The Daemon of the World

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The Daemon of the World
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD.
A FRAGMENT.
PART 1.
Nec tantum prodere vati,
Quantum scire licet. Venit aetas omnis in
unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot saecula pectus.
LUCAN,
Phars. v. 176.
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep!
One pale as
yonder wan and horned moon,
With lips of lurid blue,
The other
glowing like the vital morn,
When throned on ocean's wave
It
breathes over the world:
Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!
Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
Whose reign is in the tainted
sepulchres,
To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
Cast that
fair prey? Must that divinest form,
Which love and admiration cannot
view
Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
Steal like dark
streams along a field of snow,
Whose outline is as fair as marble
clothed
In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
Nor putrefaction's
breath
Leave aught of this pure spectacle
But loathsomeness and
ruin?--
Spare aught but a dark theme,
On which the lightest heart
might moralize?
Or is it but that downy-winged slumbers
Have
charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
To watch their own
repose?
Will they, when morning's beam
Flows through those wells
of light,
Seek far from noise and day some western cave,
Where
woods and streams with soft and pausing winds
A lulling murmur
weave ?--
Ianthe doth not sleep
The dreamless sleep of death:
Nor

in her moonlight chamber silently
Doth Henry hear her regular pulses
throb,
Or mark her delicate cheek
With interchange of hues mock
the broad moon,
Outwatching weary night,
Without assured reward.

Her dewy eyes are closed;
On their translucent lids, whose texture
fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
With
unapparent fire,
The baby Sleep is pillowed:
Her golden tresses
shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Twining like tendrils of the
parasite
Around a marble column.
Hark! whence that rushing sound?
'Tis like a wondrous strain that
sweeps
Around a lonely ruin
When west winds sigh and evening
waves respond
In whispers from the shore:
'Tis wilder than the
unmeasured notes
Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves

The genii of the breezes sweep.
Floating on waves of music and of
light,
The chariot of the Daemon of the World
Descends in silent
power:
Its shape reposed within: slight as some cloud
That catches
but the palest tinge of day
When evening yields to night,
Bright as
that fibrous woof when stars indue
Its transitory robe.
Four
shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
Draw that strange car of glory,
reins of light
Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
Their
wings of braided air:
The Daemon leaning from the ethereal car

Gazed on the slumbering maid.
Human eye hath ne'er beheld
A
shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o'er the maiden's
charmed sleep
Waving a starry wand,
Hung like a mist of light.

Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds
Of wakening
spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
Maiden,
the world's supremest spirit
Beneath the shadow of her wings
Folds
all thy memory doth inherit
From ruin of divinest things,
Feelings
that lure thee to betray,
And light of thoughts that pass away.
For
thou hast earned a mighty boon,
The truths which wisest poets see

Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
Rewarding its own majesty,

Entranced in some diviner mood
Of self-oblivious solitude.

Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest;
From hate and awe thy
heart is free;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
For dark and
cold mortality
A living light, to cheer it long,
The watch-fires of the
world among.
Therefore from nature's inner shrine,
Where gods and fiends in
worship bend,
Majestic spirit, be it thine
The flame to seize, the veil
to rend,
Where the vast snake Eternity
In charmed sleep doth ever
lie.
All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes,

Or through thy frame doth burn or move,
Or think or feel, awake,
arise!
Spirit, leave for mine and me
Earth's unsubstantial mimicry!
It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
A radiant spirit
arose,
All beautiful in naked purity.
Robed in its human hues it did
ascend,
Disparting as it went the silver clouds,
It moved towards
the car, and took its seat
Beside the Daemon shape.
Obedient to the sweep of aery song,
The mighty ministers
Unfurled
their prismy wings.
The magic car moved on;
The night was fair,
innumerable stars
Studded heaven's dark blue vault;
The eastern
wave grew pale
With the first smile of morn.
The magic car moved
on.
From the swift sweep of wings
The atmosphere in flaming
sparkles flew;
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the
mountain's loftiest peak
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now far
above a rock the utmost verge
Of the wide earth it flew,
The rival of
the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o'er the silver sea.
Far, far
below the chariot's stormy path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,

Tremendous ocean lay.
Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The
pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track,
And the grey light
of morn
Tingeing those fleecy clouds
That cradled in their folds the
infant dawn.
The chariot seemed to fly
Through the abyss of an
immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With

shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing
incessant meteors.
As they approached their goal,
The winged shadows seemed to gather
speed.
The sea no