509. The Invitation

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822)

  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

  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;

  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,

  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.

  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

  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 accustomed visitor:—

  “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,—

  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;

  Hope, in pity mock not Woe

  With smiles, nor follow where I go;

  Long having lived on thy sweet food,

  At length I find one moment’s good

  After long pain—with all your love,

  This you never told me of.”

  Radiant Sister of the Day

  Awake! arise! and come away!

  To the wild woods and the plains,

  To the pools where winter rains

  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,

  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

  Crown the pale year weak and new;

  When the night is left behind

  In the deep east, dim and blind,

  And the blue noon is over us,

  And the multitudinous

  Billows murmur at our feet,

  Where the earth and ocean meet,

  And all things seem only one

  In the universal Sun.