be

Before she stooped to kiss Endymion,

Than now this lady--like a sexless bee

Tasting all blossoms, and confined to none, _590

Among those mortal forms, the wizard-maiden

Passed with an eye serene and heart unladen.

69.

To those she saw most beautiful, she gave

Strange panacea in a crystal bowl:--

They drank in their deep sleep of that sweet wave, _595

And lived thenceforward as if some control,

Mightier than life, were in them; and the grave

Of such, when death oppressed the weary soul,

Was as a green and overarching bower

Lit by the gems of many a starry flower. _600

70.

For on the night when they were buried, she

Restored the embalmers' ruining, and shook

The light out of the funeral lamps, to be

A mimic day within that deathy nook;

And she unwound the woven imagery _605

Of second childhood's swaddling bands, and took

The coffin, its last cradle, from its niche,

And threw it with contempt into a ditch.

71.

And there the body lay, age after age.

Mute, breathing, beating, warm, and undecaying, _610

Like one asleep in a green hermitage,

With gentle smiles about its eyelids playing,

And living in its dreams beyond the rage

Of death or life; while they were still arraying

In liveries ever new, the rapid, blind _615

And fleeting generations of mankind.

72.

And she would write strange dreams upon the brain

Of those who were less beautiful, and make

All harsh and crooked purposes more vain

Than in the desert is the serpent's wake _620

Which the sand covers--all his evil gain

The miser in such dreams would rise and shake

Into a beggar's lap;--the lying scribe

Would his own lies betray without a bribe.

73.

The priests would write an explanation full, _625

Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,

How the God Apis really was a bull,

And nothing more; and bid the herald stick

The same against the temple doors, and pull

The old cant down; they licensed all to speak _630

Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese,

By pastoral letters to each diocese.

74.

The king would dress an ape up in his crown

And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat,

And on the right hand of the sunlike throne _635

Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat

The chatterings of the monkey.--Every one

Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet

Of their great Emperor, when the morning came,

And kissed--alas, how many kiss the same! _640

75.

The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and

Walked out of quarters in somnambulism;

Round the red anvils you might see them stand

Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm,

Beating their swords to ploughshares;--in a band _645

The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism

Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis,

To the annoyance of king Amasis.

76.

And timid lovers who had been so coy,

They hardly knew whether they loved or not, _650

Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy,

To the fulfilment of their inmost thought;

And when next day the maiden and the boy

Met one another, both, like sinners caught,

Blushed at the thing which each believed was done _655

Only in fancy--till the tenth moon shone;

77.

And then the Witch would let them take no ill:

Of many thousand schemes which lovers find,

The Witch found one,--and so they took their fill

Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. _660

Friends who, by practice of some envious skill,

Were torn apart--a wide wound, mind from mind!--

She did unite again with visions clear

Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

80.

These were the pranks she played among the cities _665

Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites

And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties

To do her will, and show their subtle sleights,

I will declare another time; for it is

A tale more fit for the weird winter nights _670

Than for these garish summer days, when we

Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

NOTES:

_2 dead]deaf cj. A.C. Bradley, who cps. "Adonais" 317.

_65 first was transcript, B.; was first edition 1824.

_84 Temple's transcript, B.; tempest's edition 1824.

_165 was its transcript, B.; is its edition 1824.

_184 envied so all manuscripts and editions;

envious cj. James Thomson ('B. V.').

_262 upon so all manuscripts and editions: thereon cj. Rossetti.

_333 swelled lightly edition 1824, B.;

lightly swelled editions 1839;

swelling lightly with its full growth transcript.

_339 lightenings B., editions 1839; lightnings edition 1824, transcript.

_422 Its transcript; His edition 1824, B.

_424 Thamondocana transcript, B.; Thamondocona edition 1824.

_442 wind's transcript, B.; winds' edition 1834.

_493 where transcript, B.; when edition 1824.

_596 thenceforward B.;

thence forth edition 1824; henceforward transcript.

_599 Was as a B.; Was a edition 1824.

_601 night when transcript; night that edition 1824, B.

_612 smiles transcript, B.; sleep edition 1824.

NOTE ON THE WITCH OF ATLAS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles

from Pisa. These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his

nervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood.

The country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered

picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The

peasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome

sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we

visited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of

August, Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte

San Pellegrino--a mountain of some height, on the top of which there

is a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many

pilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he

exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lassitude

and weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the

idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his

return, the "Witch of Atlas". This poem is peculiarly characteristic

of his tastes--wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and

discarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas

that his imagination suggested.

The surpassing excellence of "The Cenci" had made me greatly desire

that Shelley should increase his popularity by adopting subjects that

would more suit the popular taste than a poem conceived in the

abstract and dreamy spirit of the "Witch of Atlas". It was not only

that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his fame; but

I believed that he would obtain a greater mastery over his own powers,

and greater happiness in his mind, if public applause crowned his

endeavours. The few stanzas that precede the poem were addressed to me

on my representing these ideas to him. Even now I believe that I was

in the right. Shelley did not expect sympathy and approbation from the

public; but the want of it took away a portion of the ardour that

ought to have sustained him while writing. He was thrown on his own

resources, and on the inspiration of his own soul; and wrote because

his mind overflowed, without the hope of being appreciated. I had not

the most distant wish that he should truckle in opinion, or submit his

lofty aspirations for the human race to the low ambition and pride of

the many; but I felt sure that, if his poems were more addressed to

the common feelings of men, his proper rank among the writers of the

day would be acknowledged, and that popularity as a poet would enable

his countrymen to do justice to his character and virtues, which in

those days it was the mode to attack with the most flagitious

calumnies and insulting abuse. That he felt these things deeply cannot

be doubted, though he armed himself with the consciousness of acting

from a lofty and heroic sense of right. The truth burst from his heart

sometimes in solitude, and he would writes few unfinished verses that

showed that he felt the sting; among such I find the following:--

'Alas! this is not what I thought Life was.

I knew that there were crimes and evil men,

Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass

Untouched by suffering through the rugged glen.

