OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Percey B Shelly

Excerpt from

"To a Skylark"

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 aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it
from the view

Like a rose embower'd 
In its own green leaves 
By warm winds deflower'd 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these
heavy-wing'd thieves

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass 
Rain-awaken'd flowers
All that ever was 
Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth
surpass.

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

Excerpt 2

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!

[ Sent by Tanmoy Saha ]

Excerpt from

"Adonis"

The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows
fly;
Life, like a dome of many-colour'd glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.--Die,
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost
seek!
Follow where all is fled!--Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are
weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to
speak. 



Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my
Heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things
here
They have departed; thou shouldst now
depart!
A light is pass'd from the revolving year,
And man, and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers
near:
'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join
together. 



That Light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That Beauty in which all things work and
move,
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



The breath whose might I have invok'd in
song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling
throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of
Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 

[ Sent By Tanmoy Saha ]