Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/789

Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea; 35
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.
The magic car no longer moved.

The Fairy and the Spirit 41
Entered the Hall of Spells :
Those golden clouds
That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy 45
With the aethereal footsteps trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,
Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling,
Yielded to every movement of the will.
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned, 51
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.

'Spirit!' the Fairy said, 55
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
'This is a wondrous sight
And mocks all human grandeur ;
But, were it virtue's only meed, to dwell
In a celestial palace, all resigned 60
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless Nature would be unfulfilled.
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
This is thine high reward :— the past shall rise; 65
Thou shalt behold the present; I will teach
The secrets of the future.'

The Fairy and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement. —
Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line 71
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In mazy motion intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably 75
Eternal Nature's law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony ;
Each with undeviating aim, 80
In eloquent silence, through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
None but a spirit's eye 85
Might ken that rolling orb ;
None but a spirit's eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold
Each action of this earth's inhabitants.
But matter, space and time 91
In those agreal mansions cease to act;
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps
The harvest of its excellence, o'er-
bounds
Those obstacles, of which an earthly soul 95
Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.
The Spirit's intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognized.
The thronging thousands, to a passing
view, 1OO
Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest! being, the
weak touch
That moves the finest nerve, 105
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of Nature.

'Behold,' the Fairy cried,
'Palmyra's ruined palaces ! — no
Behold! where grandeur
frowned;