Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:
Here could I hope, like some enquiring 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.
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
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:
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.
1 It is probable that students have often compared this lament over Wordsworth's defection from the republican cause with Robert Browning's admirable dramatic treatment of that defection in The Lost Leader; and much controversy has from time to time had place as to whether that fine poem really did refer to Wordsworth. Browning's name must ever
stand in honourable connexion with that of Shelley (mentioned, indeed, in The Lost Leader); and, even if this sonnet be not among the origines of Browning's lyric, it is fitting to note here the recent publication, in Wordsworth's prose works (Vol. I, p.xxxvii),of a letter from the living poet avowing that his composition was based (only based) on the character of Wordsworth.
ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
I HATED thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst1 dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer
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
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.
THOU taintest all thou lookest upon! The stars,
Which on thy cradle beamed so brightly sweet,
Were gods to the distempered playfulness
Of thy untutored infancy; the trees,
The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea,
All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly,
Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon
Her worshipper. Then thou becamest, a boy,
More daring in thy frenzies: every shape,
Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
1 I leave the heretical grammar undisturbed. Mr. Rossetti substitutes should for shouldst.
2 These lines are from the sixth section of Queen Mab, privately printed by Shelley in the year 1813, and, as
he stated in his preface to Alastor &c.,
not intended for publication. The
last two lines stand instead of the
single line in Queen Mab,
Converging, thou didst bend, and called it
GOD!
Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls;
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to nature's varied works,
Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave
Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain;
Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene,
Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride: 20
Their everlasting and unchanging laws
Reproached thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest
Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know;
The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign,
The budding of the heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sun-rise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease,
And all their causes, to an abstract point
Converging thou didst give it name, and form,
Intelligence, and unity, and power.
FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti.1
GUIDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmèd sails should fly
With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, And that no change, nor any evil chance
1 Among the MSS. of Leigh Hunt, several times referred to in this edition, is a translation by Shelley of Guido Cavalcanti's Sonnet to Dante,
"Io vegno il giorno a te infinite volte." It will be found in the fourth volume. 2 Mrs. Shelley's editions read so for and.
Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community:
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my1 gentle love,
Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk wherever we might rove
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
Ταν άλα ταν γλαυκαν όταν ώνεμος ατρεμα βαλλη, κ.τ.λ.
WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind.-But when the roar
Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
1 Shelley can hardly have forgotten that Bice was the beloved of Dante, and I suspect the word my is a misprint for thy. The translation would still be incorrect; but the poet might easily have got confused about the less important ladies of Lapo and Guido. I cannot bring myself to think Shelley could have written
Vanna and Bice and his gentle love as a translation of the lines E Monna Vanna, e Monna Bice poi, Con quella su il numer delle trenta, meaning literally "and Lady Vanna, and then Lady Bice, with her on num. ber thirty" (of Dante's list of the sixty fairest ladies of Florence: see Vita Nuova).
Quantum scire licet. Venit ætas omnis in unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot sæcula pectus.
Lucan Phars. L. v. 1. 176.
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