That brow where brood the imps of care,
That fixed expression of despair,
That haste, that laboring for breath-
His soul is madly bent on death.
A dark resolve is in his eye,
Victorio raves - I hear him cry,
'Rosa is Paulo's eternally.'

But whence is that soul-harrowing moan,
Deep drawn and half suppressed

A low and melancholy tone,

That rose upon the wind?
Victorio wildly gazed around,

He cast his eyes upon the ground,
He raised them to the spangled air,
But all was still was quiet there.
Hence, hence, this superstitious fear;
'T was but the fever of his mind
That conjured the ideal sound,
To his distempered ear.

With rapid step, with frantic haste,
He scoured the long and dreary waste;
And now the gloomy cypress spread
Its darkened umbrage o'er his head;
The stately pines above him high
Lifted their tall heads to the sky;
Whilst o'er his form, the poisonous yew
And melancholy nightshade threw
Their baleful deadly dew.

At intervals the moon shone clear;
Yet, passing o'er her disk, a cloud
Would now her silver beauty shroud.
The autumnal leaf was parched and sere;
It rustled like a step to fear.
The precipice's battled height

Was dimly seen through the mists of night,
As Victorio moved along.

At length he reached its summit dread,
The night-wind whistled round his head
A wild funereal song.

A dying cadence swept around

Upon the waste of air;

It scarcely might be called a sound,

For stillness yet was there,

Save when the roar of the waters below

Was wafted by fits to the mountain's brow.
Here for a while Victorio stood

Suspended o'er the yawning flood,
And gazed upon the gulf beneath.
No apprehension paled his cheek,
No sighs from his torn bosom break,
No terror dimmed his eye.

'Welcome, thrice welcome, friendly death,'
In desperate harrowing tone he cried,
Receive me, ocean, to your breast,
Hush this ungovernable tide,
This troubled sea to rest.
Thus do I bury all my grief-

This plunge shall give my soul relief,
This plunge into eternity!'

I see him now about to spring
Into the watery grave:

Hark! the death angel flaps his wing
O'er the blackened wave.

Hark! the night-raven shrieks on high
To the breeze which passes on ;

Clouds o'ershade the moonlight sky —
The deadly work is almost done
When a soft and silver sound,
Softer than the fairy song

Which floats at midnight hour along
The daisy-spangled ground,

Was borne upon the wind's soft swell.
Victorio started—'t was the knell

Of some departed soul;

Now on the pinion of the blast,

Which o'er the craggy mountain passed,
The lengthened murmurs roll
Till, lost in ether, dies away
The plaintive, melancholy lay.

'Tis said congenial sounds have power
To dissipate the mists that lower
Upon the wretch's brow-

To still the maddening passions' war-
To calm the mind's impetuous jar
To turn the tide of woe.

Victorio shuddered with affright,
Swam o'er his eyes thick mists of night;
Even now he was about to sink
Into the ocean's yawning womb,
But that the branches of an oak,
Which, riven by the lightning's stroke,
O'erhung the precipice's brink,
Preserved him from the billowy tomb;
Quick throbbed his pulse with feverish beat,
He wildly started on his feet,

And rushed from the mountain's height.

The moon was down, but through the air
Wild meteors spread a transient glare;
Borne on the wing of the swelling gale,
Above the dark and woody dale,
Thick clouds obscured the sky.
All was now wrapped in silence drear,
Not a whisper broke on the listening ear,
Not a murmur floated by.

In thought's perplexing labyrinth lost
The trackless heath he swiftly crossed.
Ah! why did terror blanch his cheek?
Why did his tongue attempt to speak,
And fail in the essay?

Through the dark midnight mists an eye,
Flashing with crimson brilliancy,
Poured on his face its ray.

What sighs pollute the midnight air?
What mean those breathings of despair?'
Thus asked a voice, whose hollow tone
Might seem but one funereal moan.
Victorio groaned, with faltering breath,
'I burn with love, I pant for death!'

