Percy Bysshe Shelley - Scenes From The Magico Prodigioso (Scene 3) lyrics

THE DAEMON TEMPTS JUSTINA, WHO IS A CHRISTIAN DAEMON: Abyss of Hell! I call on thee, Thou wild misrule of thine own anarchy! From thy prison-house set free The spirits of voluptuous d**h, That with their mighty breath They may destroy a world of virgin thoughts; Let her chaste mind with fancies thick as motes Be peopled from thy shadowy deep, Till her guiltless fantasy Full to overflowing be! And with sweetest harmony, Let birds, and flowers, and leaves, and all things move To love, only to love. Let nothing meet her eyes But signs of Love's soft victories; Let nothing meet her ear But sounds of Love's sweet sorrow, So that from faith no succour she may borrow, But, guided by my spirit blind And in a magic snare entwined, She may now seek Cyprian. Begin, while I in silence bind My voice, when thy sweet song thou hast began. A VOICE [WITHIN]: What is the glory far above All else in human life? ALL: Love! love! _25 [WHILE THESE WORDS ARE SUNG, THE DAEMON GOES OUT AT ONE DOOR, AND JUSTINA ENTERS AT ANOTHER.] THE FIRST VOICE: There is no form in which the fire Of love its traces has impressed not. Man lives far more in love's desire Than by life's breath, soon possessed not. If all that lives must love or die, All shapes on earth, or sea, or sky, With one consent to Heaven cry That the glory far above All else in life is— ALL: Love! oh, Love! JUSTINA: Thou melancholy Thought which art So flattering and so sweet, to thee When did I give the liberty Thus to afflict my heart? What is the cause of this new Power Which doth my fevered being move, Momently raging more and more? What subtle Pain is kindled now Which from my heart doth overflow Into my senses?— ALL: Love! oh, Love! JUSTINA: 'Tis that enamoured Nightingale Who gives me the reply; He ever tells the same soft tale Of pa**ion and of constancy To his mate, who rapt and fond, Listening sits, a bough beyond. Be silent, Nightingale—no more Make me think, in hearing thee Thus tenderly thy love deplore, If a bird can feel his so, What a man would feel for me. And, voluptuous Vine, O thou Who seekest most when least pursuing,— To the trunk thou interlacest Art the verdure which embracest, And the weight which is its ruin,— No more, with green embraces, Vine, Make me think on what thou lovest,— For whilst thus thy boughs entwine I fear lest thou shouldst teach me, sophist, How arms might be entangled too. Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou Who gazest ever true and tender On the sun's revolving splendour! Follow not his faithless glance With thy faded countenance, _70 Nor teach my beating heart to fear, If leaves can mourn without a tear, How eyes must weep! O Nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale,— Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower, Restless Sunflower, cease to move,— Or tell me all, what poisonous Power Ye use against me— ALL: Love! Love! Love! JUSTINA: It cannot be!—Whom have I ever loved? Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, Floro and Lelio did I not reject? And Cyprian?— [SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.] Did I not requite him With such severity, that he has fled Where none has ever heard of him again?— Alas! I now begin to fear that this May be the occasion whence desire grows bold, As if there were no danger. From the moment That I pronounced to my own listening heart, 'Cyprian is absent!'