Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one

Turns the mind's poison into food,

Its medicine is tears,-its evil good.

III

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer.

Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly
Your looks, because they stir

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die:

The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,

Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene,

Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought

Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,
'She loves me-loves me not.'

And if this meant a vision long since fled-
If it meant fortune. fame, or peace of thought-
If it meant,-but I dread

To speak what you may know too well:

Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;
No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,
When it no more would roam;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast

Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest:

Doubtless there is a place of peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

That I had resolution. One who had
Would ne'er have thus relieved

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

18 Dear friends, dear friend Trelawny MS., 1839, 2nd ed.; Dear gentle friend 1834, 1839, 1st ed. 26 ever] lately Trelawny MS. 28 in Trelawny MS.; on 1834, edd. 1839. 43 When 1839, 2nd ed.; Whence 1834, 1839, 1st ed.

1834, 1839, 1st ed,

48 will 1839, 2nd ed. ; shall

His heart with words,-but what his judgement bade
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know,

Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

ΤΟ

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I

ONE word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.

ΤΟ

5

II

55

ΤΟ

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

15

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a Boscombe MS.]

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I

THE golden gates of Sleep unbar
Where Strength and Beauty, met
together,

Kindle their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather!
Night, with all thy stars

down,--

look

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true.

5

Let eyes not see their own delight;-
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight 10
Oft renew.

II

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn,-ere it be long!

O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
Come along!

53 unrelieved Trelawny MS., 1839, 2nd ed.; unreprieved 1834, 1839, 1st ed. were Trelawny MS.

Το

15

-15 form Boscombe MS.; for edd. 1824, 1839.

54 are]

EPITHALAMIUM

ANOTHER VERSION OF THE PRECEDING

[Published by Medwin, Life of Shelley, 1847.]

NIGHT. with all thine eyes look | Lest eyes see their own delight! Hence, swift hour! and thy loved

down!

Darkness shed its holiest dew! When ever smiled the inconstant

flight
Oft renew.

Girls.

O joy! O fear! what may be done 20
In the absence of the sun?
Come along!

Fairies! sprites! and angels, keep
her!

Holiest powers, permit no wrong! And return, to wake the sleeper, 25 Dawn, ere it be long.

Hence, swift hour! and quench thy light,

Lest
Come along!

The golden gates of sleep unbar!
When strength and beauty meet
together,

15

Kindles their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather.
Hence, coy hour! and quench thy
light,

eyes see their own delight! Hence, coy hour! and thy loved flight

Oft renew.

Boys and Girls.

O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun?

ANOTHER VERSION OF THE SAME

30

Come along!

[Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870, from the Trelawny MS. of Edward Williams's play, The Promise: or, A Year, a Month, and a Day.]

Dawn, ere it be long!
Ojoy! O fear! there is not one
Of us can guess what may be done
In the absence of the sun :-
Come along!

Boys.

15

Epithalamium-17 Lest] Let 1847.

20

LOVE, HOPE, DESIRE, AND FEAR
[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

AND many there were hurt by that

strong boy,

His name, they said, was Pleasure, And near him stood, glorious beyond

measure,

5

30

Between Desire and Fear thou

wert

A wretched thing, poor heart! Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast,

Wild bird for that weak nest.

bought,

30

And from the very wound of tender thought

Four Ladies who possess all empery Till Love even from fierce Desire it
In earth and air and sea,
Nothing that lives from their award
Award
is free.
Their names will I declare to thee,
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear,
And they the regents are

Of the four elements that frame the heart,

10 And each diversely exercised her art By force or circumstance or sleight To prove her dreadful might Upon that poor domain. Desire presented her [false] glass, and then

15

Drew solace, and the pity of sweet

eyes

Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies,

35

Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.

Then Hope approached, she who can borrow

For poor to-day, from rich to

morrow.

And Fear withdrew, as night when
day

Descends upon the orient ray, 40
And after long and vain endurance
The poor heart woke to her assur-

ance.

-At one birth these four were born
With the world's forgotten morn,
And from Pleasure still they hold
All it circles, as of old.
46
When, as summer lures the
swallow,

Pleasure lures the heart to follow-
O weak heart of little wit!
The fair hand that wounded it, 50
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx's lair,
Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,
Ever will be near.

FRAGMENTS WRITTEN FOR HELLAS
[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

FRAGMENT: I WOULD NOT BE A KING'

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

I WOULD not be a king-enough
Of woe it is to love;

The path to power is steep and
rough,

And tempests reign above. I would not climb the imperial throne;

5

'Tis built on ice which fortune's

sun

Thaws in the height of noon. Then farewell, king, yet were I one, Care would not come so soon. Would he and I were far away Keeping flocks on Himalay!

GINEVRA

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824, and dated

Pisa, 1821.']

WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train

ΙΟ

5