No More Learning

The fiery mountains answer each other;
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. _5

2.
From a single cloud the lightening flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground. _10

3.
But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp
To thine is a fen-fire damp. _15

4.
From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,--
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night _20
In the van of the morning light.

NOTE:
_4 zone editions 1824, 1839; throne later editions.

***


SUMMER AND WINTER.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley in "The Keepsake", 1829. Mr. C. W.
Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley's
handwriting. ]

It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
From the horizon--and the stainless sky _5
Opens beyond them like eternity.
All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees. _10

It was a winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when, _15
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!

NOTE:
_11 birds die 1839; birds do die 1829.

***


THE TOWER OF FAMINE.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley in "The Keepsake", 1829. Mr. C. W.
Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley's
handwriting. ]

Amid the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people,--so that Pity

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of Oblivion's wave,
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built _5
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave

For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers _10
And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers

Of solitary wealth,--the tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air,--
Are by its presence dimmed--they stand aloof, _15

And are withdrawn--so that the world is bare;
As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terror
Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue, _20
The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,
Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.

NOTE:
_7 For]With 1829.

***


AN ALLEGORY.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. ]

1.
A portal as of shadowy adamant
Stands yawning on the highway of the life
Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;
Around it rages an unceasing strife
Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt _5
The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high
Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

2.
And many pass it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy . . .
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead _10
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humour led,
Pause to examine;--these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go. _15

NOTE:
_8 pass Rossetti; passed editions 1824, 1839.

***


THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. ]

1.
Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?

2.
Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray _5
Pilgrim of Heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

3.
Weary Wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest, _10
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

***


SONNET.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1823. There is a
transcript amongst the Ollier manuscripts, and another in the Harvard
manuscript book. ]

Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess
All that pale Expectation feigneth fair! _5
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess
Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,
And all that never yet was known would know--
Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,
With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, _10
Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,
A refuge in the cavern of gray death?
O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you
Hope to inherit in the grave below?

NOTE:
_1 grave Ollier manuscript;
dead Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.
_5 pale Expectation Ollier manuscript;
anticipation Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839.
_7 must Harvard manuscript, 1823; mayst 1824; mayest editions 1839.
_8 all that Harvard manuscript, 1823; that which editions 1824, 1839.
would Harvard manuscript, 1823; wouldst editions 1839.

***


LINES TO A REVIEWER.

[Published by Leigh Hunt, "The Literary Pocket-Book", 1823. These
lines, and the "Sonnet" immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the
"Literary Pocket-Book". ]

Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, _5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy _10
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

NOTE:
_3 where editions 1824, 1839; when 1823.

***


FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON SATIRE.

[Published by Edward Dowden, "Correspondence of Robert Southey and
Caroline Bowles", 1880. ]

If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,
And racks of subtle torture, if the pains
Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous wave,
Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,
Hurling the damned into the murky air _5
While the meek blest sit smiling; if Despair
And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which Terror
Hunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,
Are the true secrets of the commonweal
To make men wise and just;. . . _10
And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,
Bloodier than is revenge. . .
Then send the priests to every hearth and home
To preach the burning wrath which is to come,
In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw _15
The frozen tears. . .
If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds
Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,
The leprous scars of callous Infamy;
If it could make the present not to be, _20
Or charm the dark past never to have been,
Or turn regret to hope; who that has seen
What Southey is and was, would not exclaim,
'Lash on! ' . . . be the keen verse dipped in flame;
Follow his flight with winged words, and urge _25
The strokes of the inexorable scourge
Until the heart be naked, till his soul
See the contagion's spots . . . foul;
And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield,
From which his Parthian arrow. . . _30
Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,
Until his mind's eye paint thereon--
Let scorn like . . . yawn below,
And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.
This cannot be, it ought not, evil still-- _35
Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.
Rough words beget sad thoughts, . . . and, beside,
Men take a sullen and a stupid pride
In being all they hate in others' shame,
By a perverse antipathy of fame. _40
'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how
From the sweet fountains of our Nature flow
These bitter waters; I will only say,
If any friend would take Southey some day,
And tell him, in a country walk alone, _45
Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone,
How incorrect his public conduct is,
And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.
Far better than to make innocent ink--

***


GOOD-NIGHT.

[Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, "The Literary
Pocket-Book", 1822. It is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and
there is a transcript by Shelley in a copy of "The Literary
Pocket-Book", 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December
29, 1820. (See "Love's Philosophy" and "Time Long Past". ) Our text is
that of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard manuscript
and "Posthumous Poems", 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey
manuscript, 1820, are given in the footnotes. ]

1.
Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be GOOD night.

2.
How can I call the lone night good, _5
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood--
Then it will be--GOOD night.

