{"id":42,"date":"2021-06-04T15:28:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T19:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/chapter\/p-b-shelley\/"},"modified":"2024-08-08T15:53:48","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T19:53:48","slug":"p-b-shelley","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/chapter\/p-b-shelley\/","title":{"raw":"P. B. Shelley","rendered":"P. B. Shelley"},"content":{"raw":"

Ozymandias<\/h1>\nI met a traveller from an antique land\nWho said: \"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone\nStand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,\nHalf sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,\nAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,\nTell that its sculptor well those passions read\nWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,\nThe hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:\nAnd on the pedestal these words appear:\n'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:\nLook on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'\nNothing beside remains. Round the decay\nOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare\nThe lone and level sands stretch far away.\"\n

Mont Blanc<\/h1>\nLINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI\n\nThe everlasting universe of things\nFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,\nNow dark\u2014now glittering\u2014now reflecting gloom\u2014\nNow lending splendour, where from secret springs\nThe source of human thought its tribute brings\nOf waters,\u2014with a sound but half its own,\nSuch as a feeble brook will oft assume\nIn the wild woods, among the mountains lone,\nWhere waterfalls around it leap for ever,\nWhere woods and winds contend, and a vast river\nOver its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.\n\nThus thou, Ravine of Arve\u2014dark, deep Ravine\u2014\nThou many-coloured, many-voic\u00e8d vale,\nOver whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail\nFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,\nWhere Power in likeness of the Arve comes down\nFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,\nBursting through these dark mountains like the flame\nOf lightning through the tempest;\u2014thou dost lie,\nThy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,\nChildren of elder time, in whose devotion\nThe chainless winds still come and ever came\nTo drink their odours, and their mighty swinging\nTo hear\u2014an old and solemn harmony;\nThine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep\nOf the aethereal waterfall, whose veil\nRobes some unsulptured image; the strange sleep\nWhich when the voices of the desert fail\nWraps all in its own deep eternity;\u2014\nThy caverns echoing to the Arve\u2019s commotion,\nA loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;\nThou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,\nThou art the path of that unresting sound\u2014\nDizzy Ravine! And when I gaze on thee\nI seem as in a trance sublime and strange\nTo muse on my own separate fantast,\nMy own, my human mind, which passively\nNow renders and receives fast influencings,\nHolding an unremitting interchange\nWith the clear universe of things around;\nOne legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings\nNow float above thy darkness, and now rest\nWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,\nIn the still cave of the witch Posey,\nSeeking among the shadows that pass by\nGhost of all things that are, some shade of thee,\nSome phantom, some faint image; till the breast\nFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!\n\nSome say that gleams of a remoter world\nVisit the soul in sleep,\u2014that death is slumber,\nAnd that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber\nOf those who wake and live.\u2014I look on high;\nHas some unknown omnipotence unfurled\nThe veil of life and death? or do I lie\nIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleep\nSpread far around and inaccessibly\nIts circles? For the very spirit fails,\nDriven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep\nThat vanishes among the viewless gales!\nFar, far above, piercing the infinite sky,\nMont Blanc appears,\u2014still, snowy, and serene\u2014\nIts subject mountains their unearthly forms\nPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between\nOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,\nBlue as the overhanging heaven, that spread\nAnd wind among the accumulated steeps;\nA desert peopled by the storms alone,\nSave when the eagle brings some hunter\u2019s bone,\nAnd the wolf tracks her there\u2014how hideously\nIts shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,\nGhastly, and scarred, and riven.\u2014Is this the scene\nWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young\nRuin? Were these their toys? or did a sea\nOf fire envelop once this silent snow?\nNone can reply\u2014all seems eternal now.\nThe wilderness has a mysterious tongue\nWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,\nSo solemn, so serene, that man may be,\nBut for such faith, with nature reconciled;\nThou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal\nLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understood\nBy all, but which the wise, and great, and good\nInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.\n\nThe fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,\nOcean, and all the living things that dwell\nWithin the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,\nEarthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane\nThe torpor of the year when feeble dreams\nVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep\nHolds every future leaf and flower;\u2014the bound\nWith which from that detested trance they leap;\nThe works and ways of man, their death and birth,\nAnd that of him and all that his may be;\nAll things that move and breathe with toil and sound\nAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.\nPower dwells apart in its tranquility,\nRemote, serene, and inaccessible:\nAnd this, the naked countenance of earth,\nOn which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains\nTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep\nLike snakes that watch their prey, form their far fountains,\nSlow rolling on; there, many a precipice,\nFrost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power\nHave piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,\nA city of death, distinct with many a tower\nAnd wall impregnable of beaming ice.\nYet not a city, but a flood of ruin\nIs there, that from the boundaries of the sky\nRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing\nIts destined path, or in the mangled soil\nBranchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down\nFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrown\nThe limits of the dead and living world,\nNever to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place\nOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;\nTheir food and their retreat for ever gone,\nSo much of life and joy is lost. The race\nOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling\nVanish, like smoke before the tempest\u2019s stream,\nAnd their place is not known. Below, vast caves\nShine in the rushing torrents\u2019 restless gleam,\nWhich from those secret chasms in tumult welling\nMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,\nThe breath and blood of distant lands, for ever\nRolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,\nBreathes its swift vapours to the circling air.\n\nMont Blanc yet gleams on high:\u2014the power is there,\nThe still and solemn power of many sights,\nAnd many sounds, and much of life and death.\nIn the calm darkness of the moonless nights,\nIn the lone glare of day, the snows descend\nUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,\nNor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,\nOr the star-beams dart through them:\u2014Winds contend\nSilently there, and heap the snow with breath\nRapid and strong, but silently! Its home\nThe voiceless lightning in these solitudes\nKeeps innocently, and like vapour broods\nOver the snow. The secret Strength of things\nWhich governs thought, and to the infinite dome\nOf Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!\nAnd what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,\nIf to the human mind\u2019s imaginings,\nSilence and solitude were vacancy?\n\n
\n\n

