The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/An Allegory
AN ALLEGORY
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]
I
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt 5
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt 5
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.
II
And many pass[1] it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy . . .
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead 10
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine;—these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go. 15
And many pass[1] it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy . . .
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead 10
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine;—these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go. 15
- ↑ An Allegory.—8 pass Rossetti; passed edd. 1824, 1839.