Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Percy Bysshe Shelley. 17921822606. The Invitation
BEST and brightest, come away! | |
Fairer far than this fair Day, | |
Which, like thee to those in sorrow, | |
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow | |
To the rough Year just awake | 5 |
In its cradle on the brake. | |
The brightest hour of unborn Spring, | |
Through the winter wandering, | |
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn | |
To hoar February born. | 10 |
Bending from heaven, in azure mirth, | |
It kiss’d the forehead of the Earth; | |
And smiled upon the silent sea; | |
And bade the frozen streams be free; | |
And waked to music all their fountains; | 15 |
And breathed upon the frozen mountains; | |
And like a prophetess of May | |
Strew’d flowers upon the barren way, | |
Making the wintry world appear | |
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. | 20 |
Away, away, from men and towns, | |
To the wild wood and the downs— | |
To the silent wilderness | |
Where the soul need not repress | |
Its music lest it should not find | 25 |
An echo in another’s mind, | |
While the touch of Nature’s art | |
Harmonizes heart to heart. | |
I leave this notice on my door | |
For each accustom’d visitor:— | 30 |
‘I am gone into the fields | |
To take what this sweet hour yields. | |
Reflection, you may come to-morrow; | |
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. | |
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,— | 35 |
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,— | |
I will pay you in the grave,— | |
Death will listen to your stave. | |
Expectation too, be off! | |
To-day is for itself enough. | 40 |
Hope, in pity mock not Woe | |
With smiles, nor follow where I go; | |
Long having lived on your sweet food, | |
At length I find one moment’s good | |
After long pain: with all your love, | 45 |
This you never told me of.’ | |
Radiant Sister of the Day, | |
Awake! arise! and come away! | |
To the wild woods and the plains; | |
And the pools where winter rains | 50 |
Image all their roof of leaves; | |
Where the pine its garland weaves | |
Of sapless green and ivy dun | |
Round stems that never kiss the sun; | |
Where the lawns and pastures be, | 55 |
And the sandhills of the sea; | |
Where the melting hoar-frost wets | |
The daisy-star that never sets, | |
And wind-flowers, and violets | |
Which yet join not scent to hue, | 60 |
Crown the pale year weak and new; | |
When the night is left behind | |
In the deep east, dun and blind, | |
And the blue noon is over us, | |
And the multitudinous | 65 |
Billows murmur at our feet | |
Where the earth and ocean meet, | |
And all things seem only one | |
In the universal sun. |