'Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on -
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
He is ever drifted on
O'er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love's impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe'er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship's smile, in love's caress?
Then 'twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December's bough.
On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O'er the billows of the gale;
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp and fratricides:
Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.
Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
'Mid the mountains Euganean
I stood listening to the paean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mist they soar
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day's azure eyes
Ocean's nursling, Venice, lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sea-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o'er the starlight deep,
Lead a rapid masque of death
O'er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aereal gold,
As I now behold them here,
Would imagine not they were
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms,
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch's hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou ldering:
But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence and shake
From the Celtic Anarch's hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
If not, perish thou and they! -
Clouds which stain truth's rising day
By her sun consumed away -
Earth can spare ye; while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
From your dust new nations spring
With more kindly blossoming.
Perish -let there only be
Floating o'er thy heartless sea
As the garment of thy sky
Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time,
Which scarce hides thy visage wan; -
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
Of the sons of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O'er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror: -what though yet
Poesy's unfailing River,
Which through Albion winds forever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet's grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?
As the ghost of Homer clings
Round Scamander's wasting springs;
As divinest Shakespeare's might
Fills Avon and the world with light
Like omniscient power which he
Imaged 'mid mortality;
As the love from Petrarch's urn,
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly; -so thou art,
Mighty spirit -so shall be
The City that did refuge thee.
Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that gray cloud
Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
'Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
And the sickle to the sword
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region's foison,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
To destruction's harvest-home:
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but 'tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot's rage, the slave's revenge.
Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,
Till Death cried, "I win, I win!"
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
When the destined years were o'er,
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.
She smiled so as Sin only can,
And since that time, ay, long before,
Both have ruled from shore to shore, -
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
And as changes follow Time.
In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world's might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by Tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
In the depth of piny dells,
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
O Tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth; ay, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
Noon descends around me now:
'Tis the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vapourous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of Heaven's profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
Underneath the leaves unsodden
Where the infant Frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song, -
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from Heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset's radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like winged winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of Life and Agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O'er that gulf: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the Spirits of the Air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing Paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
Editor 1 Interpretation
Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills: A Masterpiece of Romantic Poetry
Oh, what a beautiful poem! Have you ever read "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" by Percy Bysshe Shelley? If you haven't, you are missing a masterpiece of romantic poetry that deserves your attention. This poem is one of the most significant works of Shelley, and it's full of emotions, imagery, and metaphors that will transport you to the beautiful Euganean Hills in Italy. Let's dive into it and discover its secrets.
The Background Story
Before we start analyzing the poem, let's talk about its background story. Shelley wrote "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" in the summer of 1818 during his stay in Italy with his wife, Mary Shelley. The Euganean Hills are a group of volcanic hills located near Padua, and Shelley was drawn to them by their natural beauty and their historical significance. The poem is a tribute to the hills, but it's also a reflection of Shelley's state of mind at the time. He was deeply affected by the death of his son, William, and he was struggling with his beliefs and his place in the world. This poem is a way for him to connect with nature and find solace in its beauty.
The Poem Analysis
Now that we know a bit about the background story let's jump into the poem analysis. "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a 68 line poem divided into 11 stanzas. The poem doesn't have a specific rhyme scheme, but it's rich in imagery and metaphors that create a vivid picture of the landscape.
Stanza 1
The poem starts with a beautiful description of the Euganean Hills. Shelley uses words like "purple," "crimson," and "gold" to describe the colors of the hills, and he also mentions the "silent sky" and the "verdurous glooms" that surround them. This stanza sets the tone for the rest of the poem and creates a sense of peace and tranquility.
Stanza 2
In this stanza, Shelley personifies the hills and describes them as "giants." He compares them to the "mighty dead" and says that they are "pillars of the earth." This metaphor creates a sense of grandeur and veneration for the hills.
Stanza 3
Here, Shelley starts to reflect on the transience of life. He compares human life to the "meteor's flight" and says that "the green hills are hoary with the fleet / Of a thousand years." This imagery creates a contrast between the fleeting nature of human life and the enduring nature of the hills.
Stanza 4
In this stanza, Shelley continues his reflection on life and death. He says that the hills have outlived many generations of people, and they will continue to exist long after he is gone. He also mentions the "mournful truth" that everything in life is impermanent.
Stanza 5
Here, Shelley uses a metaphor to describe the hills as a "censer." He says that the hills emit a fragrance that is "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes." This metaphor creates a sense of beauty and sensuality.
Stanza 6
In this stanza, Shelley reflects on the power of nature. He says that the hills are "Nature's holy shrine" and that they have the power to heal and restore the soul. He also mentions the "fountains of divine philosophy" that flow from them.