—O me miserable! I know not what I feel! [MORE CALMLY.] It must be pity To think that such a man, whom all the world Admired, should be forgot by all the world, And I the cause. [SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.] And yet if it were pity, Floro and Lelio might have equal share, For they are both imprisoned for my sake. [CALMLY.] Alas! what reasonings are these? it is Enough I pity him, and that, in vain, Without this ceremonious subtlety. And, woe is me! I know not where to find him now, Even should I seek him through this wide world. [ENTER DAEMON.] DAEMON: Follow, and I will lead thee where he is. JUSTINA: And who art thou, who hast found entrance hither, Into my chamber through the doors and locks? Art thou a monstrous shadow which my madness Has formed in the idle air? DAEMON: No. I am one Called by the Thought which tyrannizes thee From his eternal dwelling; who this day Is pledged to bear thee unto Cyprian. JUSTINA: So shall thy promise fail. This agony Of pa**ion which afflicts my heart and soul May sweep imagination in its storm; The will is firm. DAEMON: Already half is done In the imagination of an act. The sin incurred, the pleasure then remains; Let not the will stop half-way on the road. JUSTINA: I will not be discouraged, nor despair, Although I thought it, and although 'tis true That thought is but a prelude to the deed:— Thought is not in my power, but action is: I will not move my foot to follow thee. DAEMON: But a far mightier wisdom than thine own Exerts itself within thee, with such power Compelling thee to that which it inclines That it shall force thy step; how wilt thou then Resist, Justina? JUSTINA: By my free-will. DAEMON: I Must force thy will. JUSTINA: It is invincible; It were not free if thou hadst power upon it. [HE DRAWS, BUT CANNOT MOVE HER.] DAEMON: Come, where a pleasure waits thee. JUSTINA: It were bought Too dear. DAEMON: 'Twill soothe thy heart to softest peace. JUSTINA: 'Tis dread captivity. DAEMON: 'Tis joy, 'tis glory. JUSTINA: 'Tis shame, 'tis torment, 'tis despair. DAEMON: But how Canst thou defend thyself from that or me, If my power drags thee onward? JUSTINA: My defence Consists in God. [HE VAINLY ENDEAVOURS TO FORCE HER, AND AT LAST RELEASES HER.] DAEMON: Woman, thou hast subdued me, Only by not owning thyself subdued. But since thou thus findest defence in God, I will a**ume a feigned form, and thus Make thee a victim of my baffled rage. For I will mask a spirit in thy form Who will betray thy name to infamy, And doubly shall I triumph in thy loss, First by dishonouring thee, and then by turning False pleasure to true ignominy. [EXIT.] JUSTINA: I Appeal to Heaven against thee; so that Heaven May scatter thy delusions, and the blot Upon my fame vanish in idle thought, Even as flame dies in the envious air, And as the floweret wanes at morning frost; And thou shouldst never—But, alas! to whom Do I still speak?—Did not a man but now Stand here before me?—No, I am alone, And yet I saw him. Is he gone so quickly? Or can the heated mind engender shapes From its own fear? Some terrible and strange Peril is near. Lisander! father! lord! Livia!— [ENTER LISANDER AND LIVIA.] LISANDER: Oh, my daughter! What? LIVIA: What! JUSTINA: Saw you A man go forth from my apartment now?— I scarce contain myself! LISANDER: A man here! JUSTINA: Have you not seen him? LIVIA: No, Lady. JUSTINA: I saw him. LISANDER: 'Tis impossible; the doors Which led to this apartment were all locked. LIVIA [ASIDE]: I daresay it was Moscon whom she saw, For he was locked up in my room. LISANDER: It must Have been some image of thy fantasy. Such melancholy as thou feedest is Skilful in forming such in the vain air Out of the motes and atoms of the day. LIVIA: My master's in the right. JUSTINA: Oh, would it were Delusion; but I fear some greater ill. I feel as if out of my bleeding bosom My heart was torn in fragments; ay, Some mortal spell is wrought against my frame; So potent was the charm that, had not God Shielded my humble innocence from wrong, I should have sought my sorrow and my shame With willing steps.—Livia, quick, bring my cloak, For I must seek refuge from these extremes Even in the temple of the highest God Where secretly the faithful worship. LIVIA: Here. JUSTINA [PUTTING ON HER CLOAK]: In this, as in a shroud of snow, may I Quench the consuming fire in which I burn, Wasting away! LISANDER: And I will go with thee. LIVIA: When I once see them safe out of the house I shall breathe freely. JUSTINA: So do I confide In thy just favour, Heaven! LISANDER: Let us go. JUSTINA: Thine is the cause, great God! turn for my sake, And for Thine own, mercifully to me! ***