The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

(following 2.1._110.) Lift up thine eyes Panthea—­they pierce they burn

PANTHEA: 
Alas!  I am consumed—­I melt away
The fire is in my heart—­

ASIA: 
Thine eyes burn burn!—­
Hide them within thine hair—­

PANTHEA: 
O quench thy lips
I sink I perish

ASIA: 
Shelter me now—­they burn
It is his spirit in their orbs...my life
Is ebbing fast—­I cannot speak—­

PANTHEA: 
Rest, rest! 
Sleep death annihilation pain! aught else
...

(following 2.4._27.)
Or looks which tell that while the lips are calm
And the eyes cold, the spirit weeps within
Tears like the sanguine sweat of agony;
...

UNCANCELLED PASSAGE.
(following 2.5._71.)

ASIA: 
You said that spirits spoke, but it was thee
Sweet sister, for even now thy curved lips
Tremble as if the sound were dying there
Not dead

PANTHEA: 
Alas it was Prometheus spoke
Within me, and I know it must be so
I mixed my own weak nature with his love
...And my thoughts
Are like the many forests of a vale
Through which the might of whirlwind and of rain
Had passed—­they rest rest through the evening light
As mine do now in thy beloved smile.

CANCELLED STAGE DIRECTIONS. (following 1._221.) [THE SOUND BENEATH AS OF EARTHQUAKE AND THE DRIVING OF WHIRLWINDS—­THE RAVINE IS SPLIT, AND THE PHANTASM OF JUPITER RISES, SURROUNDED BY HEAVY CLOUDS WHICH DART FORTH LIGHTNING.]

(following 1._520.) [ENTER RUSHING BY GROUPS OF HORRIBLE FORMS; THEY SPEAK AS THEY PASS IN CHORUS.]

(following 1._552.) [A SHADOW PASSES OVER THE SCENE, AND A PIERCING SHRIEK IS HEARD.]

NOTE ON “PROMETHEUS UNBOUND”, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

On the 12th of March, 1818, Shelley quitted England, never to return.  His principal motive was the hope that his health would be improved by a milder climate; he suffered very much during the winter previous to his emigration, and this decided his vacillating purpose.  In December, 1817, he had written from Marlow to a friend, saying: 

’My health has been materially worse.  My feelings at intervals are of a deadly and torpid kind, or awakened to such a state of unnatural and keen excitement that, only to instance the organ of sight, I find the very blades of grass and the boughs of distant trees present themselves to me with microscopic distinctness.  Towards evening I sink into a state of lethargy and inanimation, and often remain for hours on the sofa between sleep and waking, a prey to the most painful irritability of thought.  Such, with little intermission, is my condition.  The hours devoted to study are selected with vigilant caution from among these periods of endurance.  It is not for this that I think of travelling to Italy, even if I knew that Italy would relieve me.  But I have experienced a decisive pulmonary attack; and

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The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.