The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe: Ode to Heaven

Ode to Heaven

***
[Published with "Prometheus Unbound", 1820. Dated 'Florence, December,
1819' in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry). A transcript exists amongst
the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock's
"Examination", etc., page 39.]
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then
Of the Present and the Past,                                         _5
Of the eternal Where and When,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,
Of acts and ages yet to come!
Glorious shapes have life in thee,                                   _10
Earth, and all earth's company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;                               _15
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.
Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode                                       _20
Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Their unremaining gods and they                                      _25
Like a river roll away:
Thou remainest such--alway!--
SECOND SPIRIT:
Thou art but the mind's first chamber,
Round which its young fancies clamber,
Like weak insects in a cave,                                         _30
Lighted up by stalactites;
But the portal of the grave,
Where a world of new delights
Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam                                          _35
From the shadow of a dream!
THIRD SPIRIT:
Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
At your presumption, atom-born!
What is Heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit?                                       _40
What are suns and spheres which flee
With the instinct of that Spirit
Of which ye are but a part?
Drops which Nature's mighty heart
Drives through thinnest veins! Depart!                               _45
What is Heaven? a globe of dew,
Filling in the morning new
Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken
On an unimagined world:
Constellated suns unshaken,                                          _50
Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.
***
CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, "Examination", etc., 1903.]
The [living frame which sustains my soul]
Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]
Down through the lampless deep of song
I am drawn and driven along--
When a Nation screams aloud                                          _5
Like an eagle from the cloud
When a...
...
When the night...
...
Watch the look askance and old--
See neglect, and falsehood fold...                                   _10

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