Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/757

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers

So sweet, the sense faints picturing them; Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves O hear'

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear,

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable' if even I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,

As then, when to outstrip thy skicy speed Scarce seem'd a vision I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thce in prayer in my sore need. O' lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life' I bleed'

A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thec tameless, and swift, and proud.

v

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:

What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

�� �