Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/658

FRAGMENT: 'UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN'

[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun,
To rise upon our darkness, if the star
Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne
Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war
With thy young brightness! 5

 

FRAGMENT: PATER OMNIPOTENS

[Edited from MS. Shelley E 4 in the Bodleian Library, and published by Mr. C. D. Locock, Examination, &c, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903. Here placed conjecturally amongst the compositions of 1820, but of uncertain date, and belonging possibly to 1819 or a still earlier year.]

Serene in his unconquerable might
Endued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne
Encompassed unapproachably with power
And darkness and deep solitude and awe
Stood like a black cloud on some aëry cliff 5
Embosoming its lightning—in his sight
Unnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood
Like slaves before their Lord—prostrate around
Heaven's multitudes hymned everlasting praise.

 

FRAGMENT: TO THE MIND OF MAN

(Edited, published and here placed as the preceding.]

Thou living light that in thy rainbow hues
Clothest this naked world; and over Sea
And Earth and air, and all the shapes that be
In peopled darkness of this wondrous world
The Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse 5
truththou Vital Flame
Mysterious thought that in this mortal frame
Of things, with unextinguished lustre burnest
Now pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled
That eer as thou dost languish still returnest 10
And ever

Before thebefore the Pyramids

So soon as from the Earth formless and rude
One living step had chased drear Solitude
Thou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids 15
Of the vast snake Eternity, who kept
The tree of good and evil.—