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IV

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.

THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO

[Published in part (11. 1-61, 88-118) by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824; revised and enlarged by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.]

OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,

Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
The helm sways idly, hither and thither;

Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,

And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast,

Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,

And the thin white moon lay withering there;
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.

Day had kindled the dewy woods,

And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,

And clothed with light of aëry gold

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And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow,

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The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,

The lark and the thrush and the swallow free,

And the milkmaid's song and the mower's scythe,
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:
Fireflies were quenched on the dewy corn,
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:

The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

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The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:

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Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun

Night's dreams and terrors, every one,

Fled from the brains which are their prey

From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,

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Who shaped us to His ends and not our own;
The million rose to learn, and one to teach
What none yet ever knew or can be known.

And many rose

Evening, &c.-20 cinereous Boscombe MS.; enormous edd. 1824, 1839.

Whose woe was such that fear became desire ;-
Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
And made their home under the green hill-side.
It was that hill, whose intervening brow

Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye,
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,

With streams and fields and marshes bare,
Divides from the far Apennines-which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air.

'What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?'

'If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,
And of the miles of watery way

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We should have led her by this time of day.'—

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'Never mind,' said Lionel,

The white clouds are driving merrily,

'Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
About yon poplar-tops; and see

And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.-

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How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair!
List, my dear fellow; the breeze blows fair:
Hear how it sings into the air-'

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-'Of us and of our lazy motions,'
Impatiently said Melchior,

'If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before,
To have been the devil knows where.'
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

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Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:

'She dreams that we are not yet out of bed;

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We'll put a soul into her, and a heart

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Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat.'

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'Ay, heave the ballast overboard,
And stow the eatables in the aft locker.'
'Would not this keg be best a little lowered?'

List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
How it scatters Dominic's long black hair!
Singing of us, and our lazy motions,

If I can guess a boat's emotions.'-edd. 1824, 1839. 61-67 Rossetti places these lines conjecturally between ll. 51 and 52.

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No, now all's right.' 'Those bottles of warm tea-
(Give me some straw)-must be stowed tenderly ;
Such as we used, in summer after six,

To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,

And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours
Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours,
Would feast till eight.'

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With a bottle in one hand,

As if his very soul were at a stand,

Lionel stood when Melchior brought him steady:-
'Sit at the helm-fasten this sheet-all ready!'

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
The living breath is fresh behind,

As, with dews and sunrise fed,

Comes the laughing morning wind;
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio's torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,

And hangs upon the wave, and stems
The tempest of the..

Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth and strong doth come,-
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea;

In morning's smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.

The Serchio, twisting forth

Between the marble barriers which it clove
At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm
The wave that died the death which lovers love,
Living in what it sought; as if this spasm
Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling,
But the clear stream in full enthusiasm
Pours itself on the plain, then wandering
Down one clear path of effluence crystalline
Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling
At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine;
Then, through the pestilential deserts wild

Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine,
It rushes to the Ocean.

112 then

95. 96 and stems The tempest of the wanting in edd. 1824, 1839. Boscombe MS.; until edd. 1824, 1839. 114 superfluous Boscombe MS.; clear edd. 1824, 1839. 117 pine Boscombe MS.; fir edd. 1824, 1839.

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MUSIC

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

I

I PANT for the music which is divine,

My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, fill they wake again.

II

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, oh more,-I am thirsting yet;

It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it;

The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.

III

As the scent of a violet withered up,

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake,
When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,
And mist there was none its thirst to slake-
And the violet lay dead while the odour flew
On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue-

IV

As one who drinks from a charmèd cup

Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine,

Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,
Invites to love with her kiss divine ..

SONNET TO BYRON

[Published by Medwin, The Shelley Papers, 1832 (11. 1-7), and Life of Shelley, 1847 (11. 1-9, 12-14). Revised and completed from the Boscombe MS. by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.]

[I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but]
If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
The ministration of the thoughts that fill

The mind which, like a worm whose life may share
A portion of the unapproachable,

Marks your creations rise as fast and fair
As perfect worlds at the Creator's will.

Music-16 mist 1824; tank 1839, 2nd ed.

1870; him 1832; thee 1847.

Sonnet to Byron-1 you ed.

4 So ed. 1870; My soul which as a worm

may haply share 1832; My soul which even as a worm may share 1847. 6 your ed. 1870; his 1832; thy 1847.

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But such is my regard that nor your power
To soar above the heights where others [climb],
Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour
Cast from the envious future on the time,
Move one regret for his unhonoured name

Who dares these words:-the worm beneath the sod
May lift itself in homage of the God.

1

FRAGMENT ON KEATS

WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED

'HERE lieth One whose name was writ on water.' But; ere the breath that could erase it blew, Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter,

Death, the immortalizing winter, flew

Athwart the stream,-and time's printless torrent grew

A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name

Of Adonais!

FRAGMENT: 'METHOUGHT I WAS A BILLOW
IN THE CROWD'

[Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.] METHOUGHT I was a billow in the crowd

Of common men, that stream without a shore,

That ocean which at once is deaf and loud;

That I, a man, stood amid many more

By a wayside

which the aspect bore

Of some imperial metropolis,

Where mighty shapes-pyramid, dome, and towerGleamed like a pile of crags

TO-MORROW

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

WHERE art thou, beloved To-morrow?

When young and old, and strong and weak,
Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,—

In thy place-ah! well-a-day!

We find the thing we fled-To-day.

STANZA

[Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870. Connected by Dowden with the preceding.]

IF I walk in Autumn's even

While the dead leaves pass,

8, 9 So ed. 1870; wanting 1832;

But not the blessings of thy happier lot,

Nor thy well-won prosperity, and fame 1847.

10, 11 So ed. 1870; wanting 1832, 1847. 12-14 So 1847, ed. 1870; wanting 1832. Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.—ED.

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