Hymn to Intellectual Beauty - Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

 

 

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

 Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

                                                  I

            The awful shadow of some unseen Power
                    Floats though unseen among us; visiting
                    This various world with as inconstant wing
            As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;
            Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
                            It visits with inconstant glance
                            Each human heart and countenance;
            Like hues and harmonies of evening,
                            Like clouds in starlight widely spread,
                            Like memory of music fled,
                            Like aught that for its grace may be
            Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

                                                  II

            Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost consecrate
                    With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
                    Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?
            Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
            This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
                            Ask why the sunlight not for ever
                            Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
            Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
                            Why fear and dream and death and birth
                            Cast on the daylight of this earth
                            Such gloom, why man has such a scope
            For love and hate, despondency and hope?

                                                  III

            No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
                    To sage or poet these responses given:
                    Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
            Remain the records of their vain endeavour:
            Frail spells whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever,
                            From all we hear and all we see,
                            Doubt, chance and mutability.
            Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven,
                            Or music by the night-wind sent
                            Through strings of some still instrument,
                            Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
            Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

                                                  IV

            Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
                    And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
                    Man were immortal and omnipotent,
            Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
            Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
                            Thou messenger of sympathies,
                            That wax and wane in lovers' eyes;
            Thou, that to human thought art nourishment,
                            Like darkness to a dying flame!
                            Depart not as thy shadow came,
                            Depart not--lest the grave should be,
            Like life and fear, a dark reality.

                                                 V

            While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
                    Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
                    And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
            Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
            I call'd on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;
                            I was not heard; I saw them not;
                            When musing deeply on the lot
            Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
                            All vital things that wake to bring
                            News of birds and blossoming,
                            Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
                I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstasy!

                                                  VI

            I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers
                    To thee and thine: have I not kept the vow?
                    With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
            I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
            Each from his voiceless grave: they have in vision'd bowers
                            Of studious zeal or love's delight
                            Outwatch'd with me the envious night:
            They know that never joy illum'd my brow
                            Unlink'd with hope that thou wouldst free
                            This world from its dark slavery,
                            That thou, O awful LOVELINESS,
            Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

                                                  VII

            The day becomes more solemn and serene
                    When noon is past; there is a harmony
                    In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
            Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
            As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
                            Thus let thy power, which like the truth
                            Of nature on my passive youth
            Descended, to my onward life supply
                            Its calm, to one who worships thee,
                            And every form containing thee,
                            Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
            To fear himself, and love all human kind.

 

            1816

 

 

 

 

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"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty"

The "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" contains in the abstract that which is approached concretely in "Ode to the West Wind," "To a Sky-Lark," and "The Cloud." After we have worked our way through its seven stanzas, you should have a pretty good "feel" for Shelley's poetic method and be able to make some sense of these other poems on your own.

Before taking a closer look, it is essential that you read the notes on Neoplatonism.

The "Hymn" is a confessional poem on one level, an autobiographical record of Shelley's "conversion" or dedication to Intellectual Beauty. It is also concerned with the basic human questions: Why is there so much beauty? Why is it transient? Why do we suffer pain and anguish? Why is man torn by the antitheses of "love and hate, despondency and hope"?

 

 

Stanza 1

The footnote in your text defines "intellectual" as "nonsensible." Thus we can see Intellectual Beauty as something beyond the senses, a part of the unknown or ideal realm that visits our world from time to time.

He refers to it as the "awful shadow of some unseen Power". What he is aware of is not the thing itself, but rather its shadow, an imperfect copy. And because this presence is something beyond our earthly comprehension, Shelley provides us with a mass of similes in an attempt to make it concrete, a technique which Richard Harter Fogle refers to as "the concretization of the abstract." We may not know what it is, but it is like "summer winds," "moonshine," "hues and harmonies of evening," memory of music fled."

 

 

Stanza 2

This laments the fleeting presence of the "Spirit of BEAUTY," points to the typically romantic sense of the world as a gloomy "vale of tears," and underscores the contrast between the permanence of beauty and man's impermanence.

 

 

Stanza 3 and 4

Here we find a good example of the often secular nature of the Romantics' explanation of the mysteries of life. Suggesting that Intellectual Beauty alone "Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream," Shelley rejects Christianity as a "vain endeavour" to find the truth. For him, its prayers ("Frail spells") have done nothing to remove "Doubt, chance, and mutability."

 

 

Stanza 5

This contains an autobiographical sketch. As a boy, Shelley and his sisters liked to play games which involved the invocation of magical spirits. Here the memory is like a Wordsworthian "spot of time," where from a later vantage point he can see that he was searching for Intellectual Beauty--even calling on "poisonous names" (i.e., using traditional prayers) to do so. The closing lines suggest the moment of conversion, his sensing of the spirit. "I shrieked, and clasped my hands in extacy!" may seem a bit overdone to modern readers, but the phrasing follows the Platonic tradition and is similar to that found in Christian mystical experiences.

 

 

Stanza 6

This marks his youthful dedication to Intellectual Beauty, and suggests a prayer for creative power. He is saying that if Intellectual Beauty were here, the world would be free from all forms of slavery, both physical and intellectual (e.g., traditional religion).

 

 

Stanza 7

The closing stanza shows Shelley as an adult praying for peace of mind and calm of soul, which the serenity and harmony of Nature will provide.

The lines ". . .to one who worships thee, / And every form containing thee" clearly draw upon the Platonic Doctrine of Accommodation. If we are to know the "true" which exists in an ideal realm, we must accommodate ourselves to its forms (imperfect copies) which we encounter on this earth. only through them can we gain a sense of the universal, unchanging world of the Empyrean.

 

 

 

 

 

http://aliscot.com/ensenanza/4033/romantic/psb_hymn.htm