To blot thee from my memory;
But which might never, never be.
Oh! I appeal to that blest day
When passion's wildest ecstasy
Was coldness to the joys I knew,
When every sorrow sunk away.
Oh! I had never lived before,
But now those blisses are no more.
And now I cease to live again,
I do not blame thee, love; ah no!
The breast that feels this anguished woe
Throbs for thy happiness alone.
Two years of speechless bliss are gone,
I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.
'Tis night what faint and distant scream
Comes on the wild and fitful blast?
It moans for pleasures that are past,
It moans for days that are gone by,
Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!
I see a dark and lengthened vale,
The black view closes with the tomb;
But darker is the lowering gloom
That shades the intervening dale.
In visioned slumber for awhile
I seem again to share thy smile,
I seem to hang upon thy tone.
Again you say, 'confide in me,
For I am thine, and thine alone.
And thine must ever, ever be.'
But oh! awakening still anew,
Athwart my enanguished senses flew
A fiercer, deadlier agony !
Sent by Shelley in a letter to Graham. Published by Forman, 1876, and dated 1810.
TREMBLE Kings despised of man!
Ye traitors to your Country
Tremble! Your parricidal plan
At length shall meet its destiny.
We all are soldiers fit to fight
But if we sink in glory's night
Our mother Earth will give ye new
The brilliant pathway to pursue
Which leads to Death or Victory