The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/The Two Spirits. An Allegory
THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]
First Spirit.
Wouldst[1] float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire—
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air, 5
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there—
Night is coming!
Second Spirit.
If I would cross the shade of night, 10
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where'er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight,15
And make night day.
First Spirit.
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain;
See, the bounds of the air are shaken—
Night is coming! 20
The red swift clouds of the hurricane
Yon declining sun have overtaken,
The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—
Night is coming!
Second Spirit.
I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark.
With the calm within and the lignt around
Which makes night day:
And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-hound, 30
My moon-like[2] flight thou then mayst mark
On high, far away.
Some say there is a precipice
Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin
O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice 35
Mid Alpine mountains;
And that the languid storm pursuing
That winged shape, for ever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing
Its aëry fountains. 40
Some say when nights are dry and clear,
And the death-dews sleep on the morass,
Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,
Which make[3] night day:
And a silver shape like his early love doth pass 45
Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,
And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,
He finds night day.