Percy Bysshe Shelley(1792–1822)
The World's Great Age
The world's great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake1 renew
Her winter weeds2 outworn:
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.
A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;
A new Peneus3 rolls his fountains
Against the morning star.
Where fairer Tempes4 bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads5 on a sunnier deep.
A loftier Argo6 cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus7 sings again,
And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso8 for his native shore.
Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be!
Nor mix with Laian rage9 the joy
Which dawns upon the free:
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.
Another Athens shall arise,
And to remoter time
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendor of its prime;
And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.
Saturn and Love their long repose
Shall burst, more bright and good
Than all who fell, than One who rose,
Than many unsubdued:1
Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.
Oh, cease! must hate and death return
Cease! must men kill and die
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past,
Oh, might it die or rest at last!
1822