Read Ebook: The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3 by Shelley Percy Bysshe Hutchinson Thomas Editor

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IN HEAVEN.

THE LORD AND THE HOST OF HEAVEN.

ENTER THREE ARCHANGELS.

MEPHISTOPHELES: No, Lord! I find all there, as ever, bad at best. Even I am sorry for man's days of sorrow; I could myself almost give up the pleasure Of plaguing the poor things.

THE LORD: Knowest thou Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES: The Doctor?

THE LORD: Ay; My servant Faust.

MEPHISTOPHELES: What will You bet?--now am sure of winning-- Only, observe You give me full permission To lead him softly on my path.

SCENE 2.--MAY-DAY NIGHT.

THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY.

FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Would you not like a broomstick? As for me I wish I had a good stout ram to ride; For we are still far from the appointed place.

MEPHISTOPHELES: Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal With men. Go straight on, in the Devil's name, Or I shall puff your flickering life out.

FAUST: How The children of the wind rage in the air! With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!

A VOICE: Which way comest thou?

VOICES: And you may now as well take your course on to Hell, Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.

A VOICE: She dropped poison upon me as I passed. Here are the wounds--

SEMICHORUS 2: A thousand steps must a woman take, Where a man but a single spring will make.

VOICES BELOW: With what joy would we fly through the upper sky! We are washed, we are 'nointed, stark naked are we; But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.

VOICES BELOW: Stay, Oh, stay!

BOTH CHORUSES: Some on a ram and some on a prong, On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along; Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.

FAUST : Here!

MEPHISTOPHELES: See yonder, round a many-coloured flame A merry club is huddled altogether: Even with such little people as sit there One would not be alone.

FAUST: What is that yonder?

MEPHISTOPHELES: Mark her well. It is Lilith.

FAUST: Who?

FAUST: There sit a girl and an old woman--they Seem to be tired with pleasure and with play.

THE GIRL: She with apples you desired From Paradise came long ago: With you I feel that if required, Such still within my garden grow.

...

THE GIRL: What does he want then at our ball?

THE GIRL: Then leave off teasing us so.

FAUST: A red mouse in the middle of her singing Sprung from her mouth.

FAUST: Then saw I--

MEPHISTOPHELES: What?

FAUST: Oh, what delight! what woe! I cannot turn My looks from her sweet piteous countenance. How strangely does a single blood-red line, Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife, Adorn her lovely neck!

JUVENILIA.

QUEEN MAB.

A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM, WITH NOTES.

ECRASEZ L'INFAME!--Correspondance de Voltaire.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita solo; juvat integros accedere fonteis; Atque haurire: juvatque novos decerpere flores.

...

Unde prius nulli velarint tempora musae. Primum quod magnis doceo de rebus; et arctis Religionum animos nodis exsolvere pergo.--Lucret. lib. 4.

Dos pon sto, kai kosmon kineso.--Archimedes.

Whose is the love that gleaming through the world, Wards off the poisonous arrow of its scorn? Whose is the warm and partial praise, Virtue's most sweet reward?

QUEEN MAB.

SPIRIT: 'Is there a God?'

NOTES ON QUEEN MAB.

SHELLEY'S NOTES.

The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave.

Beyond our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless orb of fire in the midst of a black concave. The equal diffusion of its light on earth is owing to the refraction of the rays by the atmosphere, and their reflection from other bodies. Light consists either of vibrations propagated through a subtle medium, or of numerous minute particles repelled in all directions from the luminous body. Its velocity greatly exceeds that of any substance with which we are acquainted: observations on the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites have demonstrated that light takes up no more than 8 minutes 7 seconds in passing from the sun to the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 miles.--Some idea may be gained of the immense distance of the fixed stars when it is computed that many years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth.

Whilst round the chariot's way Innumerable systems rolled.

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