1817.

Mild thoughts of man's ungentle race
Shall our contented exile reap :
For who that in some happy place
His own free thoughts can freely chase
By woods and waves can clothe his face
In cynic smiles?-Child! we shall weep.

This lament,

The memory of thy grievous wrong,-
Will fade.

But genius is omnipotent

To hallow

JULIAN AND MADDALO.

(FRAGMENTS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN ORIGINALLY INTENDED FOR THAT POEM.)

What should they be?"

""Tis the last hour of day.

Look on the west! How beautiful it is,

Vaulted with radiant vapours! The deep bliss

Of that unutterable light has made

The edges of that cloud . . . fade

Into a hue like some harmonious thought
Wasting itself on that which it had wrought,
Till it dies; .. and between
The light hues of the tender, pure, serene,
And infinite tranquillity of heaven."

"Perhaps the only comfort which remains
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody."

1819.

1819.

THE INDIAN SERENADE.

(LINES APPARENTLY BELONGING TO THAT POEM.)
O PILLOW cold and wet with tears,
Thou breathest sleep no more!

ODE TO THE ASSERTORS OF LIBERTY.
CONCLUDING STANZA ADDED.

GATHER, oh gather

Foeman and friend in love and peace!
Waves sleep together

When the blasts that called them to battle cease.

For fangless Power, grown tame and mild,

Is at play with Freedom, fearless child,—
The dove and the serpent reconciled.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.

(VARIATION OF THE LYRIC OF THE MOON, vol. ii. p. 136).

As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky

Until its hue grows like what it beholds;

As a grey and empty mist

Lies like solid amethyst

Over the western mountain it enfolds,

When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow;

As a strain of sweetest sound

Wraps itself the wind around

Until the voiceless wind be music too;

As aught dark, vain, and dull,

Basking in what is beautiful,

Is full of light and love.

1819.

ODE TO LIBERTY.

(A CANCELLED PASSAGE OF THE POEM.) WITHIN a cavern of man's trackless spirit Is throned an image so intensely fair

1320.

That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it
Worship, and, as they kneel, tremble, and wear
The splendour of its presence; and the light
Penetrates their dreamlike frame,

Till they become charged with the strength of flame.

VOL III.

EPIPSYCHIDION,

(CANCELLED PASSAGES OF THAT POEM.)

AND what is that most brief and bright delight
Which rushes through the touch and through the sight,
And stands before the spirit's inmost throne,

A naked seraph ? none hath ever known.
Its birth is darkness, and its growth desire :
Untameable and fleet and fierce as fire,
Not to be touched but to be felt alone,

It fills the world with glory-and is gone.

It floats with rainbow pinions o'er the stream

Of life, which flows, like a . . dream
Into the light of morning, to the grave
As to an ocean.

What is that joy which serene infancy
Perceives not, as the hours content them by,
Each in a chain of blossoms, yet enjoys
The shapes of this new world, in giant toys
Wrought by the busy..

ever new?

Remembrance borrows Fancy's glass, to show

These forms . . . sincere

Than now they are, than then perhaps they were,-
When everything familiar seemed to be

Wonderful, and the immortality

Of this great world, which all things must inherit,
Was felt as one with the awakening spirit,
Unconscious of itself, and of the strange

Distinctions which in its proceeding change
It feels and knows, and mourns as if each were
A desolation.

25

Were it not a sweet refuge, Emily,

For all those exiles from the dull insane

Who vex this pleasant world with pride and pain,
For all that band of sister spirits known

To one another by a voiceless tone?

1821.

FROM CALDERON'S CISMA D'INGALATERRA.

HAST thou not seen, officious with delight,

Move through the illumined air about the flower
The bee, that fears to drink its purple light,

Lest danger lurk within that rose's bower?
Hast thou not marked the moth's enamoured flight
About the taper's flame at evening hour,
Till kindle in that monumental fire

His sunflower wings their own funereal pyre?

My heart, its wishes trembling to unfold,

Thus round the rose and taper hovering came;

And passion's slave, distrust, in ashes cold

Smothered awhile, but could not quench, the flame ;

Till love, that grows by disappointment bold,

And opportunity, had conquered shame,-
And like the bee and moth, in act to close,

I burnt my wings, and settled on the rose.

[1821. Translated by Medwin, with some re-touching by Shelley. The lines by Shelley are those of which the first words are printed in italics.]

UGOLINO.
(From Dante.)

Now had the loophole of that dungeon still

Which bears the name of Famine's Tower from me,

And where 'tis fit that many another will

Be doomed to linger in captivity,

Shown through its narrow opening in my cell
Moon after moon slow waning, when a sleep

That of the future burst the veil, in dream,
Visited me. It was a slumber deep

To see

And evil; for I saw-or I did seem
—that tyrant lord his revels keep,
The leader of the cruel hunt to them,

Chasing the wolf and wolf-cubs up the steep
Ascent that from the Pisan is the screen
Of Lucca. With him Gualandi came,
Sismondi, and Lanfranchi, bloodhounds lean,
Trained to the sport and eager for the game,
Wide ranging in his front. But soon were seen,
Though by so short a course, with spirits tame
The father and his whelps to flag at once.

When I

Heard locked beneath me of that horrible tower

The outlet, then into their eyes alone

I looked to read myself, without a sign
Or word.

But, when to shine

Upon the world, not us, came forth the light
Of the new sun, and, thwart my prison thrown,
Gleamed through its narrow chink, a doleful sight,

Three faces, each the reflex of my own,

Were imaged by its faint and ghastly ray.

"Father, our woes so great were yet the less

Would you but eat of us: 'twas you who clad

Our bodies in these weeds of wretchedness,

Despoil them!”—Not to make their hearts more sad,

I hushed myself.

Between the fifth and sixth day, ere 'twas dawn,

I found myself blind-groping o'er the three

[1821. Translated by Medwin, with aid from Shelley. Whatever is not Shelley's is printed in italics.]