In mine own heart I saw as in a glass

The hearts of others...And, when

I went among my kind, with triple brass

Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,

To bear scorn, fear, and hate--a woful mass!'

I believed that all this morbid feeling would vanish if the chord of

sympathy between him and his countrymen were touched. But my

persuasions were vain, the mind could not be bent from its natural

inclination. Shelley shrunk instinctively from portraying human

passion, with its mixture of good and evil, of disappointment and

disquiet. Such opened again the wounds of his own heart; and he loved

to shelter himself rather in the airiest flights of fancy, forgetting

love and hate, and regret and lost hope, in such imaginations as

borrowed their hues from sunrise or sunset, from the yellow moonshine

or paly twilight, from the aspect of the far ocean or the shadows of

the woods,--which celebrated the singing of the winds among the pines,

the flow of a murmuring stream, and the thousand harmonious sounds

which Nature creates in her solitudes. These are the materials which

form the "Witch of Atlas": it is a brilliant congregation of ideas

such as his senses gathered, and his fancy coloured, during his

rambles in the sunny land he so much loved.

***

OEDIPUS TYRANNUS

OR

SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT.

A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL DORIC.

'Choose Reform or Civil War,

When through thy streets, instead of hare with dogs,

A CONSORT-QUEEN shall hunt a king with hogs,

Riding on the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'

[Begun at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 24, 1819;

published anonymously by J. Johnston, Cheapside (imprint C.F.

Seyfang), 1820. On a threat of prosecution the publisher surrendered

the whole impression, seven copies--the total number sold--excepted.

"Oedipus" does not appear in the first edition of the "Poetical

Works", 1839, but it was included by Mrs. Shelley in the second

edition of that year. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1820,

save in three places, where the reading of edition 1820 will be found

in the notes.]

ADVERTISEMENT.

This Tragedy is one of a triad, or system of three Plays (an

arrangement according to which the Greeks were accustomed to connect

their dramatic representations), elucidating the wonderful and

appalling fortunes of the SWELLFOOT dynasty. It was evidently written

by some LEARNED THEBAN, and, from its characteristic dulness,

apparently before the duties on the importation of ATTIC SALT had been

repealed by the Boeotarchs. The tenderness with which he treats the

PIGS proves him to have been a sus Boeotiae; possibly Epicuri de grege

porcus; for, as the poet observes,

'A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'

No liberty has been taken with the translation of this remarkable

piece of antiquity, except the suppressing a seditious and blasphemous

Chorus of the Pigs and Bulls at the last Act. The work Hoydipouse (or

more properly Oedipus) has been rendered literally SWELLFOOT, without

its having been conceived necessary to determine whether a swelling of

the hind or the fore feet of the Swinish Monarch is particularly

indicated.

Should the remaining portions of this Tragedy be found, entitled,

"Swellfoot in Angaria", and "Charite", the Translator might be tempted

to give them to the reading Public.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

TYRANT SWELLFOOT, KING OF THEBES.

IONA TAURINA, HIS QUEEN.

MAMMON, ARCH-PRIEST OF FAMINE.

PURGANAX, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS--WIZARDS, MINISTERS OF SWELLFOOT.

THE GADFLY.

THE LEECH.

THE RAT.

MOSES, THE SOW-GELDER.

SOLOMON, THE PORKMAN.

ZEPHANIAH, PIG-BUTCHER.

THE MINOTAUR.

CHORUS OF THE SWINISH MULTITUDE.

GUARDS, ATTENDANTS, PRIESTS, ETC., ETC.

SCENE.--THEBES.

ACT 1.

SCENE 1.1.--A MAGNIFICENT TEMPLE, BUILT OF THIGH-BONES AND

DEATH'S-HEADS, AND TILED WITH SCALPS. OVER THE ALTAR THE STATUE OF

FAMINE, VEILED; A NUMBER OF BOARS, SOWS, AND SUCKING-PIGS, CROWNED

WITH THISTLE, SHAMROCK, AND OAK, SITTING ON THE STEPS, AND CLINGING

ROUND THE ALTAR OF THE TEMPLE.

ENTER SWELLFOOT, IN HIS ROYAL ROBES, WITHOUT PERCEIVING THE PIGS.

SWELLFOOT:

Thou supreme Goddess! by whose power divine

These graceful limbs are clothed in proud array

[HE CONTEMPLATES HIMSELF WITH SATISFACTION.]

Of gold and purple, and this kingly paunch

Swells like a sail before a favouring breeze,

And these most sacred nether promontories _5

Lie satisfied with layers of fat; and these

Boeotian cheeks, like Egypt's pyramid,

(Nor with less toil were their foundations laid),

Sustain the cone of my untroubled brain,

That point, the emblem of a pointless nothing! _10

Thou to whom Kings and laurelled Emperors,

Radical-butchers, Paper-money-millers,

Bishops and Deacons, and the entire army

Of those fat martyrs to the persecution

Of stifling turtle-soup, and brandy-devils, _15

Offer their secret vows! Thou plenteous Ceres

Of their Eleusis, hail!

NOTE:

(_8 See Universal History for an account of the number of people who

died, and the immense consumption of garlic by the wretched Egyptians,

who made a sepulchre for the name as well as the bodies of their

tyrants.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

SWINE:

Eigh! eigh! eigh! eigh!

SWELLFOOT:

Ha! what are ye,

Who, crowned with leaves devoted to the Furies,

Cling round this sacred shrine?

SWINE:

Aigh! aigh! aigh!

SWELLFOOT:

What! ye that are

The very beasts that, offered at her altar _20

With blood and groans, salt-cake, and fat, and inwards,

Ever propitiate her reluctant will

When taxes are withheld?

SWINE:

Ugh! ugh! ugh!

SWELLFOOT:

What! ye who grub

With filthy snouts my red potatoes up

In Allan's rushy bog? Who eat the oats _25

Up, from my cavalry in the Hebrides?

Who swill the hog-wash soup my cooks digest

From bones, and rags, and scraps of shoe-leather,

Which should be given to cleaner Pigs than you?

SWINE--SEMICHORUS 1:

The same, alas! the same; _30

Though only now the name

Of Pig remains to me.

