Dos poemas de Shelley

1

La sombra de una Fuerza incognoscible
flota, aunque incognoscible, entre nosotros;
visita este amplio mundo con la misma
indisciplina que el viento entre las flores;
como un rayo de luna que inquieta,
secreto, imprevisible,
el corazón y rostro humanos;
como el rumor pausado de la tarde,
como una nube en noche clara,
como el recuerdo de alguna música,
como aquello que se ama por hermoso
pero aún más porque es ignoto.

2

Espíritu, Belleza que consagras
con tu lumbre el humano pensamiento
sobre el que resplandeces, ¿dónde has ido?
¿Por qué cesa tu brillo y abandonas
este valle de lágrimas desierto?
¿Por qué el sol no teje por siempre
un arco iris en tu arroyo?
¿Por qué cuanto ha nacido languidece?
¿Por qué temor y sueño, vida y muerte
ensombrecen el mundo de este modo?
¿Por qué el hombre ambiciona tanto
odio y amor; desánimo, esperanza?

De La Belleza Intelectual I Y 2

3

Temo tus besos, dulce dama.
Tú no necesitas temer los míos;
Mi espíritu anda tan hondamente abrumado,
que no puede agobiar el tuyo.

Temo tu porte, tus modos, tu movimiento.
Tú no necesitas temer los míos;
Es inocente la devoción del corazón
con la que yo te adoro.

Mutabilidad

Somos como las nubes que enmascaran la luna,

que huyen sin descanso, relampaguean, tiemblan,

rasgando con destellos lo oscuro, mas, de pronto,

la noche las rodea y se pierden para siempre;

o arrinconadas liras de cuerdas disonantes

que a cada son diverso responden diferente,

y en cuya hechura frágil ninguna melodía

resuena semejante al volver a tocarla.

Dormidos, pesadillas turban nuestro reposo;

despiertos, vagos sueños contaminan el día;

ya con risa o con llanto, fantasía o razón,

ya abracemos las penas o ya las desechemos

¡da lo mismo! Pues, sea alegre o sea triste,

la senda de su marcha final está ya abierta:

tal vez no sea el pasado del hombre su mañana;

tal vez sólo perdure la Mutabilidad.


MUTABILITY

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;

How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,

Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon

Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings

Give various response to each varying blast,

To whose frail frame no second motion brings

One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. -A dream has power to poison sleep;

We rise. -One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;

Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,

The path of its departure still is free:

Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;

Nought may endure but Mutablilty.

To a skylark (Percy B. Shelley)

AIL to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see -- we feel, that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aërial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingèd thieves.

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was,
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass:

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyance,
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest -- but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then -- as I am listening now.