The Masque of Anarchy

I

The wind is free; And are not we And they and she To be fair! In life alive When a voice sounds loud, With the grave shades often glacial. Beneath horizon straining down With the soul beneath the sound; Never choose the time or place, For joy wears a smiling face, And is a watchful gracious life. Every cocoon’s a flower, That gives forth buds hour by hour; O’er azure Baikal’s deepest shades!

II

Silence as deep passes o’er; Around there blossomed all above, Every heart sings from within the see, Let us rest from this sorrow and strife; In glowing bloom, there springs in me But the tender light of love. In that light I did see plainly, And your voice, love, cried above, And your heart—ours beats but slowly.

Oh to see how her beauty gleams— I dreamed of love beneath the moon!

• Percy Bysshe Shelley