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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  Earth, Ocean, Air

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

I. Nature’s Influence

Earth, Ocean, Air

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

From “Alastor”; Preface

  • “Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.”—Confessions of Saint Augustine.


  • EARTH, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood!

    If our great mother has imbued my soul

    With aught of natural piety to feel

    Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;

    If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,

    With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,

    And solemn midnight’s tingling silentness;

    If autumn’s hollow sighs in the sere wood,

    And winter robing with pure snow and crowns

    Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;

    If spring’s voluptuous pantings when she breathes

    Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;

    If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast

    I consciously have injured, but still loved

    And cherished these my kindred; then forgive

    This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw

    No portion of your wonted favor now!

    Mother of this unfathomable world!

    Favor my solemn song, for I have loved

    Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched

    Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,

    And my heart ever gazes on the depth

    Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed

    In charnels and on coffins, where black death

    Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,

    Hoping to still these obstinate questionings

    Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,

    Thy messenger, to render up the tale

    Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,

    When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,

    Like an inspired and desperate alchemist

    Staking his very life on some dark hope,

    Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks

    With my most innocent love, until strange tears

    Uniting with those breathless kisses, made

    Such magic as compels the charmèd night

    To render up thy charge: and, tho’ ne’er yet

    Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,

    Enough from incommunicable dream,

    And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,

    Has shone within me, that serenely now

    And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre

    Suspended in a solitary dome

    Of some mysterious and deserted fane,

    I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain

    May modulate with murmurs of the air,

    And motions of the forests and the sea

    And voice of living beings, and woven hymns

    Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.