Stanza 7
Here, Shelley uses a metaphor to describe the hills as a "temple." He says that the hills are a place of worship and that they inspire reverence and awe. He also mentions the "music of the rolling world" that can be heard in their silence.
Stanza 8
In this stanza, Shelley reflects on the beauty of the landscape. He describes the "olive-groves" and the "vineyards," and he also mentions the "laughing flowers" that grow in the fields. This imagery creates a sense of joy and happiness.
Stanza 9
Here, Shelley reflects on the beauty of the sky. He describes the "azure air" and the "crimson cloud" that can be seen over the hills. He also mentions the "burning stars" that shine in the night sky.
Stanza 10
In this stanza, Shelley reflects on the beauty of the soul. He says that the hills have the power to awaken the soul and that they can inspire us to live a better life. He also mentions the "light of love" that can be found in the hills.
Stanza 11
In the final stanza, Shelley reflects on the transience of life once again. He says that he will leave the hills and return to the "world of strife," but he will always remember the beauty and the peace that he found there. He also says that the hills will continue to exist long after he is gone.
The Interpretation
"Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a poem that can be interpreted in many ways. On one hand, it's a tribute to the natural beauty of the Euganean Hills, and it's a reflection of Shelley's love for nature. On the other hand, it's a reflection of Shelley's state of mind at the time. He was struggling with his beliefs and his place in the world, and this poem was a way for him to find solace and comfort in nature.
The poem also reflects some of the key themes of Romanticism. The Romantic poets believed in the power of nature to heal and restore the soul, and they often used nature as a way to express their emotions and their beliefs. "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a perfect example of this, as Shelley uses the landscape to reflect on life, death, and the beauty of the soul.
Conclusion
In conclusion, "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a masterpiece of romantic poetry that deserves to be read and appreciated. It's a beautiful tribute to the natural beauty of the Euganean Hills, and it's also a reflection of Shelley's state of mind at the time. The poem is full of imagery, metaphors, and emotions that create a vivid picture of the landscape and inspire reverence and awe. If you haven't read this poem yet, do yourself a favor and read it now. You won't regret it!
Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation
Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills: A Masterpiece of Romantic Poetry
Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest poets of the Romantic era, was known for his revolutionary ideas and his passionate love for nature. His poem "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a perfect example of his poetic genius and his deep connection with the natural world.
The Euganean Hills, located in the Veneto region of northern Italy, were a source of inspiration for Shelley during his stay in Italy. The poem was written in 1818, during his travels in the region, and was published in 1820 in his collection "Prometheus Unbound."
The poem is a lyrical meditation on the beauty and power of nature, and the human desire for freedom and transcendence. It is divided into three stanzas, each with its own distinct theme and mood.
The first stanza sets the scene and establishes the tone of the poem. Shelley describes the hills as "green and silent," and the air as "soft and low." He evokes a sense of peace and tranquility, as if the hills were a sanctuary from the noise and chaos of the world.
But this idyllic scene is not without its darker undertones. Shelley notes that the hills are "the graves of many men," and that "the earth outlasts them, and its bosom bears / Ancestral skeletons." This juxtaposition of life and death, of beauty and decay, is a recurring theme in Shelley's poetry.
The second stanza shifts the focus to the human desire for freedom and transcendence. Shelley describes the hills as a place where "the spirit of the place / Which reigns here has forsworn the human race." He suggests that the hills are inhabited by a supernatural force, a "spirit" that is beyond human understanding.
This spirit is associated with the idea of freedom and transcendence. Shelley writes that "the soul of man is like the water," always seeking to rise above its earthly limitations. He compares the human desire for freedom to the "fountain" that "leaps up to the light / From the dark earth." This image of the fountain represents the human desire for transcendence, for a higher state of being.
The third stanza brings the poem to a powerful conclusion. Shelley describes the hills as a place of "eternal calm," where "the spirit of the spot / Might well be felt." He suggests that the hills are a source of spiritual renewal, a place where the human soul can find peace and transcendence.
But this spiritual renewal is not without its challenges. Shelley notes that "the mind which is immortal makes itself / Requital for its good or evil thoughts." He suggests that the human mind is responsible for its own destiny, and that it must choose between good and evil.
The poem ends with a powerful image of the human soul rising above its earthly limitations. Shelley writes that "the mind's abysses are hell," but that "its heaven is in the fountain of our tears." He suggests that the human soul can find redemption through suffering, and that it can rise above its earthly limitations through the power of love and compassion.
In conclusion, "Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills" is a masterpiece of Romantic poetry. It combines a deep love of nature with a profound understanding of the human condition. Shelley's lyrical meditation on the beauty and power of nature, and the human desire for freedom and transcendence, is a testament to his poetic genius and his revolutionary spirit.
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