SEMICHORUS 2:

If 'twere your kingly will

Us wretched Swine to kill,

What should we yield to thee? _35

SWELLFOOT:

Why, skin and bones, and some few hairs for mortar.

CHORUS OF SWINE:

I have heard your Laureate sing,

That pity was a royal thing;

Under your mighty ancestors, we Pigs

Were bless'd as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, _40

Or grasshoppers that live on noonday dew,

And sung, old annals tell, as sweetly too;

But now our sties are fallen in, we catch

The murrain and the mange, the scab and itch;

Sometimes your royal dogs tear down our thatch, _45

And then we seek the shelter of a ditch;

Hog-wash or grains, or ruta-baga, none

Has yet been ours since your reign begun.

FIRST SOW:

My Pigs, 'tis in vain to tug.

SECOND SOW:

I could almost eat my litter. _50

FIRST PIG:

I suck, but no milk will come from the dug.

SECOND PIG:

Our skin and our bones would be bitter.

THE BOARS:

We fight for this rag of greasy rug,

Though a trough of wash would be fitter.

SEMICHORUS:

Happier Swine were they than we, _55

Drowned in the Gadarean sea--

I wish that pity would drive out the devils,

Which in your royal bosom hold their revels,

And sink us in the waves of thy compassion!

Alas! the Pigs are an unhappy nation! _60

Now if your Majesty would have our bristles

To bind your mortar with, or fill our colons

With rich blood, or make brawn out of our gristles,

In policy--ask else your royal Solons--

You ought to give us hog-wash and clean straw, _65

And sties well thatched; besides it is the law!

NOTE:

_59 thy edition 1820; your edition 1839.

SWELLFOOT:

This is sedition, and rank blasphemy!

Ho! there, my guards!

[ENTER A GUARD.]

GUARD:

Your sacred Majesty.

SWELLFOOT:

Call in the Jews, Solomon the court porkman,

Moses the sow-gelder, and Zephaniah _70

The hog-butcher.

GUARD:

They are in waiting, Sire.

[ENTER SOLOMON, MOSES, AND ZEPHANIAH.]

SWELLFOOT:

Out with your knife, old Moses, and spay those Sows

[THE PIGS RUN ABOUT IN CONSTERNATION.]

That load the earth with Pigs; cut close and deep.

Moral restraint I see has no effect,

Nor prostitution, nor our own example, _75

Starvation, typhus-fever, war, nor prison--

This was the art which the arch-priest of Famine

Hinted at in his charge to the Theban clergy--

Cut close and deep, good Moses.

MOSES:

Let your Majesty

Keep the Boars quiet, else--

SWELLFOOT:

Zephaniah, cut _80

That fat Hog's throat, the brute seems overfed;

Seditious hunks! to whine for want of grains.

ZEPHANIAH:

Your sacred Majesty, he has the dropsy;--

We shall find pints of hydatids in 's liver,

He has not half an inch of wholesome fat _85

Upon his carious ribs--

SWELLFOOT:

'Tis all the same,

He'll serve instead of riot money, when

Our murmuring troops bivouac in Thebes' streets

And January winds, after a day

Of butchering, will make them relish carrion. _90

Now, Solomon, I'll sell you in a lump

The whole kit of them.

SOLOMON:

Why, your Majesty,

I could not give--

SWELLFOOT:

Kill them out of the way,

That shall be price enough, and let me hear

Their everlasting grunts and whines no more! _95

[EXEUNT, DRIVING IN THE SWINE.

ENTER MAMM0N, THE ARCH-PRIEST,

AND PURGANAX, CHIEF OF THE COUNCIL OF WIZARDS.]

PURGANAX:

The future looks as black as death, a cloud,

Dark as the frown of Hell, hangs over it--

The troops grow mutinous--the revenue fails--

There's something rotten in us--for the level _100

Of the State slopes, its very bases topple,

The boldest turn their backs upon themselves!

MAMMON:

Why what's the matter, my dear fellow, now?

Do the troops mutiny?--decimate some regiments;

Does money fail?--come to my mint--coin paper,

Till gold be at a discount, and ashamed _105

To show his bilious face, go purge himself,

In emulation of her vestal whiteness.

PURGANAX:

Oh, would that this were all! The oracle!!

MAMMON:

Why it was I who spoke that oracle,

And whether I was dead drunk or inspired, _110

I cannot well remember; nor, in truth,

The oracle itself!

PURGANAX:

The words went thus:--

'Boeotia, choose reform or civil war!

When through the streets, instead of hare with dogs,

A Consort Queen shall hunt a King with Hogs, _115

Riding on the Ionian Minotaur.'

MAMMON:

Now if the oracle had ne'er foretold

This sad alternative, it must arrive,

Or not, and so it must now that it has;

And whether I was urged by grace divine _120

Or Lesbian liquor to declare these words,

Which must, as all words must, he false or true,

It matters not: for the same Power made all,

Oracle, wine, and me and you--or none--

'Tis the same thing. If you knew as much _125

Of oracles as I do--

PURGANAX:

You arch-priests

Believe in nothing; if you were to dream

Of a particular number in the Lottery,

You would not buy the ticket?

MAMMON:

Yet our tickets

Are seldom blanks. But what steps have you taken? _130

For prophecies, when once they get abroad,

Like liars who tell the truth to serve their ends,

Or hypocrites who, from assuming virtue,

Do the same actions that the virtuous do,

Contrive their own fulfilment. This Iona-- _135

Well--you know what the chaste Pasiphae did,

Wife to that most religious King of Crete,

And still how popular the tale is here;

And these dull Swine of Thebes boast their descent

From the free Minotaur. You know they still _140

Call themselves Bulls, though thus degenerate,

And everything relating to a Bull

Is popular and respectable in Thebes.

Their arms are seven Bulls in a field gules;

They think their strength consists in eating beef,-- _145

Now there were danger in the precedent

If Queen Iona--

NOTES:

_114 the edition 1820; thy cj. Forman;

cf. Motto below Title, and II. i, 153-6. ticket? edition 1820;

ticket! edition 1839.

