The Question

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,

Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,

And gentle odors led my steps astray,

Mixt with a sound of waters murmuring

Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling

Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,

But kist it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

II.

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,

Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,

The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birth

The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—

Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—

Its mother’s face with heaven’s collected tears,

When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.

III.

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,

Green cowbind and the moonlight colored May,

And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine

Was the bright dew, yet drained not by the day;

And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;

And flowers azure, black, and streakt with gold,

Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

IV.

And nearer to the river’s trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with white,

And starry river buds among the sedge,

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,

Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;

And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green

As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

Methought that of these visionary flowers

I made a nosegay bound in such a way

That the same hues, which in their natural bowers

Were mingled or opposed, the like array

Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours

Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,

I hastened to the spot whence I had come,

That I might there present it!—oh! to whom?