A liquid element, whereon
Our spirits, like delighted things
That walk the air on subtle wings,
Floated and mingled far away,
'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day.
And when the evening star came forth
Above the curve of the new bent moon,
And light and sound ebbed from the
earth,

Like the tide of the full and weary sea
To the depths of its tranquillity,
Our natures to its own repose

Did the earth's breathless sleep attune:
Like flowers, which on each other close
Their languid leaves when daylight's
gone,

We lay, till new emotions came,

Which seemed to make each mortal frame

One soul of interwoven flame,
A life in life, a second birth
In worlds diviner far than earth,
Which, like two strains of harmony
That mingle in the silent sky
Then slowly disunite, past by
And left the tenderness of tears,
A soft oblivion of all fears,
A sweet sleep so we travelled on
Till we came to the home of Lionel,
Among the mountains wild and lone,
Beside the hoary western sea,

Which near the verge of the echoing shore

The massy forest shadowed o'er.

But he is-O how beautiful!

Yet day by day he grew more weak, And his sweet voice, when he might speak,

Which ne'er was loud, became more low; And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek

Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow

From sunset o'er the Alpine snow :
And death seemed not like death in him,
For the spirit of life o'er every limb
Lingered, a mist of sense and thought.
When the summer wind faint odours
brought

From mountain flowers, even as it passed His cheek would change, as the noonday sea

Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully.
If but a cloud the sky o'ercast,
You might see his colour come and go,
And the softest strain of music made
Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade
Amid the dew of his tender eyes;
And the breath, with intermitting flow,
Made his pale lips quiver and part.
You might hear the beatings of his
heart,

Quick, but not strong; and with my

tresses

When oft he playfully would bind
In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses
His neck, and win me so to mingle
In the sweet depth of woven caresses,
And our faint limbs were intertwined,

From mine own heart through every

vein,

death

On Lionel yet day by day

He lived, till fear grew hope and faith, And in my soul I dared to say, Nothing so bright can pass away: Death is dark, and foul, and dull,

That spirit as it passed, till soon,
As a frail cloud wandering o'er the moon,
Beneath its light invisible,

Is seen when it folds its gray wings

again

To alight on midnight's dusky plain,

I lived and saw, and the gathering soul Passed from beneath that strong control,

fear

Of all the woe that now I bear.

Amid a bloomless myrtle wood,
On a green and sea-girt promontory,
Not far from where we dwelt, there
stood

In record of a sweet sad story,
An altar and a temple bright
Circled by steps, and o'er the gate
Was sculptured, "To Fidelity;
And in the shrine an image sate,
All veiled: but there was seen the light
Of smiles, which faintly could express
A mingled pain and tenderness
Through that etherial drapery,
The left hand held the head, the right-
Beyond the veil, beneath the skin,
You might see the nerves quivering
within-

Was forcing the point of a barbed dart
Into its side-convulsing heart.
An unskilled hand, yet one informed
With genius, had the marble warmed
With that pathetic life. This tale
It told: A dog had from the sea,
When the tide was raging fearfully,
Dragged Lionel's mother, weak and
pale,

Then died beside her on the sand,
And she that temple thence had planned;
But it was Lionel's own hand
Had wrought the image. Each new moon
That lady did, in this lone fane,
The rites of a religion sweet,
Whose god was in her heart and brain :
The seasons' loveliest flowers were
strewn

On the marble floor beneath her feet, And she brought crowns of sea-buds white,

Whose odour is so sweet and faint,
And weeds, like branching chrysolite,
Woven in devices fine and quaint,
And tears from her brown eyes did stain

Though the myrtle copses steaming thence

From the hissing frankincense,
Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam,
Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome,
That ivory dome, whose azure night
With golden stars, like heaven, was
bright

O'er the split cedar's pointed flame;
And the lady's harp would kindle there
The melody of an old air,
Softer than sleep; the villagers
Mixt their religion up with hers,
And as they listened round, shed tears.