Sources<\/h2>\n\u201cOzymandias\u201d by P.B. Shelley is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.\n\n\u201cMont Blanc\u201d by P.B. Shelley is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.","rendered":"

Ozymandias<\/h1>\n

I met a traveller from an antique land
\nWho said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
\nStand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
\nHalf sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
\nAnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
\nTell that its sculptor well those passions read
\nWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
\nThe hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
\nAnd on the pedestal these words appear:
\n‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
\nLook on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
\nNothing beside remains. Round the decay
\nOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
\nThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”<\/p>\n

Mont Blanc<\/h1>\n

LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI<\/p>\n

The everlasting universe of things
\nFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
\nNow dark\u2014now glittering\u2014now reflecting gloom\u2014
\nNow lending splendour, where from secret springs
\nThe source of human thought its tribute brings
\nOf waters,\u2014with a sound but half its own,
\nSuch as a feeble brook will oft assume
\nIn the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
\nWhere waterfalls around it leap for ever,
\nWhere woods and winds contend, and a vast river
\nOver its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.<\/p>\n

Thus thou, Ravine of Arve\u2014dark, deep Ravine\u2014
\nThou many-coloured, many-voic\u00e8d vale,
\nOver whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
\nFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
\nWhere Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
\nFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
\nBursting through these dark mountains like the flame
\nOf lightning through the tempest;\u2014thou dost lie,
\nThy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
\nChildren of elder time, in whose devotion
\nThe chainless winds still come and ever came
\nTo drink their odours, and their mighty swinging
\nTo hear\u2014an old and solemn harmony;
\nThine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep
\nOf the aethereal waterfall, whose veil
\nRobes some unsulptured image; the strange sleep
\nWhich when the voices of the desert fail
\nWraps all in its own deep eternity;\u2014
\nThy caverns echoing to the Arve\u2019s commotion,
\nA loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;
\nThou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,
\nThou art the path of that unresting sound\u2014
\nDizzy Ravine! And when I gaze on thee
\nI seem as in a trance sublime and strange
\nTo muse on my own separate fantast,
\nMy own, my human mind, which passively
\nNow renders and receives fast influencings,
\nHolding an unremitting interchange
\nWith the clear universe of things around;
\nOne legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
\nNow float above thy darkness, and now rest
\nWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,
\nIn the still cave of the witch Posey,
\nSeeking among the shadows that pass by
\nGhost of all things that are, some shade of thee,
\nSome phantom, some faint image; till the breast
\nFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!<\/p>\n