3.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light, _10
The night is good; because, my love,
They never SAY good-night.

NOTES:
_1 Good-night? no, love! the night is ill Stacey manuscript.
_5 How were the night without thee good Stacey manuscript.
_9 The hearts that on each other beat Stacey manuscript.
_11 Have nights as good as they are sweet Stacey manuscript.
_12 But never SAY good night Stacey manuscript.

***


BUONA NOTTE.

[Published by Medwin, "The Angler in Wales, or Days and Nights of
Sportsmen", 1834. The text is revised by Rossetti from the Boscombe
manuscript. ]

1.
'Buona notte, buona notte! '--Come mai
La notte sara buona senza te?
Non dirmi buona notte,--che tu sai,
La notte sa star buona da per se.

2.
Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, _5
La notte quando Lilla m'abbandona;
Pei cuori chi si batton insieme
Ogni notte, senza dirla, sara buona.

3.
Come male buona notte ci suona
Con sospiri e parole interrotte! -- _10
Il modo di aver la notte buona
E mai non di dir la buona notte.

NOTES:
_2 sara]sia 1834.
_4 buona]bene 1834.
_9 Come]Quanto 1834.

***


ORPHEUS.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862; revised and
enlarged by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

A:
Not far from hence. From yonder pointed hill,
Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may behold
A dark and barren field, through which there flows,
Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow stream,
Which the wind ripples not, and the fair moon _5
Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange brook
Until you pause beside a darksome pond,
The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush
Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night _10
That lives beneath the overhanging rock
That shades the pool--an endless spring of gloom,
Upon whose edge hovers the tender light,
Trembling to mingle with its paramour,--
But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies day, _15
Or, with most sullen and regardless hate,
Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace.
On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill
There is a cave, from which there eddies up
A pale mist, like aereal gossamer, _20
Whose breath destroys all life--awhile it veils
The rock--then, scattered by the wind, it flies
Along the stream, or lingers on the clefts,
Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there.
Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock _25
There stands a group of cypresses; not such
As, with a graceful spire and stirring life,
Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale,
Whose branches the air plays among, but not
Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace; _30
But blasted and all wearily they stand,
One to another clinging; their weak boughs
Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake
Beneath its blasts--a weatherbeaten crew!

CHORUS:
What wondrous sound is that, mournful and faint, _35
But more melodious than the murmuring wind
Which through the columns of a temple glides?

A:
It is the wandering voice of Orpheus' lyre,
Borne by the winds, who sigh that their rude king
Hurries them fast from these air-feeding notes; _40
But in their speed they bear along with them
The waning sound, scattering it like dew
Upon the startled sense.

CHORUS:
Does he still sing?
Methought he rashly cast away his harp
When he had lost Eurydice.

A:
Ah, no! _45
Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted stag
A moment shudders on the fearful brink
Of a swift stream--the cruel hounds press on
With deafening yell, the arrows glance and wound,--
He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn _50
By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief,
Maenad-like waved his lyre in the bright air,
And wildly shrieked 'Where she is, it is dark! '
And then he struck from forth the strings a sound
Of deep and fearful melody. Alas! _55
In times long past, when fair Eurydice
With her bright eyes sat listening by his side,
He gently sang of high and heavenly themes.
As in a brook, fretted with little waves
By the light airs of spring--each riplet makes _60
A many-sided mirror for the sun,
While it flows musically through green banks,
Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and fresh,
So flowed his song, reflecting the deep joy
And tender love that fed those sweetest notes, _65
The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food.
But that is past. Returning from drear Hell,
He chose a lonely seat of unhewn stone,
Blackened with lichens, on a herbless plain.
Then from the deep and overflowing spring _70
Of his eternal ever-moving grief
There rose to Heaven a sound of angry song.
'Tis as a mighty cataract that parts
Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong, _75
And casts itself with horrid roar and din
Adown a steep; from a perennial source
It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air
With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar,
And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray
Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light. _80
Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief
Is clothed in sweetest sounds and varying words
Of poesy. Unlike all human works,
It never slackens, and through every change
Wisdom and beauty and the power divine _85
Of mighty poesy together dwell,
Mingling in sweet accord. As I have seen
A fierce south blast tear through the darkened sky,
Driving along a rack of winged clouds,
Which may not pause, but ever hurry on, _90
As their wild shepherd wills them, while the stars,
Twinkling and dim, peep from between the plumes.
Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome
Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,
Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon _95
Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,
Rising all bright behind the eastern hills.
I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not
Of song; but, would I echo his high song,
Nature must lend me words ne'er used before, _100
Or I must borrow from her perfect works,
To picture forth his perfect attributes.
He does no longer sit upon his throne
Of rock upon a desert herbless plain,
For the evergreen and knotted ilexes, _105
And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,
And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,
And elms dragging along the twisted vines,
Which drop their berries as they follow fast,
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race _110
Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,
And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,
As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth _115
Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy
Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,
And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.
Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. _120
The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,
Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;
Not even the nightingale intrudes a note
In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.

