Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/568

'MIGHTY EAGLE'

SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN

[Published in 1882 (P. W. of B. P. S.) by Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.]

Mighty eagle! thou that soarest
O'er the misty mountain forest,
And amid the light of morning
Like a cloud of glory hiest,
And when night descends defiest 5
The embattled tempests' warning!

 

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR

[Published in part (v-ix, xiv) by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed. (without title); in full 2nd ed. (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley's hand are extant: two—Leigh Hunt's and Ch. Cowden Clarke's—described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C. W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry [P. W., Centenary Edition, iii. 193-6]. One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley's autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley's hand is in the Harvard MS. book.]

I
Thy country's curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother's bosom—Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!

II
Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold, 5
Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.

III
And, whilst that sure slow Angel which aye^[1] stands
Watching the beck of Mutability 10
Delays to execute her high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

IV
Oh, let a father's curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl 15
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.

V
I curse thee by a parent's outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; 20

1. Angel which aye cancelled by Shelley for Fate which ever Fa.