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
\nVisit the soul in sleep,\u2014that death is slumber,
\nAnd that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
\nOf those who wake and live.\u2014I look on high;
\nHas some unknown omnipotence unfurled
\nThe veil of life and death? or do I lie
\nIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
\nSpread far around and inaccessibly
\nIts circles? For the very spirit fails,
\nDriven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
\nThat vanishes among the viewless gales!
\nFar, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
\nMont Blanc appears,\u2014still, snowy, and serene\u2014
\nIts subject mountains their unearthly forms
\nPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
\nOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
\nBlue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
\nAnd wind among the accumulated steeps;
\nA desert peopled by the storms alone,
\nSave when the eagle brings some hunter\u2019s bone,
\nAnd the wolf tracks her there\u2014how hideously
\nIts shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high,
\nGhastly, and scarred, and riven.\u2014Is this the scene
\nWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young
\nRuin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
\nOf fire envelop once this silent snow?
\nNone can reply\u2014all seems eternal now.
\nThe wilderness has a mysterious tongue
\nWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
\nSo solemn, so serene, that man may be,
\nBut for such faith, with nature reconciled;
\nThou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
\nLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understood
\nBy all, but which the wise, and great, and good
\nInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.<\/p>\n

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
\nOcean, and all the living things that dwell
\nWithin the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,
\nEarthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane
\nThe torpor of the year when feeble dreams
\nVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
\nHolds every future leaf and flower;\u2014the bound
\nWith which from that detested trance they leap;
\nThe works and ways of man, their death and birth,
\nAnd that of him and all that his may be;
\nAll things that move and breathe with toil and sound
\nAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
\nPower dwells apart in its tranquility,
\nRemote, serene, and inaccessible:
\nAnd this, the naked countenance of earth,
\nOn which I gaze, even these primaeval mountains
\nTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep
\nLike snakes that watch their prey, form their far fountains,
\nSlow rolling on; there, many a precipice,
\nFrost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
\nHave piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
\nA city of death, distinct with many a tower
\nAnd wall impregnable of beaming ice.
\nYet not a city, but a flood of ruin
\nIs there, that from the boundaries of the sky
\nRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing
\nIts destined path, or in the mangled soil
\nBranchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down
\nFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrown
\nThe limits of the dead and living world,
\nNever to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place
\nOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;
\nTheir food and their retreat for ever gone,
\nSo much of life and joy is lost. The race
\nOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
\nVanish, like smoke before the tempest\u2019s stream,
\nAnd their place is not known. Below, vast caves
\nShine in the rushing torrents\u2019 restless gleam,
\nWhich from those secret chasms in tumult welling
\nMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,
\nThe breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
\nRolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,
\nBreathes its swift vapours to the circling air.<\/p>\n

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:\u2014the power is there,
\nThe still and solemn power of many sights,
\nAnd many sounds, and much of life and death.
\nIn the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
\nIn the lone glare of day, the snows descend
\nUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
\nNor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
\nOr the star-beams dart through them:\u2014Winds contend
\nSilently there, and heap the snow with breath
\nRapid and strong, but silently! Its home
\nThe voiceless lightning in these solitudes
\nKeeps innocently, and like vapour broods
\nOver the snow. The secret Strength of things
\nWhich governs thought, and to the infinite dome
\nOf Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
\nAnd what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
\nIf to the human mind\u2019s imaginings,
\nSilence and solitude were vacancy?<\/p>\n

\n

Sources<\/h2>\n

\u201cOzymandias\u201d by P.B. Shelley is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMont Blanc\u201d by P.B. Shelley is in the public domain. This version was retrieved from Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-42","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry"],"part":33,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/revisions\/43"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/33"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/42\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/poetryandpoetics2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}