_135 their own Mrs. Shelley, later editions;

their editions 1820 and 1839.

PURGANAX:

I have taken good care

That shall not be. I struck the crust o' the earth

With this enchanted rod, and Hell lay bare!

And from a cavern full of ugly shapes _150

I chose a LEECH, a GADFLY, and a RAT.

The Gadfly was the same which Juno sent

To agitate Io, and which Ezekiel mentions

That the Lord whistled for out of the mountains

Of utmost Aethiopia, to torment _155

Mesopotamian Babylon. The beast

Has a loud trumpet like the scarabee,

His crooked tail is barbed with many stings,

Each able to make a thousand wounds, and each

Immedicable; from his convex eyes _160

He sees fair things in many hideous shapes,

And trumpets all his falsehood to the world.

Like other beetles he is fed on dung--

He has eleven feet with which he crawls,

Trailing a blistering slime, and this foul beast _165

Has tracked Iona from the Theban limits,

From isle to isle, from city unto city,

Urging her flight from the far Chersonese

To fabulous Solyma, and the Aetnean Isle,

Ortygia, Melite, and Calypso's Rock, _170

And the swart tribes of Garamant and Fez,

Aeolia and Elysium, and thy shores,

Parthenope, which now, alas! are free!

And through the fortunate Saturnian land,

Into the darkness of the West.

NOTES:

(_153 (Io) The Promethetes Bound of Aeschylus.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

(_153 (Ezekiel) And the Lord whistled for the gadfly out of Aethiopia,

and for the bee of Egypt, etc.--EZEKIEL.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

MAMMON:

But if _175

This Gadfly should drive Iona hither?

PURGANAX:

Gods! what an IF! but there is my gray RAT:

So thin with want, he can crawl in and out

Of any narrow chink and filthy hole,

And he shall creep into her dressing-room, _180

And--

MAMMON:

My dear friend, where are your wits? as if

She does not always toast a piece of cheese

And bait the trap? and rats, when lean enough

To crawl through SUCH chinks--

PURGANAX:

But my LEECH--a leech

Fit to suck blood, with lubricous round rings, _185

Capaciously expatiative, which make

His little body like a red balloon,

As full of blood as that of hydrogen,

Sucked from men's hearts; insatiably he sucks

And clings and pulls--a horse-leech, whose deep maw _190

The plethoric King Swellfoot could not fill,

And who, till full, will cling for ever.

MAMMON:

This

For Queen Jona would suffice, and less;

But 'tis the Swinish multitude I fear,

And in that fear I have--

PURGANAX:

Done what?

MAMMON:

Disinherited _195

My eldest son Chrysaor, because he

Attended public meetings, and would always

Stand prating there of commerce, public faith,

Economy, and unadulterate coin,

And other topics, ultra-radical; _200

And have entailed my estate, called the Fool's Paradise,

And funds in fairy-money, bonds, and bills,

Upon my accomplished daughter Banknotina,

And married her to the gallows. [1]

NOTE:

(_204 'If one should marry a gallows, and beget young gibbets, I never

saw one so prone.--CYMBELINE.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.]

PURGANAX:

A good match!

MAMMON:

A high connexion, Purganax. The bridegroom _205

Is of a very ancient family,

Of Hounslow Heath, Tyburn, and the New Drop,

And has great influence in both Houses;--oh!

He makes the fondest husband; nay, TOO fond,--

New-married people should not kiss in public; _210

But the poor souls love one another so!

And then my little grandchildren, the gibbets,

Promising children as you ever saw,--

The young playing at hanging, the elder learning

How to hold radicals. They are well taught too, _215

For every gibbet says its catechism

And reads a select chapter in the Bible

Before it goes to play.

[A MOST TREMENDOUS HUMMING IS HEARD.]

PURGANAX:

Ha! what do I hear?

[ENTER THE GADFLY.]

MAMMON:

Your Gadfly, as it seems, is tired of gadding.

GADFLY:

Hum! hum! hum! _220

From the lakes of the Alps, and the cold gray scalps

Of the mountains, I come!

Hum! hum! hum!

From Morocco and Fez, and the high palaces

Of golden Byzantium; _225

From the temples divine of old Palestine,

From Athens and Rome,

With a ha! and a hum!

I come! I come!

All inn-doors and windows _230

Were open to me:

I saw all that sin does,

Which lamps hardly see

That burn in the night by the curtained bed,--

The impudent lamps! for they blushed not red, _235

Dinging and singing,

From slumber I rung her,

Loud as the clank of an ironmonger;

Hum! hum! hum!

Far, far, far! _240

With the trump of my lips, and the sting at my hips,

I drove her--afar!

Far, far, far!

From city to city, abandoned of pity,

A ship without needle or star;-- _245

Homeless she passed, like a cloud on the blast,

Seeking peace, finding war;--

She is here in her car,

From afar, and afar;--

Hum! hum! _250

I have stung her and wrung her,

The venom is working;--

And if you had hung her

With canting and quirking,

She could not be deader than she will be soon;-- _255

I have driven her close to you, under the moon,

Night and day, hum! hum! ha!

I have hummed her and drummed her

From place to place, till at last I have dumbed her,

Hum! hum! hum! _260

NOTE:

_260 Edd. 1820, 1839 have no stage direction after this line.

[ENTER THE LEECH AND THE RAT.]

LEECH:

I will suck

Blood or muck!

The disease of the state is a plethory,

Who so fit to reduce it as I?

RAT:

I'll slily seize and _265

Let blood from her weasand,--

Creeping through crevice, and chink, and cranny,

With my snaky tail, and my sides so scranny.

PURGANAX:

Aroint ye! thou unprofitable worm!

[TO THE LEECH.]

And thou, dull beetle, get thee back to hell! _270

[TO THE GADFLY.]

To sting the ghosts of Babylonian kings,

And the ox-headed Io--

SWINE (WITHIN):

Ugh, ugh, ugh!

Hail! Iona the divine,

We will be no longer Swine,

But Bulls with horns and dewlaps.

