Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/648

AN ALLEGORY

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt 5
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

II
And many pass^[1] it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy . . .
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead 10
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine;—these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go. 15

 

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I
Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?

II
Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray 5
Pilgrim of Heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

III
Weary Wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest, 10
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

 

SONNET

[Published by Leigh Hunt, The Literary Pocket-Book, 1823. There is a transcript amongst the Ollier MSS., and another in the Harvard MS. book.]

Ye hasten to the grave!^[2] What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess

1. An Allegory.—8 pass Rossetti; passed edd. 1824, 1839.
2. Sonnet.—1 grave Ollier MS.; dead Harvard MS., 1823, edd. 1824, 1839.