ANOTHER VERSION OF THE SAME.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870,
from the Trelawny manuscript of Edward Williams’s play, “The Promise:
or, A Year, a Month, and a Day”.]
BOYS SING:
Night! with all thine eyes look down!
Darkness! weep thy holiest dew!
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Haste, coy hour! and quench all light, _5
Lest eyes see their own delight!
Haste, swift hour! and thy loved flight
Oft renew!
GIRLS SING:
Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy stars! permit no wrong! _10
And return, to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, ere it be long!
O joy! O fear! there is not one
Of us can guess what may be done
In the absence of the sun:— _15
Come along!
BOYS:
Oh! linger long, thou envious eastern lamp
In the damp
Caves of the deep!
GIRLS:
Nay, return, Vesper! urge thy lazy car! _20
Swift unbar
The gates of Sleep!
CHORUS:
The golden gate of Sleep unbar,
When Strength and Beauty, met together,
Kindle their image, like a star _25
In a sea of glassy weather.
May the purple mist of love
Round them rise, and with them move,
Nourishing each tender gem
Which, like flowers, will burst from them. _30
As the fruit is to the tree
May their children ever be!
***