III.

And, whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands

Watching the beck of Mutability

Delays to execute her high commands,

And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

IV.

O let a father's curse be on thy soul,

And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb; Be both, on thy grey head, a leaden cowl To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom!

V.

I curse thee by a parent's outraged love,

By hopes long cherished and too lately lost, By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove, By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed;

VI.

By those infantine smiles of happy light, Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth, Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night, Hiding the promise of a lovely birth;

VII.

By those unpractised accents of young speech,
Which he who is a father thought to frame
To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach-
Thou strike the lyre of mind! O grief and
shame!

VIII.

By all the happy see in children's growth-
That undeveloped flower of budding years-
Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,
Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest
fears-

IX.

By all the days under an hireling's care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,-
O wretched ye if ever any were,—

Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!

X.

By the false cant which on their innocent lips Must hang like poison on an opening bloom, By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb

XI.

By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror; By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt Of thine impostures, which must be their errorThat sand on which thy crumbling power is built

XII.

By thy complicity with lust and hate

Thy thirst for tears-thy hunger after goldThe ready frauds which ever on thee waitThe servile arts in which thou hast grown old

XIII.

By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smileBy all the arts and snares of thy black den, And-for thou canst outweep the crocodileBy thy false tears-those millstones braining

men

XIV.

By all the hate which checks a father's loveBy all the scorn which kills a father's careBy those most impious hands which dared

remove

Nature's high bounds-by thee-and by despair

XV.

Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,
And cry-my children are no longer mine-
The blood within those veins may be mine own,
But Tyrant-their polluted souls are

thine;

XVI.

I curse thee-though I hate thee not-O slave! If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell

Of which thou art a dæmon, on thy grave This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

I.

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it, The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thou delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,

And the winds are loose, we must not stay, Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II.

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.

To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee
Because we are fearless and free.

III.

Come thou, beloved as thou art;
Another sleepeth still

Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart,
Which thou with joy shalt fill,
With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be
The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV.

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,1
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

V.

Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?-
There sit between us two, thou dearest-

Me and thy mother-well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves
Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

VI.

This hour will in thy memory

Be a dream of days forgotten long; We soon shall dwell by the azure sea

1 Compare with Rosalind and Helen, lines 894 to 901 (vol. ii, pages 265-6).—ED.

Of serene and golden Italy,

Or Greece, the Mother of the free;
And I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old

In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame

Of Grecian lore, that by such name
A patriot's birthright thou mayst claim!

CANCELLED PASSAGES OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

I.

THE world is now our dwelling-place;
Where'er the earth one fading trace

Of what was great and free does keep,
That is our home!

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.

II.

This lament,

The memory of thy grievous wrong

Will fade

But genius is Omnipotent

To hallow ..

ON FANNY GODWIN.1

HER Voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken

1 See vol. i, page xxxix.-ED.