The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Prince Athanase
PRINCE ATHANASE[1]
A FRAGMENT
[Written at Marlow in 1817, towards the close of the year; first published in Posthumous Poems, 1824. Part I is dated by Mrs. Shelley, 'December, 1817,' the remainder, 'Marlow, 1817.' The verses were probably rehandled in Italy during the following year. Sources of the text are (1) Posth. Poems, 1824; (2) Poetical Works, 1839, edd. 1st and 2nd; (3) a much-tortured draft amongst the Bodleian MSS., collated by Mr. C. D. Locock. For (1) and (2) Mrs. Shelley is responsible. Our text (enlarged by about thirty lines from the Bodleian MS.) follows for the most part the P. W., 1839; verbal exceptions are pointed out in the footnotes. See also the Editor's Notes at the end of this volume, and Mr. Locock's Examination of the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian Library, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903.]
PART I
There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
Which burned within him, withering up his prime
And goading him, like fiends, from land to land. 5
Not his the load of any secret crime,
For nought of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same:—
Not his the thirst for glory or command,
Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame; 10
Nor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast,
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,
Had left within his soul their dark unrest:
Nor what religion fables of the grave
Feared he,—Philosophy's accepted guest. 15
For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.
Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,
More fleet than storms— the wide world shrinks below,[2]
When winter and despondency are past. 260
fragment v
Passed the white Alps—those eagle-baffling mountains[3]
Slept in their shrouds of snow;—beside the ways
The waterfalls were voiceless—for their fountains[4]
Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now, 265
Or by the curdling winds— like brazen wings
Which clanged along the mountain's marble brow—
Warped into adamantine fretwork, hung
And filled with frozen light the chasms[5] below.
Vexed by the blast, the great pines groaned and swung
Under their load of [snow]—**** 271
**********************Such as the eagle sees, when he dives down
From the gray deserts of wide air, [beheld] 275
[Prince] Athanase; and o'er his mien (?) was thrown
The shadow of that scene, field after field,
Purple and dim and wide . . . . .
fragment vi
We can desire, O Love! and happy souls, 280
Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall.
Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls
Thousands who thirst for thine[6] ambrosial dew;—
Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls
Investeth[7] it; and when the heavens are blue 285
Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fair
The shadow of thy moving wings imbue
Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear
Beauty like some light[8] robe;— thou ever soarest
Among the towers of men, and as soft air 290
In spring, which moves the unawakened forest,
Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,
Thou floatest among men; and aye implorest
- ↑ The idea Shelley had formed of Prince Athanase was a good deal modelled on Alastor. In the first sketch of the poem, he named it Pandemos and Urania. Athanase seeks through the world the One whom he may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who appears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves to be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus; who, after disappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him. Athanase, crushed by sorrow, pines and dies.'On his deathbed, the lady who can really reply to his soul comes and kisses his lips' (The Deathbed of Athanase). The poet describes her [in the words of the final fragment, p. 164]. This slender note is all we have to aid our imagination in shaping out the form of the poem, such as its author imagined.[Mrs. Shelley's Note.]
- ↑ Exulting, while the wide Bodl. MS.
- ↑ mountains edd. 1824, 1839; crags Bodl. MS.
- ↑ fountains edd. 1824, 1839; springs Bodl. MS.
- ↑ chasms Bodl. MS; chasm edd. 1824, 1839.
- ↑ thine Bodl. MS.; thy edd. 1824, 1839.
- ↑ Investeth Bodl. MS.; Investest edd. 1824, 1839.
- ↑ light Bodl. MS.; bright edd. 1824, 1839.