Suddenly a meteor's glare,

With brilliant flash illumed the air;
Bursting through clouds of sulphurous smoke,
As on a Witch's form it broke,

Of herculean bulk her frame
Seemed blasted by the lightning's flame;
Her eyes that flared with lurid light,
Were now with bloodshot lustre filled.
They blazed like comets through the night,
And now thick rheumy gore distilled;

Black as the raven's plume, her locks
Loose streamed upon the pointed rocks;
Wild floated on the hollow gale,

Or swept the ground in matted trail;
Vile loathsome weeds, whose pitchy fold
Were blackened by the fire of Hell,
Her shapeless limbs of giant mould
Scarce served to hide - as she the while
Grinned horribly a ghastly smile,'
And shrieked with demon yell.

Terror unmanned Victorio's mind,
His limbs, like lime leaves in the wind,
Shook, and his brain in wild dismay
Swam-vainly he strove to turn away.
Follow me to the mansions of rest,'
The weird female cried;

The life-blood rushed through Victorio's breast
In full and swelling tide.

Attractive as the eagle's gaze.

And bright as the meridian blaze,
Led by a sanguine stream of light,

He followed through the shades of night
Before him his conductress fled,
As swift as the ghosts of the dead,
When on some dreadful errand they fly,
In a thunderblast sweeping the sky.

They reached a rock whose beetling height
Was dimly seen through the clouds of night;
Illumined by the meteor's blaze,

Its wild crags caught the reddened rays
And their refracted brilliance threw
Around a solitary yew,

Which stretched its blasted form on high,
Braving the tempests of the sky.
As glared the flame, a caverned cell,
More pitchy than the shades of hell,
Lay open to Victorio's view.

Lost for an instant was his guide;
He rushed into the mountain's side.
At length with deep and harrowing yell
She bade him quickly speed,
For that ere again had risen the moon
'T was fated that there must be done
A strange - a deadly deed.

Swift as the wind Victorio sped;
Beneath him lay the mangled dead;
Around dank putrefaction's power
Had caused a dim blue mist to lower.
Yet an unfixed, a wandering light
Dispersed the thickening shades of night;
Yet the weird female's features dire
Gleamed through the lurid yellow air,
With a deadly livid fire,

Whose wild, inconstant, dazzling light
Dispelled the tenfold shades of night,
Whilst her hideous fiendlike eye,
Fixed on her victim with horrid stare,
Flamed with more kindled radiancy;
More frightful far than that of Death,

When exulting he stalks o'er the battle heath;
Or of the dread prophetic form,

Who rides the curled clouds in the storm,
And borne upon the tempest's wings,
Death, despair, and horror brings.

Strange voices then and shrieks of death
Were borne along the trackless heath;
Tottered the ground his steps beneath;
Rustled the blast o'er the dark cliff's side,
And their works unhallowed spirits plied,
As they shed their baneful breath.
Yet Victorio hastened on --

Soon the dire deed will be done.
'Mortal,' the female cried, this night
Shall dissipate thy wce;

And, ere return of morning light,
The clouds that shade thy brow
Like fleeting summer mists shall fly
Before the sun that mounts on high.
I know the wishes of thy heart
A soothing balm I could impart :
Rosa is Paulo's - can be thine,
For the secret power is mine.'

VICTORIO

Give me that secret power-Oh! give
To me fair Rosa - I will live
To bow to thy command.
Rosa but mine - and I will fly
E'en to the regions of the sky,
Will traverse every land.

WITCH

Calm then those transports and attend,
Mortal, to one, who is thy friend -
The charm begins.

An ancient book

Of mystic characters she took;
Her loose locks floated on the air;
Her eyes were fixed in lifeless stare;
She traced a circle on the floor,
Around dank chilling vapors lower;

A golden cross on the pavement she threw,
'T was tinged with a flame of lambent blue,
From which bright scintillations flew ;
By it she cursed her Saviour's soul;
Around strange fiendish laughs did roll,
A hollow, wild, and frightful sound,
At fits was heard to float around.
She uttered then, in accents dread,
Some maddening rhyme that wakes the dead,
And forces every shivering fiend
To her their demon-forms to bend ;
At length a wild and piercing shriek,
As the dark mists disperse and break,
Announced the coming Prince of Hell -
His horrid form obscured the cell.
Victorio shrunk, unused to shrink,
E'en at extremest danger's brink;
The witch then pointed to the ground
Infernal shadows flitted around

And with their Prince were seen to rise;
The cavern bellows with their cries,
Which, echoing through a thousand caves,
Sound like as many tempest waves.

