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J.

THE serpent is shut out from paradise.
The wounded deer must seek the herd no more
In which its heart-cure lies:

The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower,
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs
Fled in the April hour.

I too, must seldom seek again

Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II.

Of hatred I am proud,-with scorn content;
Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown
Itself indifferent.

But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one

Turns the mind's poison into food,-
Its medicine is tears,-its evil good.

III.

Therefore if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend! know that I only fly
Your looks because they stir

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die:
The very comfort that they minister
I scarce can bear; yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,

Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV.

When I return to my cold home, you ask Why I am not as I have ever been?

You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part on life's dull scene,—
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask
Of author, great or mean,

In the world's Carnival. I sought
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

V.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot
With various flowers, and every one still said,
"She loves me,- -loves me not *."
And if this meant a vision long since fled-
If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought-
If it meant-but I dread

To speak what you may know too well:
Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI.

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;
No bird so wild, but has its quiet nest,
When it no more would roam;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast
Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,
And thus, at length, find rest:

Doubtless there is a place of peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

VII.

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed
That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved

His heart with words,-but what his judgment bade
Would do, and leave the scorner unreprieved
These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know,
Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

*Sec Faust.

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NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts :
History is but the shadow of their shame ;
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit
By force or custom? Man who man would be,
Must rule the empire of himself! in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep:
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the dead-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days Rocks the year :-be calm and mild, Trembling hours; she will arise With new love within her eyes.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O ye hours! Follow with May's fairest flowers,

NOTE ON THE POEMS OF 1821.

BY THE EDITOR.

My task becomes inexpressibly painful as the year draws near that which sealed our earthly fate; and each poem and each event it records, has a real or mysterious connexion with the fatal catastrophe. I feel that I am incapable of putting on paper the history of those times. The heart of the man, abhorred of the poet,

Who could peep and botanize upon his mother's grave, does not appear to me less inexplicably framed than that of one who can dissect and probe past woes, and repeat to the public ear the groans drawn from them in the throes of their agony.

The year 1821 was spent in Pisa, or at the baths of San Giuliano. We were not, as our wont had been, alone-friends had gathered round us. Nearly all are dead; and when memory recurs to the past, she wanders among tombs: the genius with all his blighting errors and mighty powers; the companion of Shelley's ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of his fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and fearless; and others, who found in Shelley's society, and in his great knowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction and solace, have joined him beyond the grave. A few survive who have felt life a desert since he left it. What misfortune can equal death? Change can convert every other into a blessing, or heal its sting-death alone has no cure; it shakes the foundations of the earth on which we tread, it destroys its beauty, it casts down our shelter, it exposes us bare to desolation; when those we love have passed into eternity, "life is the desert and

prophecy on his own destiny, when received among immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished into emptiness before the fame he inherits.

Shelley's favourite taste was boating; when living near the Thames, or by the lake of Geneva, much of his life was spent on the water. On the shore of every lake, or stream, or sea, near which he dwelt, he had a boat moored. He had latterly There are no enjoyed this pleasure again. pleasure-boats on the Arno, and the shallowness of its waters except in winter time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for boating, rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float. Shelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend, contrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the Maremma, to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the forests, a boat of laths and pitched canvas; it held three persons, and he was often seen on the Arno in it, to the horror of the Italians, who remonstrated on the danger, and could not understand how any one could take pleasure in an exercise that risked life. "Ma va per la vita!" they exclaimed. I little thought how true their words would prove. He once ventured with a friend, on the glassy sea of a calm day, down the Arno and round the coast, to Leghorn, which by keeping close in shore was very practicable. They returned to Pisa by the canal, when, missing the direct cut, they got entangled among weeds, and the boat upset; a wetting was all the harm done, except that the intense cold of his

the solitude," in which we are forced to linger-drenched clothes made Shelley faint. Once I but never find comfort more.

There is much in the Adonais which seems now more applicable to Shelley himself, than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The poetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards his calumniators, are as a

went down with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and swift, met the tideless sea and disturbed its sluggish waters; it was a waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched into a point surrounded by waves that broke idly though perpetually around; it was a

scene very similar to Lido, of which he had said,

I love all waste

And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be;
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
More barren than its billows.

Our little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when we removed to the baths. Some friends lived at the village of Pugnano, four miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the canal ; which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and picturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks sheltered, by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fire-flies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noon day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country where chance appeared to cast us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm, situated on the height of one of the near hills, surrounded by chesnut and pine woods, and overlooking a wide extent of country; or of settling still further in the maritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished poems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us. It is the nature of that poetry however which overflows from the soul oftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed by the weight of life, and away from those he loves, that the poet has recourse to the solace of expression in verse.

Still Shelley's passion was the ocean; and he wished that our summers, instead of being passed among the hills near Pisa, should be spent on the

shores of the sea. It was very difficult to find a spot. We shrank from Naples from a fear that the heats would disagree with Percy; Leghorn had lost its only attraction, since our friends who had resided there were returned to England; and Monte Nero being the resort of many English, we did not wish to find ourselves in the midst of a colony of chance travellers. No one then thought it possible to reside at Via Reggio, which latterly

has become a summer resort. The low lands and bad air of Maremma stretch the whole length of the western shores of the Mediterranean, till broken by the rocks and hills of Spezia. It was a vague idea; but Shelley suggested an excursion to Spezia, to see whether it would be feasible to spend a summer there. The beauty of the bay enchanted him-we saw no house to suit us-but the notion took root, and many circumstances, enchained as by fatality, occurred to urge him to execute it.

