DEMOGORGON

Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth With wonder, as it gazes upon thee;

Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift birth

Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony :

THE MOON

I hear: I am a leaf shaken by thee.

DEMOGORGON

Ye kings of suns and stars, Dæmons and Gods,
Ethereal Dominations, who possess
Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes
Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness:

A VOICE (from above)

Our great Republic hears: we are blessed, and bless.

DEMOGORGON

Ye happy dead, whom beams of brightest verse
Are clouds to hide, not colors to portray,
Whether your nature is that universe

Which once ye saw and suffered

A VOICE FROM BENEATH

Or, as they

Whom we have left, we change and pass away.

DEMOGORGON

Ye elemental Genii, who have homes

From man's high mind even to the central stone

Of sullen lead; from Heaven's star-fretted domes To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on:

A CONFUSED VOICE

We hear: thy words waken Oblivion.

DEMOGORGON

Spirits, whose homes are flesh; ye beasts and birds,

Ye worms and fish; ye living leaves and buds ; Lightning and wind; and ye untamable herds, Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes:

A VOICE

Thy voice to us is wind among still woods.

DEMOGORGON

Man, who wert once a despot and a slave,
A dupe and a deceiver, a decay,

A traveller from the cradle to the
grave
Through the dim night of this immortal day:

ALL

Speak: thy strong words may never pass away.

DEMOGORGON

This is the day which down the void abysm

At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,

And Conquest is dragged captive through the

deep;

Love, from its awful throne of patient power

In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance— These are the seals of that most firm assurance Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length,

These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;

This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!

559 dread, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || dead, Shelley, 1820.

THE CENCI

A TRAGEDY

IN FIVE ACTS