The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 122

4.

As dew beneath the wind of morning, As the sea which whirlwinds waken, _20 As the birds at thunder's warning, As aught mute yet deeply shaken, As one who feels an unseen spirit Is my heart when thine is near it.

TO WILLIAM Sh.e.l.lEY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.

The fragment included in the Harvard ma.n.u.script book.]

(With what truth may I say-- Roma! Roma! Roma!

Non e piu come era prima!)

1.

My lost William, thou in whom Some bright spirit lived, and did That decaying robe consume Which its l.u.s.tre faintly hid,-- Here its ashes find a tomb, _5 But beneath this pyramid Thou art not--if a thing divine Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine Is thy mother's grief and mine.

2.

Where art thou, my gentle child? _10 Let me think thy spirit feeds, With its life intense and mild, The love of living leaves and weeds Among these tombs and ruins wild;-- Let me think that through low seeds _15 Of sweet flowers and sunny gra.s.s Into their hues and scents may pa.s.s A portion--

NOTE:

Motto _1 may I Harvard ma.n.u.script; I may 1824.

_12 With Harvard ma.n.u.script, Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, 1847; Within 1824, 1839.

_16 Of sweet Harvard ma.n.u.script; Of the sweet 1824, 1839.

TO WILLIAM Sh.e.l.lEY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.]

Thy little footsteps on the sands Of a remote and lonely sh.o.r.e; The twinkling of thine infant hands, Where now the worm will feed no more; Thy mingled look of love and glee _5 When we returned to gaze on thee--

TO MARY Sh.e.l.lEY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition.]

My dearest Mary, wherefore hast thou gone, And left me in this dreary world alone?

Thy form is here indeed--a lovely one-- But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road, That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode; _5 Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair, Where For thine own sake I cannot follow thee.

TO MARY Sh.e.l.lEY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition.]

The world is dreary, And I am weary Of wandering on without thee, Mary; A joy was erewhile In thy voice and thy smile, _5 And 'tis gone, when I should be gone too, Mary.

ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI IN THE FLORENTINE GALLERY.

[Published by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]

1.

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine; Below, far lands are seen tremblingly; Its horror and its beauty are divine.

Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie _5 Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, The agonies of anguish and of death.

2.

Yet it is less the horror than the grace Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone, _10 Whereon the lineaments of that dead face Are graven, till the characters be grown Into itself, and thought no more can trace; 'Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, Which humanize and harmonize the strain. _15

3.

And from its head as from one body grow, As ... gra.s.s out of a watery rock, Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow And their long tangles in each other lock, _20 And with unending involutions show Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock The torture and the death within, and saw The solid air with many a ragged jaw.

4.

And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft _25 Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes; Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft, And he comes hastening like a moth that hies _30 After a taper; and the midnight sky Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.

5.

'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror; For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare Kindled by that inextricable error, _35 Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air Become a ... and ever-shifting mirror Of all the beauty and the terror there-- A woman's countenance, with serpent-locks, Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks. _40

NOTES: _5 seems 1839; seem 1824.

_6 shine]shrine 1824, 1839.

_26 those 1824; these 1839.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, "The Indicator", December 22, 1819. Reprinted by Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Included in the Harvard ma.n.u.script book, where it is headed "An Anacreontic", and dated 'January, 1820.' Written by Sh.e.l.ley in a copy of Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1819, and presented to Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]

1.

The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever With a sweet emotion; Nothing in the world is single; _5 All things by a law divine In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine?--

2.

See the mountains kiss high Heaven And the waves clasp one another; _10 No sister-flower would be forgiven If it disdained its brother; And the sunlight clasps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What is all this sweet work worth _15 If thou kiss not me?

NOTES: _3 mix for ever 1819, Stacey ma.n.u.script; meet together, Harvard ma.n.u.script.

_7 In one spirit meet and Stacey ma.n.u.script; In one another's being 1819, Harvard ma.n.u.script.

_11 No sister 1824, Harvard and Stacey ma.n.u.scripts; No leaf or 1819.

_12 disdained its 1824, Harvard and Stacey ma.n.u.scripts; disdained to kiss its 1819.