THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE. by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Summary, Meaning & Analysis

[Published in part (1-67) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; the remainder (68-70) by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.] A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good) Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, One nightingale in an interfluous wood Satiate the hungry dark with melody;— _5 And as a vale is watered by a flood, Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness—as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, _10 The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Was interfused upon the silentness; The folded roses and the violets pale _15 Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness Of the circumfluous waters,—every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, _20 And every wind of the mute atmosphere, And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, And every bird lulled on its mossy bough, And every silver moth fresh from the grave Which is its cradle—ever from below _25 Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far, To be consumed within the purest glow Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious, as some human lovers are, _30 Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish!—and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, _35 Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion Out of their dreams; harmony became love In every soul but one. ... And so this man returned with axe and saw _40 At evening close from killing the tall treen, The soul of whom by Nature’s gentle law Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green The pavement and the roof of the wild copse, Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene _45 With jagged leaves,—and from the forest tops Singing the winds to sleep—or weeping oft Fast showers of aereal water-drops Into their mother’s bosom, sweet and soft, Nature’s pure tears which have no bitterness;— _50 Around the cradles of the birds aloft They spread themselves into the loveliness Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers Hang like moist clouds:—or, where high branches kiss, Make a green space among the silent bowers, _55 Like a vast fane in a metropolis, Surrounded by the columns and the towers All overwrought with branch-like traceries In which there is religion—and the mute Persuasion of unkindled melodies, _60 Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves, ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain _65 One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again. ... The world is full of Woodmen who expel Love’s gentle Dryads from the haunts of life, And vex the nightingales in every dell. _70 NOTE: _8 —or as a tuberose cj. A.C. Bradley. *** MARENGHI. (This fragment refers to an event told in Sismondi’s “Histoire des Republiques Italiennes”, which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province.—[MRS. SHELLEY’S NOTE, 1824.]) [Published in part (stanzas 7-15.) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824; stanzas 1-28 by W.M. Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. The Boscombe manuscript—evidently a first draft—from which (through Dr. Garnett) Rossetti derived the text of 1870 is now at the Bodleian, and has recently been collated by Mr. C.D. Locock, to whom the enlarged and amended text here printed is owing. The substitution, in title and text, of “Marenghi” for “Mazenghi” (1824) is due to Rossetti. Here as elsewhere in the footnotes B. = the Bodleian manuscript.] 1. Let those who pine in pride or in revenge, Or think that ill for ill should be repaid, Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade, Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn _5 Such bitter faith beside Marenghi’s urn. 2. A massy tower yet overhangs the town, A scattered group of ruined dwellings now... ... 3. Another scene are wise Etruria knew Its second ruin through internal strife _10 And tyrants through the breach of discord threw The chain which binds and kills. As death to life, As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom’s foison. 4. In Pisa’s church a cup of sculptured gold _15 Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn: A Sacrament more holy ne’er of old Etrurians mingled mid the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests, when... 5. And reconciling factions wet their lips _20 With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit Undarkened by their country’s last eclipse... ... 6. Was Florence the liberticide? that band Of free and glorious brothers who had planted, Like a green isle mid Aethiopian sand, _25 A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted Of many impious faiths—wise, just—do they, Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants’ prey? 7. O foster-nurse of man’s abandoned glory, Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour; _30 Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender:— The light-invested angel Poesy Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee. 8. And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught _35 By loftiest meditations; marble knew The sculptor’s fearless soul—and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom grew. And more than all, heroic, just, sublime, Thou wart among the false...was this thy crime? _40 9. Yes; and on Pisa’s marble walls the twine Of direst weeds hangs garlanded—the snake Inhabits its wrecked palaces;—in thine A beast of subtler venom now doth make Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown, _45 And thus thy victim’s fate is as thine own. 10. The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare, And love and freedom blossom but to wither; And good and ill like vines entangled are, So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;— _50 Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi’s sake. 10a. [Albert] Marenghi was a Florentine; If he had wealth, or children, or a wife Or friends, [or farm] or cherished thoughts which twine _55 The sights and sounds of home with life’s own life Of these he was despoiled and Florence sent... ... 11. No record of his crime remains in story, But if the morning bright as evening shone, _60 It was some high and holy deed, by glory Pursued into forgetfulness, which won From the blind crowd he made secure and free The patriot’s meed, toil, death, and infamy. 