I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the seas and the streams;I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken①The sweet budsevery one,
When rocked to rest on their Mother"s breast, As she dances about the Sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under; And then again I dissolve it in rain,And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast;And all the night "tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers Lightning my pilot sits;In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder- It struggles and howls at fits:
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me,Lured by the love of the Geniithat moveIn the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills.
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream.
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven"s blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine
Sunrise, with his meteor eyes.
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning-star shines dead, -As on the jag of a mountain crag,Which an earthquake rocks and swings.
⑤
An eagle alit
one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love,And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of heaven above, -With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,As still as a brooding dove.
That orb?d maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o"er my fleece-like floor,By the midnight breezes strewn;And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear,⑥May have broken the woofof my tent"s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, -Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun"s throne with a burning zone, And the Moon"s with a girdle of pearl;The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the Whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea,Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof; The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow;The Sphere-fire above, its soft colours wove,While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky:
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain-when with never a stain The pavilion of heaven is bare,And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, Build up the blue dome of air-I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,And out of the caverns of rain,Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
- P. B. SHELLEY
WORDS
ardours, fervours.
dissolve, melt.
earthquake, a convulsion of the earth.
glimmering, flickering. guiding, conducting. hurricane, tempest. lashing, scourging. meteor, flashing.
mortals, human beings. nursling, child. pavilion, canopy. sublime, imposing. thirsting, parched. unfurl, unfold.
volcanoes, burning mountains.
whirlwinds, violent blasts.
NOTES
① Buds.-In nearly every instance in which this poem is quoted, "birds" is printed for "buds" in this line. It is hard to understand how the "dews" could waken the "birds." Shelley certainly wrote "buds;" and the "mother" on whose breast they are rocked to rest is of course the Earth.
② Genii, spirits; supernatural beings Genii is the plural of the Latin genius , the guardiandeity of a person or place.
③ Sanguine, blood-red [from Lat. san-blood]. This is its literal meaning. But the word is now generally used in its secondary sense, of ardent, hopeful.
④ Rack, thin or broken clouds, drifting across the sky.
⑤ As.... an eagle alit.-The Sunrise is compared to a restless eagle settling for a moment on a mountain crag; the Sunset to a brooding dove quietly folding her wings to rest.
⑥ The woof, the cross threads in a web. The threads that extend lengthwise are called thewarp .
⑦ Daughter of the Earth and Water.-A poetical description of the physical origin of clouds, which are condensed vapours drawn from the surface of the land and the sea by the heat of the sun.
⑧ Cenotaph, a memorial built to one who is buried elsewhere; lit. an empty tomb. The poet fancifully calls the blue dome of heaven the cloud"s cenotaph, because the clear sky is a sign that the cloud is buried out of sight. So, also, the cloud is said to "unbuild" her cenotaph when she re?ppears, and conceals the blue sky.