SCENE 2.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
CYPRIAN:
O memory! permit it not
That the tyrant of my thought
Be another soul that still
Holds dominion o’er the will,
That would refuse, but can no more, _5
To bend, to tremble, and adore.
Vain idolatry!—I saw,
And gazing, became blind with error;
Weak ambition, which the awe
Of her presence bound to terror! _10
So beautiful she was—and I,
Between my love and jealousy,
Am so convulsed with hope and fear,
Unworthy as it may appear;—
So bitter is the life I live, _15
That, hear me, Hell! I now would give
To thy most detested spirit
My soul, for ever to inherit,
To suffer punishment and pine,
So this woman may be mine. _20
Hear’st thou, Hell! dost thou reject it?
My soul is offered!
DAEMON (UNSEEN):
I accept it.
[TEMPEST, WITH THUNDER AND LIGHTNING.]
CYPRIAN:
What is this? ye heavens for ever pure,
At once intensely radiant and obscure!
Athwart the aethereal halls _25
The lightning’s arrow and the thunder-balls
The day affright,
As from the horizon round,
Burst with earthquake sound,
In mighty torrents the electric fountains;— _30
Clouds quench the sun, and thunder-smoke
Strangles the air, and fire eclipses Heaven.
Philosophy, thou canst not even
Compel their causes underneath thy yoke:
From yonder clouds even to the waves below _35
The fragments of a single ruin choke
Imagination’s flight;
For, on flakes of surge, like feathers light,
The ashes of the desolation, cast
Upon the gloomy blast, _40
Tell of the footsteps of the storm;
And nearer, see, the melancholy form
Of a great ship, the outcast of the sea,
Drives miserably!
And it must fly the pity of the port, _45
Or perish, and its last and sole resort
Is its own raging enemy.
The terror of the thrilling cry
Was a fatal prophecy
Of coming death, who hovers now _50
Upon that shattered prow,
That they who die not may be dying still.
And not alone the insane elements
Are populous with wild portents,
But that sad ship is as a miracle _55
Of sudden ruin, for it drives so fast
It seems as if it had arrayed its form
With the headlong storm.
It strikes—I almost feel the shock,—
It stumbles on a jagged rock,— _60
Sparkles of blood on the white foam are cast.
[A TEMPEST.]
ALL EXCLAIM [WITHIN]:
We are all lost!
DAEMON [WITHIN]:
Now from this plank will I
Pass to the land and thus fulfil my scheme.
CYPRIAN:
As in contempt of the elemental rage
A man comes forth in safety, while the ship’s _65
Great form is in a watery eclipse
Obliterated from the Oceans page,
And round its wreck the huge sea-monsters sit,
A horrid conclave, and the whistling wave
Is heaped over its carcase, like a grave. _70
[THE DAEMON ENTERS, AS ESCAPED FROM THE SEA.]
DAEMON [ASIDE]:
It was essential to my purposes
To wake a tumult on the sapphire ocean,
That in this unknown form I might at length
Wipe out the blot of the discomfiture
Sustained upon the mountain, and assail _75
With a new war the soul of Cyprian,
Forging the instruments of his destruction
Even from his love and from his wisdom.—O
Beloved earth, dear mother, in thy bosom
I seek a refuge from the monster who _80
Precipitates itself upon me.
CYPRIAN:
Friend,
Collect thyself; and be the memory
Of thy late suffering, and thy greatest sorrow
But as a shadow of the past,—for nothing
Beneath the circle of the moon, but flows _85
And changes, and can never know repose.
DAEMON:
And who art thou, before whose feet my fate
Has prostrated me?
CYPRIAN:
One who, moved with pity,
Would soothe its stings.
DAEMON:
Oh, that can never be!
No solace can my lasting sorrows find. _90
CYPRIAN:
Wherefore?
DAEMON:
Because my happiness is lost.
Yet I lament what has long ceased to be
The object of desire or memory,
And my life is not life.