RAT:

For, _275

You know, my lord, the Minotaur--

PURGANAX (FIERCELY):

Be silent! get to hell! or I will call

The cat out of the kitchen. Well, Lord Mammon,

This is a pretty business.

[EXIT THE RAT.]

MAMMON:

I will go

And spell some scheme to make it ugly then.-- _280

[EXIT.]

[ENTER SWELLFOOT.]

SWELLFOOT:

She is returned! Taurina is in Thebes,

When Swellfoot wishes that she were in hell!

Oh, Hymen, clothed in yellow jealousy,

And waving o'er the couch of wedded kings

The torch of Discord with its fiery hair; _285

This is thy work, thou patron saint of queens!

Swellfoot is wived! though parted by the sea,

The very name of wife had conjugal rights;

Her cursed image ate, drank, slept with me,

And in the arms of Adiposa oft 290

Her memory has received a husband's--

[A LOUD TUMULT, AND CRIES OF 'IONA FOR EVER --NO SWELLFOOT!']

Hark!

How the Swine cry Iona Taurina;

I suffer the real presence; Purganax,

Off with her head!

PURGANAX:

But I must first impanel

A jury of the Pigs.

SWELLFOOT:

Pack them then. _295

PURGANAX:

Or fattening some few in two separate sties.

And giving them clean straw, tying some bits

Of ribbon round their legs--giving their Sows

Some tawdry lace, and bits of lustre glass,

And their young Boars white and red rags, and tails _300

Of cows, and jay feathers, and sticking cauliflowers

Between the ears of the old ones; and when

They are persuaded, that by the inherent virtue

Of these things, they are all imperial Pigs,

Good Lord! they'd rip each other's bellies up, _305

Not to say, help us in destroying her.

SWELLFOOT:

This plan might be tried too;--where's General Laoctonos?

[ENTER LAOCTONOS AND DAKRY.]

It is my royal pleasure

That you, Lord General, bring the head and body,

If separate it would please me better, hither _310

Of Queen Iona.

LAOCTONOS:

That pleasure I well knew,

And made a charge with those battalions bold,

Called, from their dress and grin, the royal apes,

Upon the Swine, who in a hollow square

Enclosed her, and received the first attack _315

Like so many rhinoceroses, and then

Retreating in good order, with bare tusks

And wrinkled snouts presented to the foe,

Bore her in triumph to the public sty.

What is still worse, some Sows upon the ground _320

Have given the ape-guards apples, nuts, and gin,

And they all whisk their tails aloft, and cry,

'Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!'

PURGANAX:

Hark!

THE SWINE (WITHOUT):

Long live Iona! down with Swellfoot!

DAKRY:

I

Went to the garret of the swineherd's tower, _325

Which overlooks the sty, and made a long

Harangue (all words) to the assembled Swine,

Of delicacy mercy, judgement, law,

Morals, and precedents, and purity,

Adultery, destitution, and divorce, _330

Piety, faith, and state necessity,

And how I loved the Queen!--and then I wept

With the pathos of my own eloquence,

And every tear turned to a mill-stone, which

Brained many a gaping Pig, and there was made _335

A slough of blood and brains upon the place,

Greased with the pounded bacon; round and round

The mill-stones rolled, ploughing the pavement up,

And hurling Sucking-Pigs into the air,

With dust and stones.--

[ENTER MAMMON.]

MAMMON:

I wonder that gray wizards _340

Like you should be so beardless in their schemes;

It had been but a point of policy

To keep Iona and the Swine apart.

Divide and rule! but ye have made a junction

Between two parties who will govern you _345

But for my art.--Behold this BAG! it is

The poison BAG of that Green Spider huge,

On which our spies skulked in ovation through

The streets of Thebes, when they were paved with dead:

A bane so much the deadlier fills it now _350

As calumny is worse than death,--for here

The Gadfly's venom, fifty times distilled,

Is mingled with the vomit of the Leech,

In due proportion, and black ratsbane, which

That very Rat, who, like the Pontic tyrant, _355

Nurtures himself on poison, dare not touch;--

All is sealed up with the broad seal of Fraud,

Who is the Devil's Lord High Chancellor,

And over it the Primate of all Hell

Murmured this pious baptism:--'Be thou called _360

The GREEN BAG; and this power and grace be thine:

That thy contents, on whomsoever poured,

Turn innocence to guilt, and gentlest looks

To savage, foul, and fierce deformity.

Let all baptized by thy infernal dew _365

Be called adulterer, drunkard, liar, wretch!

No name left out which orthodoxy loves,

Court Journal or legitimate Review!--

Be they called tyrant, beast, fool, glutton, lover

Of other wives and husbands than their own-- _370

The heaviest sin on this side of the Alps!

Wither they to a ghastly caricature

Of what was human!--let not man or beast

Behold their face with unaverted eyes!

Or hear their names with ears that tingle not _375

With blood of indignation, rage, and shame!'--

This is a perilous liquor;--good my Lords.--

[SWELLFOOT APPROACHES TO TOUCH THE GREEN BAG.]

Beware! for God's sake, beware!-if you should break

The seal, and touch the fatal liquor--

NOTE:

_373 or edition 1820; nor edition 1839.

PURGANAX:

There,

Give it to me. I have been used to handle _380

All sorts of poisons. His dread Majesty

Only desires to see the colour of it.

MAMMON:

Now, with a little common sense, my Lords,

Only undoing all that has been done

(Yet so as it may seem we but confirm it), _385

Our victory is assured. We must entice

Her Majesty from the sty, and make the Pigs

Believe that the contents of the GREEN BAG

Are the true test of guilt or innocence.

And that, if she be guilty, 'twill transform her _390

To manifest deformity like guilt.

If innocent, she will become transfigured

Into an angel, such as they say she is;

And they will see her flying through the air,

So bright that she will dim the noonday sun; _395

Showering down blessings in the shape of comfits.

This, trust a priest, is just the sort of thing

Swine will believe. I'll wager you will see them

Climbing upon the thatch of their low sties,

With pieces of smoked glass, to watch her sail _400

Among the clouds, and some will hold the flaps

Of one another's ears between their teeth,

To catch the coming hail of comfits in.

