[Composed May, 1814.

TO HARRIET

Published (from the Esdaile MSS.) by Dowden,
Lafe of Shelley, 1887.]

Thy name is struggling ere he
speak,

Weak is each trembling limb;
In mercy let him not endure
The misery of a fatal cure.

Oh, trust for once no erring
guide!

Bid the remorseless feeling flee; 'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride, "Tis anything but thee;

Be thou, then, one among mankind
Whose heart is harder not for
state,
Oh, deign a nobler pride to prove,
Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind, 15 And pity if thou canst not love.

TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN

[Composed June, 1814. Published in Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

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MINE eyes were dim with tears un- Whilst thou alone, then not re

shed;

garded,

The thou alone should be, To spend years thus, and be rewarded,

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As thou, sweet love, requited me When none were near-Oh! I did wake

From torture for that moment's sake.

IV

Upon my heart thy accents sweet

Of peace and pity fell like dew 20 On flowers half dead;-thy lips did meet

Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes
threw
Their soft persuasion on my brain,
Charming away its dream of pain.

3 fear 1824, 1839; yearn cj. Rossetti.

23 Their

[Published in Poetical Works, 1839, 2nd ed. See Editor's Note.]
YET look on me-take not thine eyes away,
Which feed upon the love within mine own,
Which is indeed but the reflected ray

Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown.
Yet speak to me-thy voice is as the tone
Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear

That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone
Like one before a mirror, without care

Of aught but thine own features, imaged there;
And yet I wear out life in watching thee;
A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed
Art kind when I am sick, and pity me.

MUTABILITY

[Published with Alastor, 1816.]

WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver.
Streaking the darkness radiantly!-yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest. A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.-One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:

It is the same !-For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

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30 thee] thou 1824, 1839. 32 can I 1839; I can 1821. 36 feel'st 1839; feel 1824. Mutability.-15 may 1816; can Lodore, chap. xlix, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley). 16 Nought may endure but 1816; Nor aught endure save Lodore, chap. xlix, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).

ON DEATH

[For the date of composition see Editor's Note. Published with
Alastor, 1816.]

THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WISDOM, IN THE
GRAVE, WHITHER THOU GOEST.-Ecclesiastes.

THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile

Which the meteor beam of a starless night

Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,

Is the flame of life so fickle and wan

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul

Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,

And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,

And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,

Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,

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Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see

All that is great and all that is strange

In the boundless realm of unending change.

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Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?

Who painteth the shadows that are beneath

The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?

Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be

With the fears and the love for that which we see?

A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD

LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

[Composed September, 1815. Published with Alastor, 1816.]
THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

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They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aëreal Pile! whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

ΙΟ

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The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,

Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
And mingling with the still night and mute sky
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:

Here could I hope, like some inquiring child

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep

That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

ΤΟ

[Published with Alastor, 1816. See Editor's Note.]

ΔΑΚΡΥΣΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ.

OH! there are spirits of the air,

And genii of the evening breeze,

And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:-

Such lovely ministers to meet

Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice

Of these inexplicable things,

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. And thou hast sought in starry eyes

Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another's wealth :-tame sacrifice

To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

Το

I of 1816; in 1839.

8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.

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Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope

Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles

Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?

Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;

The glory of the moon is dead;

Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed; Thine own soul still is true to thee,

But changed to a foul fiend through misery.

This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase ;-the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,

Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.

TO WORDSWORTH

[Published with Alastor, 1816.]

POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know

That things depart which never may return:

Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude:
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,-
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,

Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL
OF BONAPARTE

[Published with Alastor, 1816.]

I HATED thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,

Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer
A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept
In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,

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