WITHIN a narrow span of time, Three princes of the realm of rhyme, At height of youth or manhood's prime From earth took wing, To join the fellowship sublime Who, dead, yet sing. He, first, his earliest wreath who wove Of laurel grown in Latmian grove, Conquered by pain and hapless love Found calmer home, Roofed by the heaven that glows above Eternal Rome. A fierier soul, its own fierce prey, And cumbered more with mortal clay, At Missolonghi flamed away, And left the air Reverberating to this day Its loud despair. Alike remote from Byron's scorn And Keats's magic as of morn Bursting for ever newly-born On forests old, To wake a hoary world forlorn With touch of gold, Shelley, the cloud-begot, who grew Nourished on starbeams, air, and dew, Into that Essence whence he drew His life and lyre Was fittingly resolved anew Through wave and fire. And it was strangely, wildly meet, That he, who brooked not Time's slow feet, With passage thus abrupt and fleet Should hurry hence, Eager the Great Perhaps to greet With Why? and Whence? Impatient of the world's fixed way, He ne'er could suffer God's delay, But all the future in a day Would build divine, And the whole past in ruins lay, An emptied shrine. Vain vision! but the glow, the fire, The passion of benign desire, These peradventure lift him higher Than many a soul That mounts a million paces nigher Its meaner goal. And power is his, if naught besides, In that thin ether where he rides, Above the roar of human tides To ascend afar, Lost in a storm of light that hides His dizzy ear. Below, the unhasting world toils on, And here and there are victories won, Some dragon slain, some justice done, While, 'mid the skies, A meteor rushing on the sun, He flares and dies. But, as he cleaves you ether clear, Notes from the unattempted sphere He scatters to the far-off ear Of Earth's dim throng. Nay, from the zenith he flings sheer His torrent of song. In other shapes than he forecast, Fate moulds the Morrow. His fierce blast, -- His wild assault upon the Past, -- These things are vain. Brief is Revolt, but born to last Was the arrowy strain, That seems the wandering voices blent Of every virgin element; A sound from azure spaces sent; An airy call From the Uranian firmament O'erdoming all. And in this world of worldings, where Souls rust in apathy, and ne'er A great emotion skakes the air, And life flags tame, And rare is noble impulse, rare The impassioned aim, 'Tis no mean fortune to have heard A singer who, if errors blurred His sight, had yet a spirit stirred By vast desire, And ardour fledging the swift word With plumes of fire. A creature of impetuous breath, Our torpor deadlier than death He knew not; whatsoe'er he saith Flashes with life: He spurreth men, he quickeneth To splendid strife. And in his gusts of song he brings Wild odours shaken from strange wings, And carries secret whisperings From far lips blown, While all the rapturous heart of things Throbs through his own, -- His own that from the burning pyre One who had loved his wind-swept lyre Out of the sharp teeth of the fire Unmolten drew, Beside the sea that in her ire Smote him and slew. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 6 by CONRAD AIKEN MY BOY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON OCTAVES: 15 by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON SONG by ARTHUR WILLIAM EDGAR O'SHAUGHNESSY LITTLE BILLEE by WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY WISTFULNESS by KATHARINE ADAMS NOT DEAD, BUT GONE BEFORE by ANTIPHANES THE GOLDEN ODES OF PRE-ISLAMIC ARABIA: IMR EL KAIS by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |