FIRST SPIRIT: 
But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
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 see the light, and I hear the sound; 25
I’ll sail on the flood of the tempest dark
With the calm within and the light around
Which makes night day: 
And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,
Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, 30
My moon-like 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 aery 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 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.

NOTES:  2 Wouldst 1839; Would 1824. 31 moon-like 1824; moonlight 1839. 44 make]makes 1824, 1839.

***

ODE TO NAPLES.

(The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples.  This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.—­[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])

[Composed at San Juliano di Pisa, August 17-25, 1820; published in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.  There is a copy, ’for the most part neat and legible,’ amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library.  See Mr. C.D.  Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 14-18.]

EPODE 1a.

I stood within the City disinterred;
And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls
Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard
The Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervals
Thrill through those roofless halls; 5
The oracular thunder penetrating shook
The listening soul in my suspended blood;
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke—­
I felt, but heard not:—­through white columns