Inspired and wrapped in bickering flame,
The strange, the awful being stood.
Words unpremeditated came
In unintelligible flood

From her black tumid lips, arrayed In livid fiendish smiles of joy ;

Lips, which now dropped with deadly dew
And now, extending wide, displayed
Projecting teeth of mouldy hue,
As with a loud and piercing cry
A mystic, harrowing lay she sang ;
Along the rocks a death-peal rang;
In accents hollow, deep and drear,
They struck upon Victorio's ear.
As ceased the soul-appalling verse,
Obedient to its power grew still
The hellish shrieks; the mists disperse;
Satan - a shadeless, hideous beast
In all his horrors stood confessed!
And as his vast proportions fill
The lofty cave, his features dire

Gleam with a pale and sulphurous fire;
From his fixed glance of deadly hate

Even she shrunk back, appalled with dread -
For there contempt and malice sate,
And from his basiliskine eye
Sparks of living fury fly,

Which wanted but a being to strike dead.
A wilder, a more awful spell

Now echoed through the long-drawn cell;
The demon bowed to its mandates dread.
Receive this potent drug,' he cried,
"Whoever quaffs its fatal tide,
Is mingled with the dead.'

Swept by a rushing sulphurous blast,
Which wildly through the cavern passed,
The fatal word was borne.

The cavern trembled with the sound,1
Trembled beneath his feet the ground;
With strong convulsions torn,
Victorio, shuddering, fell;

But soon awakening from his trance,
He cast around a fearful glance,
Yet gloomy was the cell,

Save where a lamp's uncertain flare
Cast a flickering, dying glare.

She spake, and, to confirm the spell,
A strange and subterranean sound
Reverberated long around

In dismal echoes the dark cell
Rocked as in terror-through the sky
Hoarse thunders murmured awfully,
And, winged with horror, darkness spread
Her mantle o'er Victorio's head.

He gazed around with dizzy fear,
No fiend, no witch, no cave, was near;

But the blasts of the forest were heard to roar, The wild ocean's billows to dash on the shore. 1. Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name and sighed
From all its caves, and back resounded death.'
Paradise Lost.

See yon opening flower

Spreads its fragrance to the blast ;
It fades within an hour,
Its decay is pale, is fast.
Paler is yon maiden ;
Faster is her heart's decay;
Deep with sorrow laden,
She sinks in death away.

'Tis the silent dead of night

Hark! hark! what shriek so low yet clear,
Breaks on calm rapture's pensive ear
From Lara's castled height?

"T was Rosa's death-shriek fell!

What sound is that which rides the blast, As onward its fainter murmurs passed? "Tis Rosa's funeral knell !

What step is that the ground which shakes? 'Tis the step of a wretch, Nature shrinks from his tread;

And beneath their tombs tremble the shuddering dead;

And while he speaks the churchyard quakes

PAULO

Lies she there for the worm to devour,
Lies she there till the judgment hour,
Is then my Rosa dead!

False fiend! I curse thy futile power!
O'er her form will lightnings flash,
O'er her form will thunders crash,
But harmless from my head
Will the fierce tempest's fury fly,
Rebounding to its native sky.
Who is the God of Mercy?— where
Enthroned the power to save?
Reigns he above the viewless air?
Lives he beneath the grave?

To him would I lift my suppliant moan,
That power should hear my harrowing grean;
Is it then Christ's terrific Sire?