NOTES:
_16, _17, _24 1870 only.
_45-_55 Ah, no! . . . melody 1870 only.
_66 1870 only.
_112 trees 1870; too 1862.
_113 huge 1870; long 1862.
_116 starlike 1870; starry 1862. odour 1862; odours 1870.

***


FIORDISPINA.

[Published in part (lines 11-30) by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems",
1824; in full (from the Boscombe manuscript) by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of
Shelley", 1862. ]

The season was the childhood of sweet June,
Whose sunny hours from morning until noon
Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity _5
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,
For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,
Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers-- _10

. . .

They were two cousins, almost like to twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had rased their love--which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together like two flowers _15
Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather--the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love--and who e'er loved like thee, _20
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture.
He faints, dissolved into a sea of love; _25
But thou art as a planet sphered above;
But thou art Love itself--ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit: such emotion
Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet May
Had not brought forth this morn--your wedding-day. _30

. . .

'Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,
Ye faint-eyed children of the . . . Hours,'
Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers
Which she had from the breathing--

. . .

A table near of polished porphyry. _35
They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye
That looked on them--a fragrance from the touch
Whose warmth . . . checked their life; a light such
As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove _40
The childish pity that she felt for them,
And a . . . remorse that from their stem
She had divided such fair shapes . . . made
A feeling in the . . . which was a shade
Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay _45
All gems that make the earth's dark bosom gay.
. . . rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,
And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes
The livery of unremembered snow--
Violets whose eyes have drunk-- _50

. . .

Fiordispina and her nurse are now
Upon the steps of the high portico,
Under the withered arm of Media
She flings her glowing arm

. . .

. . . step by step and stair by stair, _55
That withered woman, gray and white and brown--
More like a trunk by lichens overgrown
Than anything which once could have been human.
And ever as she goes the palsied woman

. . .

'How slow and painfully you seem to walk, _60
Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk. '
'And well it may,
Fiordispina, dearest--well-a-day!
You are hastening to a marriage-bed;
I to the grave! '--'And if my love were dead, _65
Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie
Beside him in my shroud as willingly
As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought. '
'Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought
Not be remembered till it snows in June; _70
Such fancies are a music out of tune
With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night.
What! would you take all beauty and delight
Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,
And leave to grosser mortals? -- _75
And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet
And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?
Who knows whether the loving game is played,
When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,
The naked soul goes wandering here and there _80
Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?
The violet dies not till it'--

NOTES:
_11 to 1824; two editions 1839.
_20 e'er 1862; ever editions 1824, 1839.
_25 sea edition 1862; sense editions 1824, 1839.

***


TIME LONG PAST.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870.
This is one of three poems (cf. "Love's Philosophy" and "Good-Night")
transcribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book"
for 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. ]

1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last, _5
Was Time long past.

2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast _10
Which made us wish it yet might last--
That Time long past.

3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's beloved corse _15
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.

***


FRAGMENT: THE DESERTS OF DIM SLEEP.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

I went into the deserts of dim sleep--
That world which, like an unknown wilderness,
Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep--

***


FRAGMENT: 'THE VIEWLESS AND INVISIBLE CONSEQUENCE'.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

The viewless and invisible Consequence
Watches thy goings-out, and comings-in,
And. . . hovers o'er thy guilty sleep,
Unveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts
More ghastly than those deeds-- _5

***


FRAGMENT: A SERPENT-FACE.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

His face was like a snake's--wrinkled and loose
And withered--

***


FRAGMENT: DEATH IN LIFE.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. ]

My head is heavy, my limbs are weary,
And it is not life that makes me move.

***


FRAGMENT: 'SUCH HOPE, AS IS THE SICK DESPAIR OF GOOD'.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. ]

Such hope, as is the sick despair of good,
Such fear, as is the certainty of ill,
Such doubt, as is pale Expectation's food
Turned while she tastes to poison, when the will
Is powerless, and the spirit. . . _5

***


FRAGMENT: 'ALAS! THIS IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT LIFE WAS'.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. This
fragment is joined by Forman with that immediately preceding. ]

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.
I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.
In mine own heart I saw as in a glass _5
The hearts of others . . . And when
I went among my kind, with triple brass
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!

***


FRAGMENT: MILTON'S SPIRIT.

[Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S. ", 1870. ]

I dreamed that Milton's spirit rose, and took
From life's green tree his Uranian lute;
And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook
All human things built in contempt of man,--
And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked, _5
Prisons and citadels. . .

