The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe

Ode to Heaven

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***

[Published with "Prometheus Unbound", 1820. Dated 'Florence, December,

1819' in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst

the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock's

"Examination", etc., page 39.]

CHORUS OF SPIRITS:

FIRST SPIRIT:

Palace-roof of cloudless nights!

Paradise of golden lights!

Deep, immeasurable, vast,

Which art now, and which wert then

Of the Present and the Past, _5

Of the eternal Where and When,

Presence-chamber, temple, home,

Ever-canopying dome,

Of acts and ages yet to come!

Glorious shapes have life in thee, _10

Earth, and all earth's company;

Living globes which ever throng

Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;

And green worlds that glide along;

And swift stars with flashing tresses; _15

And icy moons most cold and bright,

And mighty suns beyond the night,

Atoms of intensest light.

Even thy name is as a god,

Heaven! for thou art the abode _20

Of that Power which is the glass

Wherein man his nature sees.

Generations as they pass

Worship thee with bended knees.

Their unremaining gods and they _25

Like a river roll away:

Thou remainest such--alway!--

SECOND SPIRIT:

Thou art but the mind's first chamber,

Round which its young fancies clamber,

Like weak insects in a cave, _30

Lighted up by stalactites;

But the portal of the grave,

Where a world of new delights

Will make thy best glories seem

But a dim and noonday gleam _35

From the shadow of a dream!

THIRD SPIRIT:

Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn

At your presumption, atom-born!

What is Heaven? and what are ye

Who its brief expanse inherit? _40

What are suns and spheres which flee

With the instinct of that Spirit

Of which ye are but a part?

Drops which Nature's mighty heart

Drives through thinnest veins! Depart! _45

What is Heaven? a globe of dew,

Filling in the morning new

Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken

On an unimagined world:

Constellated suns unshaken, _50

Orbits measureless, are furled

In that frail and fading sphere,

With ten millions gathered there,

To tremble, gleam, and disappear.

***

CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.

[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, "Examination", etc., 1903.]

The [living frame which sustains my soul]

Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]

Down through the lampless deep of song

I am drawn and driven along--

When a Nation screams aloud _5

Like an eagle from the cloud

When a...

...

When the night...

...

Watch the look askance and old--

See neglect, and falsehood fold... _10

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