Ah! I have felt his burning ire,

I feel, I feel it now,

His flaming mark is fixed on my head,
And must there remain in traces dread:

TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART

Published by Medwin, the Shelley Papers, 1833, and by Mrs. Shelley, 1839, 1st ed., and also by Forman and Dowden. Mrs. Shelley omitted it in her second edition, with the following note: 'It was suggested that the poem To the Queen of My Heart was falsely attributed to Shelley; and certainly I find no trace of it among his papers; and, as those of his intimate friends whom I have consulted never heard of it, I omit it.' The story of the hoax is told in the Eclectic Review, 1851 (ii.), 66: It is curious to observe the wisdom and penetration of those who have at all mingled in literary society. They read an author, study his peculiarities and style, and imagine they perfectly understand his whole system of thought, and could detect one mistake instantly. But to show that even authors themselves are not always infallible judges, we will relate an anecdote which has never yet been made public, though, having received it from an undoubted source, we venture to vouch for its veracity. Shelley, whose poems many years ago were so much read and admired, necessarily excited much discussion in literary circles. A party of literary men were one evening engaged in canvassing his merits, when one of them declared that he knew the turns of Shelley's mind so well that amongst a thousand anonymous pieces he would detect his, no matter when published. Mr. James Augustus St. John, who was present, not liking the blustering tone of the speaker, remarked that he thought he was mistaken, and that it would, amongst so many, be difficult to trace

the style of Shelley. Every one present, however, sided with his opponent, and agreed that it was perfectly impossible that any one could imitate his style. A few days after, a poem, entitled To the Queen of My Heart, appeared in the London Weekly Review, with Shelley's signature, but written by Mr. St. John himself. The same coterie met and discussed the poem brought to their notice, and prided themselves much upon their discrimination: said they at once recognized the "style of Shelley, could not be mistaken, his soul breathed through it - it was himself." And so The Queen of My Heart was settled to be Shelley's! and to this day it is numbered with his poems (see Shelley's Works, edited by Mrs. Shelley, vol. iv. p. 166. It deceived even his wife), and very few are in the secret that it is not actually his. The imitation was perfect, and completely deceived every one, much to the discomfiture of all concerned.'

LOST POEMS

Horsham Publication. Reminiscences of a Newspaper Editor, Fraser's, June, 1841: 'It was his [Sir Bysshe Shelley] purse which supplied young Bysshe with the means of printing many of his fugitive pieces. These issued from the press of a printer at Horsham named Phillips; and although they were not got up in good style, the expense was much greater than Shelley could have afforded, if he had not received assistance from his grandfather.' No examples are known.

An Essay on Love. Shelley (from Keswick) to Godwin, January 16, 1812: 'I have desired the publications of my early youth to be sent to you. You will perceive that Zastrozzi and St. Irvyne were written prior to my acquaintance with your writings - the Essay on Love, a little poem, since.' Hogg, ii. 62. No copy is known. A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. The Oxford Herald, March 9, 1811: 'Literature. Just published, Price Two Shillings, A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things.

And Famine at her bidding wasted wide

The Wretched Land, till in the Public way, Promiscuous where the dead and dying lay, Dogs fed on human bones in the open light of day. CURSE OF KEHAMA

By a Gentleman of the University of Oxford. For assisting to maintain in prison Mr. Peter Finnerty, imprisoned for a libel. London: sold by B. Crosby & Co., and all other book-sellers. 1811. No copy is known. The following are all the contemporary notices of it.

The Weekly Messenger, Dublin, March 7, 1812: Mr. Shelley, commiserating the sufferings of our distinguished countryman, Mr. Finnerty, whose exertions in the cause of political freedom he much admired, wrote a very beau tiful poem, the profits of which we understand, from undoubted authority, Mr. Shelley remitted

'Talking of books, we have lately had a literary Sun shine forth upon us here, before whom our former luminaries must hide their diminished heads-a Mr. Shelley, of University College, who lives upon arsenic, aqua-fortis, halfan-hour's sleep in the night, and is desperately in love with the memory of Margaret Nicholson. He hath published what he terms the Posthumous Poems, printed for the benefit of Mr. Peter Finnerty, which, I am grieved to say, though stuffed full of treason, is extremely dull, but the Author is a great genius, and if he be not clapped up in Bedlam or hanged, will certainly prove one of the sweetest swans on the tuneful margin of the Charwell. . . Our Apollo next came out with a prose pamphlet in praise of atheism and there appeared a monstrous romance in one volume, called St. Ircoyne [sic], or the Rosicrucian. Shelley's last exhibition is a Poem on the State of Public Affairs. Forman, Shelley Library, pp. 21, 22.