You, Purganax, who have the gift o' the gab,

Make them a solemn speech to this effect: _405

I go to put in readiness the feast

Kept to the honour of our goddess Famine,

Where, for more glory, let the ceremony

Take place of the uglification of the Queen.

DAKRY (TO SWELLFOOT):

I, as the keeper of your sacred conscience, _410

Humbly remind your Majesty that the care

Of your high office, as Man-milliner

To red Bellona, should not be deferred.

PURGANAX:

All part, in happier plight to meet again.

[EXEUNT.]

END OF THE ACT 1.

ACT 2.

SCENE 1.2:

THE PUBLIC STY.

THE B0ARS IN FULL ASSEMBLY.

ENTER PUEGANAX.

PURGANAX:

Grant me your patience, Gentlemen and Boars,

Ye, by whose patience under public burthens

The glorious constitution of these sties

Subsists, and shall subsist. The Lean-Pig rates

Grow with the growing populace of Swine, _5

The taxes, that true source of Piggishness

(How can I find a more appropriate term

To include religion, morals, peace, and plenty,

And all that fit Boeotia as a nation

To teach the other nations how to live?), _10

Increase with Piggishness itself; and still

Does the revenue, that great spring of all

The patronage, and pensions, and by-payments,

Which free-born Pigs regard with jealous eyes,

Diminish, till at length, by glorious steps, _15

All the land's produce will be merged in taxes,

And the revenue will amount to--nothing!

The failure of a foreign market for

Sausages, bristles, and blood-puddings,

And such home manufactures, is but partial; _20

And, that the population of the Pigs,

Instead of hog-wash, has been fed on straw

And water, is a fact which is--you know--

That is--it is a state-necessity--

Temporary, of course. Those impious Pigs, _25

Who, by frequent squeaks, have dared impugn

The settled Swellfoot system, or to make

Irreverent mockery of the genuflexions

Inculcated by the arch-priest, have been whipped

Into a loyal and an orthodox whine. _30

Things being in this happy state, the Queen

Iona--

NOTE:

_16 land's]lands edition 1820.

A LOUD CRY FROM THE PIGS:

She is innocent! most innocent!

PURGANAX:

That is the very thing that I was saying,

Gentlemen Swine; the Queen Iona being

Most innocent, no doubt, returns to Thebes, _35

And the lean Sows and Bears collect about her,

Wishing to make her think that WE believe

(I mean those more substantial Pigs, who swill

Rich hog-wash, while the others mouth damp straw)

That she is guilty; thus, the Lean-Pig faction _40

Seeks to obtain that hog-wash, which has been

Your immemorial right, and which I will

Maintain you in to the last drop of--

A BOAR (INTERRUPTING HIM):

What

Does any one accuse her of?

PURGANAX:

Why, no one

Makes ANY positive accusation;--but _45

There were hints dropped, and so the privy wizards

Conceived that it became them to advise

His Majesty to investigate their truth;--

Not for his own sake; he could be content

To let his wife play any pranks she pleased, _50

If, by that sufferance, HE could please the Pigs;

But then he fears the morals of the Swine,

The Sows especially, and what effect

It might produce upon the purity and

Religion of the rising generation _55

Of Sucking-Pigs, if it could be suspected

That Queen Iona--

[A PAUSE.]

FIRST BOAR:

Well, go on; we long

To hear what she can possibly have done.

PURGANAX:

Why, it is hinted, that a certain Bull--

Thus much is KNOWN:--the milk-white Bulls that feed _60

Beside Clitumnus and the crystal lakes

Of the Cisalpine mountains, in fresh dews

Of lotus-grass and blossoming asphodel

Sleeking their silken hair, and with sweet breath

Loading the morning winds until they faint _65

With living fragrance, are so beautiful!--

Well, _I_ say nothing;--but Europa rode

On such a one from Asia into Crete,

And the enamoured sea grew calm beneath

His gliding beauty. And Pasiphae, _70

Iona's grandmother,--but SHE is innocent!

And that both you and I, and all assert.

FIRST BOAR:

Most innocent!

PURGANAX:

Behold this BAG; a bag--

SECOND BOAR:

Oh! no GREEN BAGS!! Jealousy's eyes are green,

Scorpions are green, and water-snakes, and efts, _75

And verdigris, and--

PURGANAX:

Honourable Swine,

In Piggish souls can prepossessions reign?

Allow me to remind you, grass is green--

All flesh is grass;--no bacon but is flesh--

Ye are but bacon. This divining BAG _80

(Which is not green, but only bacon colour)

Is filled with liquor, which if sprinkled o'er

A woman guilty of--we all know what--

Makes her so hideous, till she finds one blind

She never can commit the like again. _85

If innocent, she will turn into an angel,

And rain down blessings in the shape of comfits

As she flies up to heaven. Now, my proposal

Is to convert her sacred Majesty

Into an angel (as I am sure we shall do), _90

By pouring on her head this mystic water.

[SHOWING THE BAG.]

I know that she is innocent; I wish

Only to prove her so to all the world.

FIRST BOAR:

Excellent, just, and noble Purganax.

SECOND BOAR:

How glorious it will be to see her Majesty _95

Flying above our heads, her petticoats

Streaming like--like--like--

THIRD BOAR:

Anything.

PURGANAX:

Oh no!

But like a standard of an admiral's ship,

Or like the banner of a conquering host,

Or like a cloud dyed in the dying day, _100

Unravelled on the blast from a white mountain;

Or like a meteor, or a war-steed's mane,

Or waterfall from a dizzy precipice

Scattered upon the wind.

FIRST BOAR:

Or a cow's tail.

SECOND BOAR:

Or ANYTHING, as the learned Boar observed. _105

PURGANAX:

Gentlemen Boars, I move a resolution,

That her most sacred Majesty should be

Invited to attend the feast of Famine,

And to receive upon her chaste white body

Dews of Apotheosis from this BAG. _110

[A GREAT CONFUSION IS HEARD OF THE PIGS OUT OF DOORS, WHICH

COMMUNICATES ITSELF TO THOSE WITHIN. DURING THE FIRST STROPHE, THE

DOORS OF THE STY ARE STAVED IN, AND A NUMBER OF EXCEEDINGLY LEAN PIGS

AND SOWS AND BOARS RUSH IN.]

