Shelley’s speaker is completely undone by Constantia’s singing. A past heartache still bleeds in him and won’t be forgotten, but her presence—the light in her dark eyes, the scent-like trace of her voice, the fire of her touch—draws him into a trance. The music creates an awe that feels both wild and strangely private, like a sudden shift in a half-waking dream. Heaven seems to split open, wings sprout on his shoulders, and he is swept beyond the moon and the known world. His body responds feverishly: a racing pulse, brimming eyes, a heart shivering like flame, until he dissolves entirely into the ecstasy. By the final stanza, he has no separate life—only her song, which moves from a storm carrying him safely over rocks to a warm, scented summer breath that suspends his soul in weightless, blissful flight. The mood is one of rapturous vulnerability, painfully alive and utterly surrendered.
To Constantia, Singing — Summary
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, Perchance were death indeed!--Constantia, turn! In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet. Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
A breathless awe, like the swift change Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven By the enchantment of thy strain, And on my shoulders wings are woven, To follow its sublime career Beyond the mighty moons that wane Upon the verge of Nature's utmost sphere, Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.
Her voice is hovering o'er my soul--it lingers O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings, The blood and life within those snowy fingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quick-- The blood is listening in my frame, And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes; My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song Flows on, and fills all things with melody.-- Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, On which, like one in trance upborne, Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.