I am the image of swift Plato's spirit, Ascending heaven; Athens doth inherit His corpse below.

Undated. Mrs. Shelley, 1839, 1st ed.

II

CIRCUMSTANCE

A MAN who was about to hang himself, Finding a purse, then threw away his rope;

The owner, coming to reclaim his pelf,
The halter found, and used it. So is
Hope

Changed for Despair; one laid upon the shelf,

We take the other. Under heaven's

Fortune is God; all you endure and do
high cope
Depends on circumstance as much as you.
Undated. Mrs. Shelley, 1839, 1st ed.

III

TO STELLA

FROM PLATO

Medwin describes the composition of this stanza: 'Plato's epigram on Aster, which mentioned, and I asked Shelley if he could Shelley had applied to Keats, happened to be render it. He took up the pen and improvised.'

It was published by Mrs. Shelley in her first collected edition, 1839, as was also the following.

THOU wert the morning star among the living,

Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, Ere thy fair light had fled; giving

New splendor to the dead.

IV

KISSING HELENA

FROM PLATO

KISSING Helena, together

With my kiss, my soul beside it

Came to my lips, and there I kept it,