He looked forward this autumn with great pleasure to the prospect of a visit from Leigh Hunt. When Shelley visited Lord Byron at Ravenna, the latter had suggested his coming out, together with the plan of a periodical work, in which they should all join. Shelley saw a prospect of good for the fortunes of his friend, and pleasure in his society, and instantly exerted himself to have the plan executed. He did not intend himself joining in the work; partly from pride, not wishing to have the air of acquiring readers for his poetry by associating it with the compositions of more popular writers; and, also, because he might feel shackled in the free expression of his opinions, if any friends were to be compromised; by those opinions, carried even to their utmost extent, he wished to live and die, as being in his conviction not only true, but such as alone would conduce to the moral improvement and happiness of mankind. The sale of the work might, meanwhile, either really or supposedly, be injured by the free expression of his thoughts, and this evil he resolved to avoid.

POEMS WRITTEN IN MDCCCXXII.

THE ZUCCA*.

SUMMER was dead and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold ;-when I, desiring

More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring,

Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand Of my poor heart, and o'er the grass and flowers Pale for the falsehood of the flattering hours.

Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping;
And on the earth lulled in her winter sleep
I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep
The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping
From unremembered dreams shalt [
No death divide thy immortality.

I loved-O no, I mean not one of ye,

Or any earthly one, though ye are dear As human heart to human heart may be ;

] see

I loved, I know not what-but this low sphere, And all that it contains, contains not thee,

Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere, Dim object of my soul's idolatry.

By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest,

Neither to be contained, delayed, or hidden, Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,

When for a moment thou art not forbidden To live within the life which thou bestowest, And leaving noblest things, vacant and chidden, Cold as a corpse after the spirit's flight, Blank as the sun after the birth of night.

In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common,

In music, and the sweet unconscious tone Of animals, and voices which are human, Meant to express some feelings of their own; In the soft motions and rare smile of woman, In flowers and leaves, and in the fresh grass shown, Or dying in the autumn, I the most Abore thee present, or lament thee lost.

* Pumpkin.

And thus I went lamenting, when I saw
A plant upon the river's margin lie,
Like one who loved beyond his Nature's law,
And in despair had cast him down to die;
Its leaves which had outlived the frost, the thaw
Had blighted as a heart which hatred's eye
Can blast not, but which pity kills; the dew
Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true.

The Heavens had wept upon it, but the Earth Had crushed it on her unmaternal breast

*

I bore it to my chamber, and I planted
It in a vase full of the lightest mould;
The winter beams which out of Heaven slanted
Fell through the window panes, disrobed of coid,
Upon its leaves and flowers; the star which panted
In evening for the Day, whose car has rolled
Over the horizon's wave, with looks of light
Smiled on it from the threshold of the night.

The mitigated influences of air

And light revived the plant, and from it grew Strong leaves and tendrils, and its flowers fair, Full as a cup with the vine's burning dew, O'erflowed with golden colours; an atmosphere Of vital warmth, infolded it anew, And every impulse sent to every part The unbeheld pulsations of its heart.

Well might the plant grow beautiful and strong, Even if the sun and air had smiled not on it; For one wept o'er it all the winter long

Tears pure as Heaven's rain, which fell upon it Hour after hour; for sounds of softest song

Mixed with the stringed melodies that won it To leave the gentle lips on which it slept, Had loosed the heart of him who sat and wept.

Had loosed his heart, and shook the leaves and flowers

On which he wept, the while the savage storm Waked by the darkest of December's hours

Was raving round the chamber hushed and warm; The birds were shivering in their leafless bowers, The fish were frozen in the pools, the form Of every summer plant was dead [ Whilst this

January, 1822.

*

J

TO A LADY WITH A GUITAR.

ARIEL to Miranda :-Take
This slave of music, for the sake
Of him, who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own;
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.

When you die, the silent Moon,
In her interlunar swoon,
Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel;
When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen Star of birth,
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from your nativity:

Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still

Has tracked your steps and served your will.

Now in humbler, happier lot,

This is all remembered not;

And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned for some fault of his
In a body like a grave-

From you, he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of autumn past.
And some of spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,-
O that such our death may be !—
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar,

And taught it justly to reply,

To all who question skilfully,

In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone

Sweet oracles of woods and dells, And summer winds in sylvan cells; For it had learnt all harmonies Of the plains and of the skies, Of the forests and the mountains, And the many-voiced fountains; The clearest echoes of the hills, The softest notes of falling rills, The melodies of birds and bees, The murmuring of summer seas, And pattering rain, and breathing dew, And airs of evening; and it knew That seldom-heard mysterious sound, Which, driven on its diurnal round, As it floats through boundless day, Our world enkindles on its wayAll this it knows, but will not tell To those who cannot question well The spirit that inhabits it; It talks according to the wit Of its companions; and no more Is heard than has been felt before, By those who tempt it to betray These secrets of an elder day. But, sweetly as its answers will Flatter hands of perfect skill, It keeps its highest, holiest tone For our beloved friend alone.

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