One eve he led me to this fane:
Daylight on its last purple cloud
Was lingering gray, and soon her strain
The nightingale began; now loud,
Climbing in circles the windless sky,
Now dying music; suddenly

'Tis scattered in a thousand notes,
And now to the hushed ear it floats
Like field smells known in infancy,
Then failing, soothes the air again.
We sate within that temple lone,
Pavilioned round with Parian stone:
His mother's harp stood near, and oft
I had awakened music soft
Amid its wires: the nightingale
Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale:
"Now drain the cup," said Lionel,

He paused, and to my lips he bent
His own like spirit his words went
Through all my limbs with the speed of
fire;

And his keen eyes, glittering through mine,

Filled me with the flame divine,
Which in their orbs was burning far,
Like the light of an unmeasured star,
In the sky of midnight dark and deep:
Yes, 'twas his soul that did inspire
Sounds, which my skill could ne'er
awaken;

And first, I felt my fingers sweep
The harp, and a long quivering cry
Burst from my lips in symphony:
The dusk and solid air was shaken,
As swift and swifter the notes came
From my touch, that wandered like
quick flame,

And from my bosom, labouring
With some unutterable thing:
The awful sound of my own voice made
My faint lips tremble, in some mood
Of wordless thought Lionel stood
So pale, that even beside his cheek
The snowy column from its shade
Caught whiteness: yet his countenance
Raised upward, burned with radiance
Of spirit-piercing joy, whose light,
Like the moon struggling through the
night

Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break
With beams that might not be confined.
I paused, but soon his gestures kindled
New power, as by the moving wind
The waves are lifted, and my song
To low soft notes now changed
dwindled,

and

And from the twinkling wires among,
My languid fingers drew and flung
Circles of life-dissolving sound,
Yet faint in aëry rings they bound
My Lionel, who, as every strain
Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien

Sunk with the sound relaxedly;
And slowly now he turned to me,
As slowly faded from his face
That awful joy: with look serene
He was soon drawn to my embrace,
And my wild song then died away
In murmurs: words I dare not say,
We mixed, and on his lips mine fed
Till they methought felt still and cold:
'What is it with thee, love?" I said:
No word, no look, no motion! yes,
There was a change, but spare to guess,
Nor let that moment's hope be told.
I looked, and knew that he was dead,
And fell, as the eagle on the plain
Falls when life deserts her brain,
And the mortal lightning is veiled again.

O that I were now dead! but such
(Did they not, love, demand too much,
Those dying murmurs ?) he forbade.
O that I once again were mad!
And yet, dear Rosalind, not so,
For I would live to share thy woe.
Sweet boy, did I forget thee too?
Alas, we know not what we do
When we speak words.

No memory more
Is in my mind of that sea shore.
Madness came on me, and a troop
Of misty shapes did seem to sit
Beside me, on a vessel's poop,
And the clear north wind was driving it.
Then I heard strange tongues, and saw

strange flowers,

And the stars methought grew unlike

ours,

And the azure sky and the stormless sea
Made me believe that I had died,
And waked in a world, which was to me
Drear hell, though heaven to all beside:
Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,
Whilst animal life many long years
Had rescue from a chasm of tears;
And when I woke, I wept to find
That the same lady, bright and wise,
With silver locks and quick brown eyes,
The mother of my Lionel,
Had tended me in my distress,

bloom

Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.

Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould, Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led

Into the peace of his dominion cold: She died among her kindred, being old. And know, that if love die not in the dead

As in the living, none of mortal kind Are blest, as now Helen and Rosalind.

NOTE BY MRS. SHELLEY

Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside-till I found it; and, at my request, it was completed. Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind and develop some high or abstruse truth. When he does touch on

human life and the human heart, no

He

pictures can be more faithful, more delicate, more subtle, or more pathetic. never mentioned Love but he shed a grace borrowed from his own nature, that scarcely any other poet has bestowed, on that passion. When he spoke of it as the law of life, which inasmuch as we rebel against we err and injure ourselves and others, he promulgated that which he considered an irrefragable truth. In his eyes it was the essence of our being, and all woe and pain arose from the war made against it by selfishness, or insensibility, or mistake. By reverting in his mind to this first principle, he discovered the source of many emotions, and could disclose the

secret of all hearts; and his delineations of passion and emotion touch the finest chords of our nature.

Rosalind and Helen was finished during the summer of 1818, while we were at

the baths of Lucca.