From these conflicting statements it appears certain that Shelley printed some poem for the benefit of Finnerty. The profits (£100) may refer to the public subscription made for Finnerty to which Shelley was a contributor. See The Satire of 1811, below.

Lines on a Fête at Carlton House. C. H. Grove to Miss Helen Shelley, February 25, 1857: I forgot to mention before, that during the early part of the summer which Bysshe spent in town after leaving Oxford the Prince Regent gave a splendid fête at Carlton House, in which the novelty was introduced of a stream of water, in imitation of a river, meandering down the middle of a very long table in a temporary tent erected in Carlton Gardens. This was much commented upon in the papers, and laughed at by the Opposition. Bysshe also was of the number of those who disapproved of the fête and its accompaniments. He wrote a poem on the subject of about fifty lines, which he published immediately, wherein he apostrophized the Prince as sitting on the bank of his tiny river: and he amused himself with throwing copies into the carriages of persons going to Carlton House after the fête.' Hogg, ii. 556,

557.

No copy of this poem is known, but some lines from it will be found in JUVENILIA. A burlesque letter from Shelley to Graham, no date, is connected with this poem by Forman, Shelley Library, p. 24, and by Dowden, i. 136, 137, but it seems doubtful whether the Ode, there mentioned, is not the translation of the Marseillaise Hymn, of which one stanza is there given.

Satire: 1811. Shelley (from Field Place) to Hogy, December 20, 1810: I am composing a satirical poem: I shall print it at Oxford, unless

I find on visiting him that R[obinson] is ripe for printing whatever will sell. In case of that he is my man.' Hogg, i. 143.

Thornton Hunt: note on The Autobiography of Leigh Hunt, ii. 21: Mr. Rowland Hunter, who first brought Leigh Hunt and his most valued friend personally together. Shelley had brought a manuscript poem, which proved by no means suited to the publishing house in St. Paul's Churchyard. But Mr. Hunter sent the young reformer to seek the counsel of Leigh Hunt.'

Forman suggests that the manuscript poem offered to Hunter was the same mentioned in the letter to Hogg: and he conjectures, that a poem entitled 'Lines addressed to His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, on his being ap pointed Regent,' by Philopatria, Jr., and printed in London by Sherwood, Neely & Jones (later connected with the publication of Laon and Cythna) 1811, is the missing satire. Dowden rejects the conjecture.

MacCarthy (Shelley's Early Life, 102-106) conjectures that the Portical Essay on the Eristing State of Things is the missing satire.

The Creator. Shelley (from the Baths of San Giuliano) to Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne June 5, 1821: My unfortunate box! . . . If the idea of The Creator had been packed up with them it would have shared the same fate; and that, I am afraid, has undergone another sort of shipwreck.' Mrs. Shelley, Essays and Letters, ii. 294.

Mrs. Shelley to Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, June 30, 1821: The Creator has not yet made himself heard.' Dowden, ii. 413.

Possibly connected with the plans of this sunmer, vaguely alluded to in letters to Ollier, or with the drama on the Book of Job, and hardly begun. There is no other reference to it, but a familiar quotation of Shelley's from Tasso, 'non c'è in mondo chi merita nome di creatore che Dio ed il Poeta,' (Shelley to Peacock, August 16, 1818), may be connected with the title.

UNPUBLISHED POEMS

Shelley to Graham. A poetical epistle described by Forman (Aldine edition i. xix.), who gives from it the following lines, referring to Shelley's younger brother John.

'I have been
With little Jack upon the green -
A dear delightful red-faced brute,
And setting up a parachute.'

Esdaile Manuscript. A manuscript_book containing poems, which Shelley intended to publish simultaneously with Queen Mab, in the possession of his grandson, Mr. Esdaile, is partly described by Dowden. Shelley's references ta this volume are as follows:

Shelley (from Tanyrallt) to Hookham, January 2, 1813: My poems will, I fear, little stand the