ARIEL
Their elemental force had roused to might
Great Nature's child in this her realm supreme,—
From their commingling he had guessed aright
The plenitude of all we know or dream.
Read thou aright his vision and his song,
That this enfranchised spirit of the spheres
May know his name henceforth shall take no wrong,
Outbroadening still yon ocean and these years!
1888.
ARIEL
In Memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Born on the Fourth of August, a. d. 1792
Wert thou on earth to-day, immortal one,
How wouldst thou, in the starlight of thine eld,
The likeness of that morntide look upon
Which men beheld?
How might it move thee, imaged in time's glass,
As when the tomb has kept
Unchanged the face of one who slept
Too soon, yet moulders not, though seasons come and pass?
Has Death a wont to stay the soul no less?
And art thou still what Shelley was erewhile,—
A feeling born of music's restlessness—
A child's swift smile
Between its sobs—a wandering mist that rose
At dawn—a cloud that hung
The Euganéan hills among;
Thy voice, a wind-harp's strain in some enchanted close?
Thyself the wild west wind, O boy divine,
Thou fain wouldst be,—the spirit which in its breath
Wooes yet the seaward ilex and the pine
That wept thy death?
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