CYPRIAN:
Now, since the fury
Of this earthquaking hurricane is still, _95
And the crystalline Heaven has reassumed
Its windless calm so quickly, that it seems
As if its heavy wrath had been awakened
Only to overwhelm that vessel,—speak,
Who art thou, and whence comest thou?
DAEMON:
Far more _100
My coming hither cost, than thou hast seen
Or I can tell. Among my misadventures
This shipwreck is the least. Wilt thou hear?
CYPRIAN:
Speak.
DAEMON:
Since thou desirest, I will then unveil
Myself to thee;—for in myself I am _105
A world of happiness and misery;
This I have lost, and that I must lament
Forever. In my attributes I stood
So high and so heroically great,
In lineage so supreme, and with a genius _110
Which penetrated with a glance the world
Beneath my feet, that, won by my high merit,
A king—whom I may call the King of kings,
Because all others tremble in their pride
Before the terrors of His countenance, _115
In His high palace roofed with brightest gems
Of living light—call them the stars of Heaven—
Named me His counsellor. But the high praise
Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose
In mighty competition, to ascend _120
His seat and place my foot triumphantly
Upon His subject thrones. Chastised, I know
The depth to which ambition falls; too mad
Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now
Repentance of the irrevocable deed:— _125
Therefore I chose this ruin, with the glory
Of not to be subdued, before the shame
Of reconciling me with Him who reigns
By coward cession.—Nor was I alone,
Nor am I now, nor shall I be alone; _130
And there was hope, and there may still be hope,
For many suffrages among His vassals
Hailed me their lord and king, and many still
Are mine, and many more, perchance shall be.
Thus vanquished, though in fact victorious, _135
I left His seat of empire, from mine eye
Shooting forth poisonous lightning, while my words
With inauspicious thunderings shook Heaven,
Proclaiming vengeance, public as my wrong,
And imprecating on His prostrate slaves _140
Rapine, and death, and outrage. Then I sailed
Over the mighty fabric of the world,—
A pirate ambushed in its pathless sands,
A lynx crouched watchfully among its caves
And craggy shores; and I have wandered over _145
The expanse of these wide wildernesses
In this great ship, whose bulk is now dissolved
In the light breathings of the invisible wind,
And which the sea has made a dustless ruin,
Seeking ever a mountain, through whose forests _150
I seek a man, whom I must now compel
To keep his word with me. I came arrayed
In tempest, and although my power could well
Bridle the forest winds in their career,
For other causes I forbore to soothe _155
Their fury to Favonian gentleness;
I could and would not;
[ASIDE.]
(thus I wake in him
A love of magic art). Let not this tempest,
Nor the succeeding calm excite thy wonder;
For by my art the sun would turn as pale _160
As his weak sister with unwonted fear;
And in my wisdom are the orbs of Heaven
Written as in a record; I have pierced
The flaming circles of their wondrous spheres
And know them as thou knowest every corner _165
Of this dim spot. Let it not seem to thee
That I boast vainly; wouldst thou that I work
A charm over this waste and savage wood,
This Babylon of crags and aged trees,
Filling its leafy coverts with a horror _170
Thrilling and strange? I am the friendless guest
Of these wild oaks and pines—and as from thee
I have received the hospitality
Of this rude place, I offer thee the fruit
Of years of toil in recompense; whate’er _175
Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought
As object of desire, that shall be thine.
...
And thenceforth shall so firm an amity
’Twixt thee and me be, that neither Fortune,
The monstrous phantom which pursues success, _180
That careful miser, that free prodigal,
Who ever alternates, with changeful hand,
Evil and good, reproach and fame; nor Time,
That lodestar of the ages, to whose beam
The winged years speed o’er the intervals _185
Of their unequal revolutions; nor
Heaven itself, whose beautiful bright stars
Rule and adorn the world, can ever make
The least division between thee and me,
Since now I find a refuge in thy favour. _190
NOTES:
_146 wide glassy wildernesses Rossetti.
_150 Seeking forever cj. Forman.
_154 forest]fiercest cj. Rossetti.