NOTE:
_2 lute Uranian cj. A. C. Bradley.

***


FRAGMENT: 'UNRISEN SPLENDOUR OF THE BRIGHTEST SUN'.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. ]

Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun,
To rise upon our darkness, if the star
Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne
Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war
With thy young brightness! _5

***


FRAGMENT: PATER OMNIPOTENS.

[Edited from manuscript Shelley E 4 in the Bodleian Library, and
published by Mr. C. D. Locock, "Examination" etc. , Oxford, Clarendon
Press, 1903. Here placed conjecturally amongst the compositions of
1820, but of uncertain date, and belonging possibly to 1819 or a still
earlier year. ]

Serene in his unconquerable might
Endued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne
Encompassed unapproachably with power
And darkness and deep solitude an awe
Stood like a black cloud on some aery cliff _5
Embosoming its lightning--in his sight
Unnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood
Like slaves before their Lord--prostrate around
Heaven's multitudes hymned everlasting praise.

***


FRAGMENT: TO THE MIND OF MAN.

[Edited, published and here placed as the preceding. ]

Thou living light that in thy rainbow hues
Clothest this naked world; and over Sea
And Earth and air, and all the shapes that be
In peopled darkness of this wondrous world
The Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse _5
. . . truth . . . thou Vital Flame
Mysterious thought that in this mortal frame
Of things, with unextinguished lustre burnest
Now pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled
That eer as thou dost languish still returnest _10
And ever
Before the . . . before the Pyramids

So soon as from the Earth formless and rude
One living step had chased drear Solitude
Thou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids _15
Of the vast snake Eternity, who kept
The tree of good and evil. --

***


NOTE ON POEMS OF 1820, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

We spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley
passed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on
its ancient works of art. His thoughts were a good deal taken up also
by the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to
ply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of
money. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly
disappointed when it was thrown aside.

There was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his
health, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we
left it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we had some
friends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vacca as
to the cause of Shelley's sufferings. He, like every other medical man,
could only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he
enjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave
his complaint to Nature. As he had vainly consulted medical men of the
highest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this
advice. Pain and ill-health followed him to the end; but the residence
at Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence
we remained.

In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house
of some friends who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a
beautiful summer evening, while wandering among the lanes whose
myrtle-hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the
carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of
his poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house,
which was hers: he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who
was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her
younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming
from her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love
of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved
freshness of mind after a life of considerable adversity. As a
favourite friend of my father, we had sought her with eagerness; and
the most open and cordial friendship was established between us.

Our stay at the Baths of San Giuliano was shortened by an accident. At
the foot of our garden ran the canal that communicated between the
Serchio and the Arno. The Serchio overflowed its banks, and, breaking
its bounds, this canal also overflowed; all this part of the country is
below the level of its rivers, and the consequence was that it was
speedily flooded. The rising waters filled the Square of the Baths, in
the lower part of which our house was situated. The canal overflowed in
the garden behind; the rising waters on either side at last burst open
the doors, and, meeting in the house, rose to the height of six feet.
It was a picturesque sight at night to see the peasants driving the
cattle from the plains below to the hills above the Baths. A fire was
kept up to guide them across the ford; and the forms of the men and the
animals showed in dark relief against the red glare of the flame, which
was reflected again in the waters that filled the Square.

We then removed to Pisa, and took up our abode there for the winter.
The extreme mildness of the climate suited Shelley, and his solitude
was enlivened by an intercourse with several intimate friends. Chance
cast us strangely enough on this quiet half-unpeopled town; but its
very peace suited Shelley. Its river, the near mountains, and not
distant sea, added to its attractions, and were the objects of many
delightful excursions. We feared the south of Italy, and a hotter
climate, on account of our child; our former bereavement inspiring us
with terror. We seemed to take root here, and moved little afterwards;
often, indeed, entertaining projects for visiting other parts of Italy,
but still delaying. But for our fears on account of our child, I
believe we should have wandered over the world, both being passionately
fond of travelling. But human life, besides its great unalterable
necessities, is ruled by a thousand lilliputian ties that shackle at
the time, although it is difficult to account afterwards for their
influence over our destiny.

***


POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821.


DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824, and dated
January 1, 1821. ]

1.
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, _5
Mocking your untimely weeping.

2.
As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold Year to-day; _10
Solemn Hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

3.
As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days _15
Rocks the Year:--be calm and mild,
Trembling Hours, she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

4.
January gray is here,
Like a sexton by her grave; _20
February bears the bier,
March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps--but, O ye Hours!
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

***


TO NIGHT.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.
There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript book. ]

1.
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, _5
'Which make thee terrible and dear,--
Swift be thy flight!