516. The Flight of Love

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792—1822)

  WHEN the lamp is shatter’d

  The light in the dust lies dead—

  When the cloud is scatter’d,

  The rainbow’s glory is shed.

  When the lute is broken,

  Sweet tones are remember’d not;

  When the lips have spoken,

  Loved accents are soon forgot.

  As music and splendour

  Survive not the lamp and the lute,

  The heart’s echoes render

  No song when the spirit is mute—

  No song but sad dirges,

  Like the wind through a ruin’d cell,

  Or the mournful surges

  That ring the dead seaman’s knell.

  When hearts have once mingled,

  Love first leaves the well-built nest;

  The weak one is singled

  To endure what it once possesst.

  O Love! who bewailest

  The frailty of all things here,

  Why choose you the frailest

  For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

  Its passions will rock thee

  As the storms rock the ravens on high;

  Bright reason will mock thee

  Like the sun from a wintry sky.

  From thy nest every rafter

  Will rot, and thine eagle home

  Leave thee naked to laughter,

  When leaves fall and cold winds come.