I was not heard—­I saw them not—­
When musing deeply on the lot 55
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,—­
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy! 60

6. 
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine—­have I not kept the vow? 
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave:  they have in visioned bowers 65
Of studious zeal or love’s delight
Outwatched with me the envious night—­
They know that never joy illumed my brow
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery, 70
That thou—­O awful LOVELINESS,
Wouldst give whate’er these words cannot express.

7. 
The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past—­there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been! 
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply 80
Its calm—­to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.

NOTES:  2 among 1819; amongst 1817. 14 dost 1819; doth 1817. 21 fear and dream 1819; care and pain Boscombe manuscript. 37-48 omitted Boscombe manuscript. 44 art 1817; are 1819. 76 or 1819; nor 1839.

***

MONT BLANC.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI.

[Composed in Switzerland, July, 1816 (see date below).  Printed at the end of the “History of a Six Weeks’ Tour” published by Shelley in 1817, and reprinted with “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.  Amongst the Boscombe manuscripts is a draft of this Ode, mainly in pencil, which has been collated by Dr. Garnett.]

1. 
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark—­now glittering—­now reflecting gloom—­
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings 5
Of waters,—­with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 10
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.