Shelley's Centenary (4Th August 1892)

Within a narrow span of time,Three princes of the realm of rhyme,At height of youth or manhood's prime,From earth took wing,To join the fellowship sublimeWho, dead, yet sing.

He, first, his earliest wreath who woveOf laurel grown in Latmian grove,Conquered by pain and hapless loveFound calmer home,Roofed by the heaven that glows aboveEternal Rome.

A fierier soul, its own fierce prey,And cumbered with more mortal clay,At Missolonghi flamed away,And left the airReverberating to this dayIts loud despair.

Alike remote from Byron's scorn,And Keats's magic as of mornBursting for ever newly-bornOn forests old,Waking a hoary world forlornWith touch of gold,

Shelley, the cloud-begot, who grewNourished on air and sun and dew,Into that Essence whence he drewHis life and lyreWas fittingly resolved anewThrough wave and fire.

'Twas like his rapid soul! 'Twas meetThat he, who brooked not Time's slow feet,With passage thus abrupt and fleetShould hurry hence,Eager the Great Perhaps to greetWith Why? and Whence?

Impatient of the world's fixed way,He ne'er could suffer God's delay,But all the future in a dayWould build divine,And the whole past in ruins lay,An emptied shrine.

Vain vision! but the glow, the fire,The passion of benign desire,The glorious yearning, lift him higherThan many a soulThat mounts a million paces nigherIts meaner goal.

And power is his, if naught besides,In that thin ether where he rides,Above the roar of human tidesTo ascend afar,Lost in a storm of light that hidesHis dizzy car.

Below, the unhastening world toils on,And here and there are victories won,Some dragon slain, some justice done,While, through the skies,A meteor rushing on the sun,He flares and dies.

But, as he cleaves yon ether clearNotes from the unattempted SphereHe scatters to the enchanted earOf earth's dim throng,Whose dissonance doth more endearThe showering song.

In other shapes than he forecastThe world is moulded: his fierce blast,--His wild assault upon the Past,--These things are vain;Revolt is transient: what must lastIs that pure strain,

Which seems the wandering voices blentOf every virgin element,--A sound from ocean caverns sent,--An airy callFrom the pavilioned firmamentO'erdoming all.

And in this world of worldlings, whereSouls rust in apathy, and ne'erA great emotion shakes the air,And life flags tame,And rare is noble impulse, rareThe impassioned aim,

'Tis no mean fortune to have heardA singer who, if errors blurredHis sight, had yet a spirit stirredBy vast desire,And ardour fledging the swift wordWith plumes of fire.

A creature of impetuous breath,Our torpor deadlier than deathHe knew not; whatsoe'er he saithFlashes with life:He spurreth men, he quickenethTo splendid strife.

And in his gusts of song he bringsWild odours shaken from strange wings,And unfamiliar whisperingsFrom far lips blown,While all the rapturous heart of thingsThrobs through his own,--

His own that from the burning pyreOne who had loved his wind-swept lyreOut of the sharp teeth of the fireUnmolten drew,Beside the sea that in her ireSmote him and slew.