THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY.
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
FIRST SPIRIT:
O thou, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire—
Night is coming!
Bright are the regions of the air, _5
And among the winds and beams
It were delight to wander there—
Night is coming!
SECOND SPIRIT:
The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night, _10
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!
And the moon will smile with gentle light
On my golden plumes where’er they move;
The meteors will linger round my flight, _15
And make night day.
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.