Sudden from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames that each with quivering tongue Licked its high domes, and overhead Among those mighty towers and fanes Dropped fire, as a volcano rains Its sulphurous ruin on the plains. And hark! a rush, as if the deep Had burst its bonds; she looked behind And saw over the western steep A raging flood descend, and wind Through that wide vale: she felt no fear, But said within herself, "Tis clear These towers are Nature's own, and she To save them has sent forth the sea. And now those raging billows came Where that fair Lady sate, and she Was borne towards the showering flame By the wild waves heaped tumultuously, And, on a little plank, the flow Of the whirlpool bore her to and fro. The waves were fiercely vomited From every tower and every dome, And dreary light did widely shed O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, Beneath the smoke which hung its night On the stained cope of heaven's light. The plank whereon that Lady sate Was driven through the chasms, about and about, Between the peaks so desolate Of the drowning mountain, in and out, At last her plank an eddy crost, And bore her to the city's wall, Which now the flood had reached almost; It might the stoutest heart appal To hear the fire roar and hiss Through the domes of those mighty palaces. The eddy whirled her round and round Before a gorgeous gate, which stood Piercing the clouds of smoke which bound Its aery arch with light like blood; She looked on that gate of marble clear With wonder that extinguished fear: For it was filled with sculptures rarest, Of winged shapes, whose legions range Throughout the sleep of those who are, Like this same Lady, good and fair. And as she looked, still lovelier grew Those marble forms;-the sculptor sure Was a strong spirit, and the hue Of his own mind did there endure After the touch, whose power had braided Such grace, was in some sad change faded. She looked, the flames were dim, the flood Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their lips moved; one seemed to speak, The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Of her dark eyes the dream did creep; Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it And from thy touch like fire doth leap. Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget! A breathless awe, like the swift change Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers, Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange, Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven By the enchantment of thy strain, And on my shoulders wings are woven, To follow its sublime career, Beyond the mighty moons that wane Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere, Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, L I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which, when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight. TO CONSTANTIA. THE rose that drinks the fountain dew Such is my heart-roses are fair, And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom! And fed with love, like air and dew Its growth DEATH. THEY die-the dead return not-Misery Misery, my sweetest friend-oh! weep no more! SONNET.-OZYMANDIAS. I MET a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, HONEY from silkworms who can gather, The grass may grow in winter weather Hate men who cant and men who pray, They are not coy like me. Or seek some slave of power and gold, A passion like the one I prove, I hate thy want of truth and love- LINES. THAT time is dead for ever, child, Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! We look on the past, And stare aghast At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, The stream we gazed on then rolled by ; Its waves are unreturning; But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory November 5th, 1817. NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817. BY THE EDITOR. THE very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appears to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The "Revolt of Islam," written and printed, was a great effort"Rosalind and Helen" was begun-and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period, show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours. In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book, and without implements of writing, I find many such in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley's mind, and desire to trace its workings. Thus in the same book that addresses "Constantia, Singing,” I find these lines: My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim Of rapture-as a boat with swift sails winging And this apostrophe to Music: No, Music, thou art not the God of Love, Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self, Till it becomes all music murmurs of. In another fragment he calls it The silver key of the fountain of tears, Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild; Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child, And then again this melancholy trace of the sad thronging thoughts, which were the well whence he drew the idea of Athanase, and express the restless, passion-fraught emotions of one whose sensibility, kindled to too intense a life, perpetually preyed upon itself: To thirst and find no fill-to wail and wander In the next page I find a calmer sentiment, better fitted to sustain one whose whole being was love: Wealth and dominion fade into the mass The things which are immortal, and surpass All that frail stuff which will be-or which was. In another book, which contains some passionate outbreaks with regard to the great injustice that he endured this year, the poet writes: My thoughts arise and fade in solitude, He had this year also projected a poem on the subject of Otho, inspired by the pages of Tacitus. I find one or two stanzas only, which were to open the subject: отно. Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be, 'Twill wrong thee not-thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel, Abjure such envious fame-great Otho died In his own blood-a deed it was to buy I insert here also the fragment of a song, though I do not know the date when it was written,-but it was early: ΤΟ Yet look on me-take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own, Which is indeed but the reflected ray Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me--thy voice is as the tone Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear Of aught but thine own features, imaged there; He projected also translating the Hymns of Homer; his version of several of the shorter ones remain, as well as that to Mercury, already published in the Posthumous Poems. His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the Hymns of Homer and the Iliad, he read the Dramas of Eschylus and Sophocles, the Symposium of Plato, and Arrian's Historia Indica. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings, I find also mentioned the Fairy Queen, and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore, and Byron. His life was now spent more in thought than action-he had lost the eager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the benefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was far from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy, or politics, or taste, were the subjects of conversation. He was playful and indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others not in bitterness, but in sport. The author of "Nightmare Abbey" seized on some points of his character and some habits of his life when he painted Scythrop. He was not addicted to "port or madeira," but in youth he had read of "Illuminati and Eleutherachs," and believed that he possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of men and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and adversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did with physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats, and watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness or repeating with wild energy the "Ancient Mariner," and Southey's "Old Woman of Berkeley," but those who do, will recollect that it was in such, and in the creations of his own fancy, when that was most daring and ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and disappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life. POEMS WRITTEN IN MDCCCXVIII. ROSALIND AND HELEN. THE story of ROSALIND and HELEN is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in the highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular, inasmuch as it corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which inspired it. I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will be selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One, which I sent from Italy, was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn, on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness. NAPLES, Dec. 20, 1818. SCENE.-The Shore of the Lake of Como. COME hither, my sweet Rosalind. None doth behold us now: the power If thou depart in scorn; oh! come, And we are exiles. Talk with me Of that our land, whose wilds and floods, |