PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL
BEAUTY
I
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats though unseen amongst us, — visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening,
Like clouds in starlight widely spread,
Like memory of music fled, —
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer of its mystery.
II
Spirit of BEAUTY, that doth consecrate
With thine own hues all thou doest shine upon
Of human thought or form, — where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not forever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom, why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
III
No voice from some sublimer world hath
ever
To sage or poet these responses given;
Therefore the name of God and ghosts and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells — whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone — like mist o'er mountains driven,
Or music by the night wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
IV
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like
clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
Thou messenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes,
Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame,
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not — lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.
V
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts,
and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed,
I was not heard, I saw them not;
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of buds and blossoming, —
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
VI
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow?
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight
Outwatched with me the envious night;
They know that never joy illumed my brow
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery,
That thou, O awful LOVELINESS,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
VII
The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past — there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been.
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm — to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.
(1816)
Source: http://www.uv.es/~fores/poesia/hymnintellbeauty.html
JOHN
KEATS
Source:
SLEEP
AND POETRY
[…]
O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then will I pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually
Taste their pure fountains. First the realm I'll pass
Of Flora, and old Pan: sleep in the grass,
Feed upon apples red, and strawberries,
And choose each pleasure that my fancy sees;
Catch the white-handed nymphs in shady places,
To woo sweet kisses from averted faces —
Play with their fingers, touch their shoulders white
Into a pretty shrinking with a bite
As hard as lips can make it, till, agreed,
A lovely tale of human life we'll read.
And one will teach a tame dove how it best
May fan the cool air gently o'er my rest;
Another, bending o'er her nimble tread,
Will set a green robe floating round her head,
And still will dance with ever varied ease,
Smiling upon the flowers and the trees:
Another will entice me on, and on
Through almond blossoms and rich cinnamon;
Till in the bosom of a leafy world
We rest in silence, like two gems upcurled
In the recesses of a pearly shell.
And can I ever bid these joys farewell?
Yes, I must pass them for a nobler life,
Where I may find the agonies, the strife
Of human hearts — for lo! I see afar,
O'er-sailing the blue cragginess, a car
And steeds with streamy manes — the charioteer
Looks out upon the winds with glorious fear:
[…]
The charioteer with wondrous gesture talks
To the trees and mountains; and there soon appear
Shapes of delight, of mystery, and fear,
Passing along before a dusky space
Made by some mighty oaks: as they would chase
Some ever-fleeting music on they sweep.
Lo! how they murmur, laugh, and smile, and weep —
Some with upholden hand and mouth severe;
Some with their faces muffled to the ear
Between their arms; some, clear in youthful bloom,
Go glad and smilingly athwart the gloom;
Some looking back, and some with upward gaze;
Yes, thousands in a thousand different ways
Flit onward —now a lovely wreath of girls
Dancing their sleek hair into tangled curls;
And now broad wings. Most awfully intent
The driver of those steeds is forward bent,
And seems to listen: O that I might know
All that he writes with such a hurrying glow.
The visions are all fled — the car is fled
Into the light of heaven, and in their stead
A sense of real things comes doubly strong,
And, like a muddy stream, would bear along
My soul to nothingness: but I will strive
Against all doubtings, and will keep alive
The thought of that same chariot, and the strange
Journey it went.
[…]
(1816)
(vv. 96-128, 136-162)
Source: http://www.uv.es/~fores/poesia/keatspoems1817.html
(http://www.photoaspects.com/chesil/keats/keats5.html)
Throughout
these two poems “Hymn to intellectual Beauty” and “Sleep and Poetry”, we can observe
two different ways of living poetry and only one reason to write poetry.
To
begin with, both poets admit that the world where they are living is not good
enough. For example, Shelley mentions in the “Hymn to the intellectual Beauty”
that his world is “This dim vast vale of
tears” (line 17) and furthermore he asked that intellectual Beauty “wouldst
free this world from its dark slavery” (line 69).
Meanwhile
Keats declares in his poem that he is a writer. For example, Keats says “For ten years, that I may overwhelm myself
in poesy” (lines 1 and 2). And to refer to his world and his life he
announces in lines 31 and 32 “I must pass
them for a nobler life, where I may find the agonies, the strife of human
hearts”.
