The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 3

to live
In the warm sunshine of thine eye,

That price beyond all pain must give,--
Beneath thy scorn to die; _10
Then hear thy chosen own too late
His heart most worthy of thy hate.
Be thou, then, one among mankind
Whose heart is harder not for
state,
Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind, _15 Amid a world of hate;

And by a slight endurance seal
A fellow-being's lasting weal.
For pale with anguish is his cheek,
His breath comes fast, his eyes are

dim, _20 Thy name is struggling ere he speak,
Weak is each
trembling limb;
In mercy let him not endure
The misery of a fatal
cure.
Oh, trust for once no erring guide! _25 Bid the remorseless feeling flee;

'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride,
'Tis anything but thee;
Oh,
deign a nobler pride to prove,
And pity if thou canst not love. _30
***
TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.
[Composed June, 1814. Published in "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1.
Mine eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm--thus
wert not thou;--
My baffled looks did fear yet dread
To meet thy
looks--I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine _5 With
soothing pity upon mine.
2.
To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself
alone;
To curse the life which is the cage
Of fettered grief that dares
not groan, _10 Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of
agony.
3.
Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,
The ... thou alone should be,

To spend years thus, and be rewarded, _15 As thou, sweet love,
requited me
When none were near--Oh! I did wake
From torture for
that moment's sake.
4.
Upon my heart thy accents sweet
Of peace and pity fell like dew
_20 On flowers half dead;--thy lips did meet
Mine tremblingly; thy
dark eyes threw
Their soft persuasion on my brain,
Charming away
its dream of pain.
5.
We are not happy, sweet! our state _25 Is strange and full of doubt
and fear;
More need of words that ills abate;--
Reserve or censure

come not near
Our sacred friendship, lest there be
No solace left for
thee and me. _30
6.
Gentle and good and mild thou art,
Nor can I live if thou appear

Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart
Away from me, or stoop to
wear
The mask of scorn, although it be _35 To hide the love thou
feel'st for me.
NOTES:
_2 wert 1839; did 1824.
_3 fear 1824, 1839; yearn cj.
Rossetti.
_23 Their 1839; thy 1824.
_30 thee]thou 1824, 1839.

_32 can I 1839; I can 1824.
_36 feel'st 1839; feel 1824.
***
TO --.
[Published in "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition. See Editor's Note.]
Yet look on me--take not thine eyes away,
Which feed upon the love
within mine own,
Which is indeed but the reflected ray
Of thine
own beauty from my spirit thrown.
Yet speak to me--thy voice is as
the tone _5 Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear
That thou yet lovest
me; yet thou alone
Like one before a mirror, without care
Of aught
but thine own features, imaged there;
And yet I wear out life in watching thee; _10 A toil so sweet at times,
and thou indeed
Art kind when I am sick, and pity me...
***
MUTABILITY.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they
speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet

soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings _5 Give various
response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second
motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.--One
wandering thought pollutes the day; _10 We feel, conceive or reason,
laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still
is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; _15 Nought
may endure but Mutability.
NOTES:
_15 may 1816; can Lodore, chapter 49, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).

_16 Nought may endure but 1816;
Nor aught endure save Lodore, chapter 49, 1835 (Mrs. Shelley).
***
ON DEATH.
[For the date of composition see Editor's Note.
Published with
"Alastor", 1816.]
THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE,
NOR WISDOM,
IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU
GOEST.--Ecclesiastes.
The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a
starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning
of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan

That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. _5
O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of

thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll

Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, _10 Where Hell and Heaven
shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of
all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow _15 To a brain
unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or