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.
Low, unintelligible melodies,
Placed something in the mould like melon-seeds,
And slowly faded, and in place of it
A soft hand issued from the veil of fire, 145
Holding a cup like a magnolia flower,
And poured upon the earth within the vase
The element with which it overflowed,
Brighter than morning light, and purer than
The water of the springs of Himalah.
150

NOTE: 
120-126 Such...dream 1839; omitted 1824.

INDIAN: 
You waked not?

LADY: 
Not until my dream became
Like a child’s legend on the tideless sand. 
Which the first foam erases half, and half
Leaves legible.  At length I rose, and went,
Visiting my flowers from pot to pot, and thought 155
To set new cuttings in the empty urns,
And when I came to that beside the lattice,
I saw two little dark-green leaves
Lifting the light mould at their birth, and then
I half-remembered my forgotten dream.
160
And day by day, green as a gourd in June,
The plant grew fresh and thick, yet no one knew
What plant it was; its stem and tendrils seemed
Like emerald snakes, mottled and diamonded
With azure mail and streaks of woven silver; 165
And all the sheaths that folded the dark buds
Rose like the crest of cobra-di-capel,
Until the golden eye of the bright flower,
Through the dark lashes of those veined lids,
...disencumbered of their silent sleep,
170
Gazed like a star into the morning light. 
Its leaves were delicate, you almost saw
The pulses
With which the purple velvet flower was fed
To overflow, and like a poet’s heart 175
Changing bright fancy to sweet sentiment,
Changed half the light to fragrance.  It soon fell,
And to a green and dewy embryo-fruit
Left all its treasured beauty.  Day by day
I nursed the plant, and on the double flute
180
Played to it on the sunny winter days
Soft melodies, as sweet as April rain
On silent leaves, and sang those words in which
Passion makes Echo taunt the sleeping strings;
And I would send tales of forgotten love 185
Late into the lone night, and sing wild songs
Of maids deserted in the olden time,
And weep like a soft cloud in April’s bosom
Upon the sleeping eyelids of the plant,
So that perhaps it dreamed that Spring was come,
190
And crept abroad into the moonlight air,
And loosened all its limbs, as, noon by noon,
The sun averted less his oblique beam.

INDIAN: 
And the plant died not in the frost?

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