Personally,
I think that the reason why both poets write poetry is to make their life and
also everything that surrounds them, more understandable and more comfortable.
And moreover, I think that they are feeling a void in their lives, so, they are
searching for a reason that explains what really is happening and so, their
poetry is the only way to face up to reality and all their unhappiness, to find
out all their doubts.
Another
issue that has surprised me is that both poets talk about themselves. For
instance, Shelley mentions that when he was a child he looked for ghosts and at
this age he had just wondered what the sense of life was, and at that moment
the shadow of that intellectual Beauty fell on him.
In
the meantime, Keats tells us that he has been writing poetry for ten years and
also at the end of the poem he says “A
sense of real thing comes doubly strong, and like a muddy stream, would bear
along my soul to nothingness: but I will strive against all doubtings”
(lines from 55 to 58).
From
my point of view, these poets want to be understood by all people and so, they
try to make the reader feel as themselves, and finally they want to move the
reader.
However,
Shelley and Keats do not live and interpret poetry in the same way, each one has
his particular and individual meaning and sense of poetry.
To
begin with, Shelley uses poetry because he has been in contact with the shadow
of that intellectual Beauty and that’s why he has to talk about and thing about
the life itself, so, he tries to look for an answer that makes him understand
life and even better death, fear and dream, love and hate and finally,
despondency and hope.
As
we can see, Shelley adopts a realistic stance because he is worried about
things that he is living and others that he will live in the near future. Thus,
to express his fears and doubts he uses a dark and a negative vocabulary, such
as “awful shadow” (line 1); “dim vast vale of tears” (line 17); “ghost” (line 27); “like darkness to a dying flame” (line 45); “the grave should be, like life and fear, a dark reality” (lines 46
and 47); “cave and ruin” (line 50); “the phantoms of a thousand hours” (line
64); “darks slavery” (line 70); “awful loveliness” (line 71).
On
the other hand, Keats uses poetry to escape from reality, that is, he imagines
an ideal world away from reality. He describes a fantastic nature where there
are nymphs; “pure fountains”; where he can sleep in the grass; marvellous
fruits such as apples red and strawberries… Instead of Shelley, Keats uses a
positive vocabulary to refer to that nature and to the nymphs, for example, “white-handed nymphs” (line 10); “shady places” (line 10); “sweet kisses” (line 11). How Keats says,
he is trying to show us “a lovely tale of
human life” (line 15), where the beauty is the real truth, the pains are
agonies and the poetry is to show the truth and the beauty. That’s why, Keats
also mentions the dark reality that surrounds him and so, he uses such words as
“agonies” (line 29); “fear” (line 33); “mystery” (line 36).
As
far as the structure of both poems is concerned, we observe that Shelley’s poem
is well structured, it is divided into eight stanzas with twelve verses each
one. And the rhyme of the first stanza is ABBAACCBDDEE, but this structure is
the same in the other stanzas.
However,
Keats´ poem is not as well-structured as Shelley’s poem, he does not use lots
of stanzas, and he prefers to write as if it was a story. Nevertheless, this
part of the poem is divided in three stanzas, but they don’t have the same
number of verses.
To
conclude, I have enjoyed a lot reading these two poems, because they have made
me think about my real world and above all, about my life. And my world is not
much better than Shelley’s or Keats´ poem; in fact, there are also wars, people
dying unfairly, agonies… and the death, it is also present and it is something
that I will live, but I prefer to behave as Keats and imagine a life where
there is not dangers and everything is really perfect. But also, sometimes,
when I feel unhappy and I don’t want to do anything, only laying in bed
thinking, I wonder if I am fortunate for my life, my studies, my family… and I
like Shelley, I would like to know why there is death, fear and I would like to
receive an encouraging response that will make me understand why we are born
and die; why we are happy and unhappy; who decides all your life and above all
when you have to die. Finally, these two poems have moved me and during these
days, at night, I have been considering all my life.
|
Reading module 03: Percy
Bysshe Shelley and John Keats |
|
Academic year 2006 (May 2006)
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ana Mª Pardillos Murillo
Universitat de València Press
mailto:aparmu@alumni.uv.es