A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed _55
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
5.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, _60
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse, _65
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? _70
***
AN EXHORTATION.
[Published with "Prometheus Unbound", 1820. Dated 'Pisa, April, 1820' in Harvard manuscript (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to 1819.]
Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they, _5
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?