XVIII

Come thou, but lead out of the inmost

cave

Of man's deep spirit, as the morning

star

Beckons the sun from the Eoan wave, Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her

car

Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; Comes she not, and come ye not, Rulers of eternal thought,

To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned lot?

Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame

Of what has been, the Hope of what will be?

O Liberty! if such could be thy name Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee

If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought

By blood or tears, have not the wise and free

Wept tears, and blood like tears? - The solemn harmony

ΤΟ

Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, Thou needest not fear mine;

My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burden thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion

With which I worship thine.

ARETHUSA

Composed at Pisa, and published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.

I

ARETHUSA arose

From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains,
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,

Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;

Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine

Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing,
She went, ever singing,

In murmurs as soft as sleep;

The Earth seemed to love her, And Heaven smiled above her, As she lingered towards the deep.

II

Then Alpheus bold,

On his glacier cold,

With his trident the mountains strook; And opened a chasm

In the rocks-with the spasm

All Erymanthus shook.

And the black south wind
It unsealed behind

The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder

The bars of the springs below.

The beard and the hair Of the River-god were Seen through the torrent's sweep, As he followed the light Of the fleet nymph's flight To the brink of the Dorian deep.

III

'Oh, save me! Oh, guide me,
And bid the deep hide me,

For he grasps me now by the hair!'
The loud Ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,

And divided at her prayer;

And under the water

The Earth's white daughter

Fled like a sunny beam;

Behind her descended

Her billows, unblended

With the brackish Dorian stream.
Like a gloomy stain

On the emerald main

Alpheus rushed behind,

As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin

Down the streams of the cloudy wind.

This letter was written from the house of Mrs. Gisborne, where Shelley had turned the workshop of her son, Mr. Reveley, an engineer, into a study. Mrs. Gisborne,' writes Mrs. Shelley, had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved freshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity As a favorite friend of my father we had sought her with eagerness, and the most open and cordial friendship was established between us.' Shelley also describes her: Mrs. Gisborne is a sufficiently amiable and very accomplished woman; [she is δημοκρατικη and αθεη – how far she may be piλav@рwn I don't know, for] she is the antipodes of enthusiasm.'

The poem was published by Mrs. Shelley. Posthumous Poems, 1824.