SEMICHORUS 1:

No! Yes!

SEMICHORUS 2:

Yes! No!

SEMICHORUS 1:

A law!

SEMICHORUS 2:

A flaw!

SEMICHORUS 1:

Porkers, we shall lose our wash, _115

Or must share it with the Lean-Pigs!

FIRST BOAR:

Order! order! be not rash!

Was there ever such a scene, Pigs!

AN OLD SOW (RUSHING IN):

I never saw so fine a dash

Since I first began to wean Pigs. _120

SECOND BOAR (SOLEMNLY):

The Queen will be an angel time enough.

I vote, in form of an amendment, that

Purganax rub a little of that stuff

Upon his face.

PURGANAX [HIS HEART IS SEEN TO BEAT THROUGH HIS WAISTCOAT]:

Gods! What would ye be at?

SEMICHORUS 1:

Purganax has plainly shown a _125

Cloven foot and jackdaw feather.

SEMICHORUS 2:

I vote Swellfoot and Iona

Try the magic test together;

Whenever royal spouses bicker,

Both should try the magic liquor. _130

AN OLD BOAR [ASIDE]:

A miserable state is that of Pigs,

For if their drivers would tear caps and wigs,

The Swine must bite each other's ear therefore.

AN OLD SOW [ASIDE]:

A wretched lot Jove has assigned to Swine,

Squabbling makes Pig-herds hungry, and they dine _135

On bacon, and whip Sucking-Pigs the more.

CHORUS:

Hog-wash has been ta'en away:

If the Bull-Queen is divested,

We shall be in every way

Hunted, stripped, exposed, molested; _140

Let us do whate'er we may,

That she shall not be arrested.

QUEEN, we entrench you with walls of brawn,

And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet:

Place your most sacred person here. We pawn _145

Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it.

Those who wrong you, wrong us;

Those who hate you, hate us;

Those who sting you, sting us;

Those who bait you, bait us; _150

The ORACLE is now about to be

Fulfilled by circumvolving destiny;

Which says: 'Thebes, choose REFORM or CIVIL WAR,

When through your streets, instead of hare with dogs,

A CONSORT QUEEN shall hunt a KING with Hogs, _155

Riding upon the IONIAN MINOTAUR.'

NOTE:

_154 streets instead edition 1820.

[ENTER IONA TAURINA.]

IONA TAURINA (COMING FORWARD):

Gentlemen Swine, and gentle Lady-Pigs,

The tender heart of every Boar acquits

Their QUEEN, of any act incongruous

With native Piggishness, and she, reposing _160

With confidence upon the grunting nation,

Has thrown herself, her cause, her life, her all,

Her innocence, into their Hoggish arms;

Nor has the expectation been deceived

Of finding shelter there. Yet know, great Boars, _165

(For such whoever lives among you finds you,

And so do I), the innocent are proud!

I have accepted your protection only

In compliment of your kind love and care,

Not for necessity. The innocent _170

Are safest there where trials and dangers wait;

Innocent Queens o'er white-hot ploughshares tread

Unsinged, and ladies, Erin's laureate sings it,

Decked with rare gems, and beauty rarer still,

Walked from Killarney to the Giant's Causeway, _175

Through rebels, smugglers, troops of yeomanry,

White-boys and Orange-boys, and constables,

Tithe-proctors, and excise people, uninjured!

Thus I!--

Lord Purganax, I do commit myself _180

Into your custody, and am prepared

To stand the test, whatever it may be!

NOTE:

(_173 'Rich and rare were the gems she wore.' See Moore's "Irish

Melodies".-- [SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

PURGANAX:

This magnanimity in your sacred Majesty

Must please the Pigs. You cannot fail of being

A heavenly angel. Smoke your bits of glass, _185

Ye loyal Swine, or her transfiguration

Will blind your wondering eyes.

AN OLD BOAR [ASIDE]:

Take care, my Lord,

They do not smoke you first.

PURGANAX:

At the approaching feast

Of Famine, let the expiation be.

SWINE:

Content! content!

IONA TAURINA [ASIDE]:

I, most content of all, _190

Know that my foes even thus prepare their fall!

[EXEUNT OMNES.]

SCENE 2.2:

THE INTERIOR OF THE TEMPLE OF FAMINE.

THE STATUE OF THE GODDESS, A SKELETON CLOTHED IN PARTI-COLOURED RAGS,

SEATED UPON A HEAP OF SKULLS AND LOAVES INTERMINGLED.

A NUMBER OF EXCEEDINGLY FAT PRIESTS IN BLACK GARMENTS ARRAYED ON EACH

SIDE, WITH MARROW-BONES AND CLEAVERS IN THEIR HANDS.

[SOLOMON, THE COURT PORKMAN.]

A FLOURISH OF TRUMPETS.

ENTER MAMMON AS ARCH-PRIEST, SWELLFOOT, DAKRY, PURGANAX, LAOCTONOS,

FOLLOWED BY IONA TAURINA GUARDED.

ON THE OTHER SIDE ENTER THE SWINE.

CHORUS OF PRIESTS, ACCOMPANIED BY THE COURT PORKMAN ON MARROW-BONES

AND CLEAVERS:

GODDESS bare, and gaunt, and pale,

Empress of the world, all hail!

What though Cretans old called thee

City-crested Cybele?

We call thee FAMINE! _5

Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and cramming!

Through thee, for emperors, kings, and priests and lords,

Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words,

The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits,

Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots-- _10

Those who consume these fruits through thee grow fat,

Those who produce these fruits through thee grow lean,

Whatever change takes place, oh, stick to that!

And let things be as they have ever been;

At least while we remain thy priests, _15

And proclaim thy fasts and feasts.

Through thee the sacred SWELLF00T dynasty

Is based upon a rock amid that sea

Whose waves are Swine--so let it ever be!

