The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 4

thrilling sound, _20 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,?Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,?And mingling with the still night and mute sky?Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild _25 And terrorless as this serenest night:?Here could I hope, like some inquiring child?Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight?Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep?That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. _30
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TO --.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816. See Editor's Note.]
DAKRTSI DIOISO POTMON 'APOTMON.
Oh! there are spirits of the air,?And genii of the evening breeze,?And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair?As star-beams among twilight trees:--?Such lovely ministers to meet _5 Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,?And moonlight seas, that are the voice?Of these inexplicable things,?Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice _10 When they did answer thee; but they?Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes?Beams that were never meant for thine,?Another's wealth:--tame sacrifice?To a fond faith! still dost thou pine? _15 Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,?Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope?On the false earth's inconstancy? _20 Did thine own mind afford no scope?Of love, or moving thoughts to thee??That natural scenes or human smiles?Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled _25 Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;?The glory of the moon is dead;?Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed;?Thine own soul still is true to thee,?But changed to a foul fiend through misery. _30
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever?Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,?Dream not to chase;--the mad endeavour?Would scourge thee to severer pangs.?Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,?Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. _35
NOTES:?_1 of 1816; in 1839.?_8 moonlight 1816; mountain 1839.
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TO WORDSWORTH.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know?That things depart which never may return:?Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,?Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.?These common woes I feel. One loss is mine _5 Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.?Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine?On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:?Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood?Above the blind and battling multitude: _10 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave?Songs consecrate to truth and liberty,--?Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,?Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
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FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
[Published with "Alastor", 1816.]
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan?To think that a most unambitious slave,?Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave?Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne?Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer _5 A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept?In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,?For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,?Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,?And stifled thee, their minister. I know _10 Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,?That Virtue owns a more eternal foe?Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,?And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.
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LINES.
[Published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1823, where it is headed "November, 1815". Reprinted in the "Posthumous Poems", 1824. See Editor's Note.]
1.?The cold earth slept below,?Above the cold sky shone;?And all around, with a chilling sound,?From caves of ice and fields of snow,?The breath of night like death did flow _5 Beneath the sinking moon.
2.?The wintry hedge was black,?The green grass was not seen,?The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,?Whose roots, beside the pathway track, _10 Had bound their folds o'er many a crack?Which the frost had made between.
3.?Thine eyes glowed in the glare?Of the moon's dying light;?As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream _15 Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,?And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,?That shook in the wind of night.
4.?The moon made thy lips pale, beloved--?The wind made thy bosom chill-- _20 The night did shed on thy dear head?Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie?Where the bitter breath of the naked sky?Might visit thee at will.
NOTE:?_17 raven 1823; tangled 1824.
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NOTE ON THE EARLY POEMS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The remainder of Shelley's Poems will be arranged in the order in which they were written. Of course, mistakes will occur in placing some of the shorter ones; for, as I have said, many of these were thrown aside, and I never saw them till I had the misery of looking over his writings after the hand that traced them was dust; and some were in the hands of others, and I never saw them till now. The subjects of the poems are often to me an unerring guide; but on other occasions I can only guess, by finding them in