12. For when by sound of trumpet was declared A price upon his life, and there was set _65 A penalty of blood on all who shared So much of water with him as might wet His lips, which speech divided not—he went Alone, as you may guess, to banishment. 13. Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast, He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, _70 Month after month endured; it was a feast Whene’er he found those globes of deep-red gold Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear, Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. _75 14. And in the roofless huts of vast morasses, Deserted by the fever-stricken serf, All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf, And where the huge and speckled aloe made, _80 Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,— 15. He housed himself. There is a point of strand Near Vado’s tower and town; and on one side The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, _85 And on the other, creeps eternally, Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea. 16. Here the earth’s breath is pestilence, and few But things whose nature is at war with life— Snakes and ill worms—endure its mortal dew. The trophies of the clime’s victorious strife— _90 And ringed horns which the buffalo did wear, And the wolf’s dark gray scalp who tracked him there. 17. And at the utmost point...stood there The relics of a reed-inwoven cot, _95 Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was hot When he was cold. The birds that were his grave Fell dead after their feast in Vado’s wave. 18. There must have burned within Marenghi’s breast _100 That fire, more warm and bright than life and hope, (Which to the martyr makes his dungeon... More joyous than free heaven’s majestic cope To his oppressor), warring with decay,— Or he could ne’er have lived years, day by day. _105 19. Nor was his state so lone as you might think. He had tamed every newt and snake and toad, And every seagull which sailed down to drink Those freshes ere the death-mist went abroad. And each one, with peculiar talk and play, _110 Wiled, not untaught, his silent time away. 20. And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at night Came licking with blue tongues his veined feet; And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, In many entangled figures quaint and sweet _115 To some enchanted music they would dance— Until they vanished at the first moon-glance. 21. He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed The summer dew-globes in the golden dawn; And, ere the hoar-frost languished, he could read _120 Its pictured path, as on bare spots of lawn Its delicate brief touch in silver weaves The likeness of the wood’s remembered leaves. 22. And many a fresh Spring morn would he awaken— While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron _125 Quivering in crimson fire, the peaks unshaken Of mountains and blue isles which did environ With air-clad crags that plain of land and sea,— And feel ... liberty. 23. And in the moonless nights when the dun ocean _130 Heaved underneath wide heaven, star-impearled, Starting from dreams... Communed with the immeasurable world; And felt his life beyond his limbs dilated, Till his mind grew like that it contemplated. _135 24. His food was the wild fig and strawberry; The milky pine-nuts which the autumn-blast Shakes into the tall grass; or such small fry As from the sea by winter-storms are cast; And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found _140 Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground. 25. And so were kindled powers and thoughts which made His solitude less dark. When memory came (For years gone by leave each a deepening shade), His spirit basked in its internal flame,— _145 As, when the black storm hurries round at night, The fisher basks beside his red firelight. 26. Yet human hopes and cares and faiths and errors, Like billows unawakened by the wind, Slept in Marenghi still; but that all terrors, _150 Weakness, and doubt, had withered in his mind. His couch... ... 27. And, when he saw beneath the sunset’s planet A black ship walk over the crimson ocean,— Its pennon streaming on the blasts that fan it, _155 Its sails and ropes all tense and without motion, Like the dark ghost of the unburied even Striding athwart the orange-coloured heaven,— 28. The thought of his own kind who made the soul Which sped that winged shape through night and day,— _160 The thought of his own country... ... NOTES: _3 Who B.; Or 1870. _6 Marenghi’s 1870; Mazenghi’s B. _7 town 1870; sea B. _8 ruined 1870; squalid B. (‘the whole line is cancelled,’ Locock). _11 threw 1870; cancelled, B. _17 A Sacrament more B.; At Sacrament: more 1870. _18 mid B.; with 1870. _19 forests when... B.; forests. 1870. _23, _24 that band Of free and glorious brothers who had 1870; omitted, B. _25 a 1870; one B. _27 wise, just—do they 1870; omitted, B. _28 Does 1870; Doth B. prey 1870; spoil B. _33 angel 1824; Herald [?] B. _34 to welcome thee 1824; cancelled for... by thee B. _42 direst 1824; Desert B. _45 sits amid 1824 amid cancelled for soils (?) B. _53-_57 Albert...sent B.; omitted 1824, 1870. Albert cancelled B.: Pietro is the correct name. _53 Marenghi]Mazenghi B. _55 farm doubtful: perh. fame (Locock). _62 he 1824; thus B. _70 Amid the mountains 1824; Mid desert mountains [?] B. _71 toil, and cold]cold and toil editions 1824, 1839. _92, _93 And... there B. (see Editor’s Note); White bones, and locks of dun and yellow hair, And ringed horns which buffaloes did wear— 1870. _94 at the utmost point 1870; cancelled for when (where?) B. _95 reed B.; weed 1870. _99 after B.; upon 1870. _100 burned within Marenghi’s breast B.; lived within Marenghi’s heart 1870. _101 and B.; or 1870. _103 free B.; the 1870. _109 freshes B.; omitted, 1870. _118 by 1870; with B. _119 dew-globes B.; dewdrops 1870. _120 languished B.; vanished 1870. _121 path, as on [bare] B.; footprints, as on 1870. _122 silver B.; silence 1870. _130 And in the moonless nights 1870; cancelled, B. dun B.; dim 1870. _131 Heaved 1870; cancelled, B. wide B.; the 1870. star-impearled B.; omitted, 1870. _132 Starting from dreams 1870; cancelled for He B. _137 autumn B.; autumnal 1870. _138 or B.; and 1870. _155 pennon B.; pennons 1870. _158 athwart B.; across 1870. ***

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