[SWELLFOOT, ETC., SEAT THEMSELVES AT A TABLE MAGNIFICENTLY COVERED AT

THE UPPER END OF THE TEMPLE.

ATTENDANTS PASS OVER THE STAGE WITH HOG-WASH IN PAILS.

A NUMBER OF PIGS, EXCEEDINGLY LEAN, FOLLOW THEM LICKING UP THE WASH.]

MAMMON:

I fear your sacred Majesty has lost _20

The appetite which you were used to have.

Allow me now to recommend this dish--

A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,

Such as is served at the great King's second table.

The price and pains which its ingredients cost _25

Might have maintained some dozen families

A winter or two--not more--so plain a dish

Could scarcely disagree.--

SWELLFOOT:

After the trial,

And these fastidious Pigs are gone, perhaps

I may recover my lost appetite,-- _30

I feel the gout flying about my stomach--

Give me a glass of Maraschino punch.

PURGANAX (FILLING HIS GLASS, AND STANDING UP):

The glorious Constitution of the Pigs!

ALL:

A toast! a toast! stand up, and three times three!

DAKRY:

No heel-taps--darken daylights! --

LAOCTONOS:

Claret, somehow, _35

Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret!

SWELLFOOT:

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,

But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,

And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.

[TO PURGANAX.]

For God's sake stop the grunting of those Pigs! _40

PURGANAX:

We dare not, Sire, 'tis Famine's privilege.

CHORUS OF SWINE:

Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!

Thy throne is on blood, and thy robe is of rags;

Thou devil which livest on damning;

Saint of new churches, and cant, and GREEN BAGS, _45

Till in pity and terror thou risest,

Confounding the schemes of the wisest;

When thou liftest thy skeleton form,

When the loaves and the skulls roll about,

We will greet thee-the voice of a storm _50

Would be lost in our terrible shout!

Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!

Hail to thee, Empress of Earth!

When thou risest, dividing possessions;

When thou risest, uprooting oppressions, _55

In the pride of thy ghastly mirth;

Over palaces, temples, and graves,

We will rush as thy minister-slaves,

Trampling behind in thy train,

Till all be made level again! _60

MAMMON:

I hear a crackling of the giant bones

Of the dread image, and in the black pits

Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames.

These prodigies are oracular, and show

The presence of the unseen Deity. _65

Mighty events are hastening to their doom!

SWELLFOOT:

I only hear the lean and mutinous Swine

Grunting about the temple.

DAKRY:

In a crisis

Of such exceeding delicacy, I think

We ought to put her Majesty, the QUEEN, _70

Upon her trial without delay.

MAMMON:

THE BAG

Is here.

PURGANAX:

I have rehearsed the entire scene

With an ox-bladder and some ditchwater,

On Lady P--; it cannot fail.

[TAKING UP THE BAG.]

Your Majesty

[TO SWELLFOOT.]

In such a filthy business had better _75

Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you.

A spot or two on me would do no harm,

Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad Genius

Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell,

Upon my brow--which would stain all its seas, _80

But which those seas could never wash away!

IONA TAURINA:

My Lord, I am ready--nay, I am impatient

To undergo the test.

[A GRACEFUL FIGURE IN A SEMI-TRANSPARENT VEIL PASSES UNNOTICED THROUGH

THE TEMPLE; THE WORD "LIBERTY" IS SEEN THROUGH THE VEIL, AS IF IT WERE

WRITTEN IN FIRE UPON ITS FOREHEAD. ITS WORDS ARE ALMOST DROWNED IN THE

FURIOUS GRUNTING OF THE PIGS, AND THE BUSINESS OF THE TRIAL. SHE

KNEELS ON THE STEPS OF THE ALTAR, AND SPEAKS IN TONES AT FIRST FAINT

AND LOW, BUT WHICH EVER BECOME LOUDER AND LOUDER.]

Mighty Empress! Death's white wife!

Ghastly mother-in-law of Life! _85

By the God who made thee such,

By the magic of thy touch,

By the starving and the cramming

Of fasts and feasts! by thy dread self, O Famine!

I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude, _90

Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.

The earth did never mean her foison

For those who crown life's cup with poison

Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge--

But for those radiant spirits, who are still _95

The standard-bearers in the van of Change.

Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill

The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age!--

Remit, O Queen! thy accustomed rage!

Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low _100

FREEDOM calls "Famine",--her eternal foe,

To brief alliance, hollow truce.--Rise now!

[WHILST THE VEILED FIGURE HAS BEEN CHANTING THIS STROPHE, MAMMON,

DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, AND SWELLFOOT, HAVE SURROUNDED IONA TAURINA, WHO,

WITH HER HANDS FOLDED ON HER BREAST, AND HER EYES LIFTED TO HEAVEN,

STANDS, AS WITH SAINT-LIKE RESIGNATION, TO WAIT THE ISSUE OF THE

BUSINESS, IN PERFECT CONFIDENCE OF HER INNOCENCE.]

[PURGANAX, AFTER UNSEALING THE GREEN BAG, IS GRAVELY ABOUT TO POUR THE

LIQUOR UPON HER HEAD, WHEN SUDDENLY THE WHOLE EXPRESSION OF HER FIGURE

AND COUNTENANCE CHANGES; SHE SNATCHES IT FROM HIS HAND WITH A LOUD

LAUGH OF TRIUMPH, AND EMPTIES IT OVER SWELLFOOT AND HIS WHOLE COURT,

WHO ARE INSTANTLY CHANGED INTO A NUMBER OF FILTHY AND UGLY ANIMALS,

AND RUSH OUT OF THE TEMPLE. THE IMAGE OF FAMINE THEN ARISES WITH A

TREMENDOUS SOUND, THE PIGS BEGIN SCRAMBLING FOR THE LOAVES, AND ARE

TRJPPED UP BY THE SKULLS; ALL THOSE WHO EAT THE LOAVES ARE TURNED INTO

BULLS, AND ARRANGE THEMSELVES QUIETLY BEHIND THE ALTAR. THE IMAGE OF

FAMINE SINKS THROUGH A CHASM IN THE EARTH, AND A MINOTAUR RISES.]