Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain.

III

And from its head as from one body grow,
As grass out of a watery rock,
Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow
And their long tangles in each other lock,
And with unending involutions show

Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock
The torture and the death within, and saw
The solid air with many a raggèd jaw.

IV

And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft
Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;
Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft

Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise
Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,

And he comes hastening like a moth that hies
After a taper; and the midnight sky
Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.

"Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;

For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare
Kindled by that inextricable error,

Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air
Become a and ever-shifting mirror

Of all the beauty and the terror there-
A woman's countenance, with serpent-locks,

Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks.

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

[Published by Leigh Hunt, The Indicator, December 22, 1819. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. Included in the Harvard MS. book, where it is headed An Anacreontic, and dated January, 1820.' Written by Shelley in a copy of Hunt's Literary Pocket-Book, 1819, and presented to Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.]

THE fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine ?-
26 those 1824; these 1839. Love's Philosophy.-3 mix for ever 1819, Stacey MS.; meet
together, Harvard MS. 7 In one spirit meet and Stacey MS.; In one another's being
1819, Harvard MS. II No sister 1824, Harvard and Stacey MSS.; No leaf or 1819. 12 dis-
dained its 1824, Harvard and Stacey MSS.; disdained to kiss its 1819. 15 is all this sweet
work Stacey MS.; were these examples Harvard MS.; are all these kissings 1819, 1824.

See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven i
If it disdained its brother;

5 And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

16

FRAGMENT: FOLLOW TO THE DEEP WOOD'S WEEDS'

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

THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE
[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]

AT the creation of the Earth
Pleasure, that divinest birth,
From the soil of Heaven did rise,
Wrapped in sweet wild melodies-
Like an exhalation wreathing
To the sound of air low-breathing.
Through Aeolian pines, which make

5

you.

A shade and shelter to the lake
Whence it rises soft and slow;
Her life-breathing [limbs] did flow 10
In the harmony divine

Of an ever-lengthening line
Which enwrapped her perfect form
With a beauty clear and warm.

FRAGMENT: LOVE THE UNIVERSE TO-DAY

Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]

AND who feels discord now or sorrow?
Love is the universe to-day-

These are the slaves of dim to-morrow,
Darkening Life's labyrinthine way.

FRAGMENT: A GENTLE STORY OF TWO LOVERS

YOUNG'

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

A GENTLE story of two lovers young,

Who met in innocence and died in sorrow,

And of one selfish heart, whose rancour clung
Like curses on them; are ye slow to borrow
The lore of truth from such a tale?

Or in this world's deserted vale,

5

Do ye not see a star of gladness
Pierce the shadows of its sadness,-

When ye are cold, that love is a light sent

From Heaven, which none shall quench, to cheer the innocent?

FRAGMENT: LOVE'S TENDER ATMOSPHERE

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

THERE is a warm and gentle atmosphere
About the form of one we love, and thus

As in a tender mist our spirits are

Wrapped in the

of that which is to us

The health of life's own life

10

5

FRAGMENT: WEDDED SOULS

[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]
I AM as a spirit who has dwelt

Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt

His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone

Unheard but in the silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.

I have unlocked the golden melodies

Of his deep soul, as with a master-key.

And loosened them and bathed myself therein

Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist

Clothing his wings with lightning.

FRAGMENT: IS IT THAT IN SOME BRIGHTER

SPHERE'

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

Is it that in some brighter sphere
We part from friends we meet with

here?

Or do we see the Future pass
Over the Present's dusky glass?

Or what is that that makes us

seem

To patch up fragments of a dream,
Part of which comes true, and part
Beats and trembles in the heart?

FRAGMENT: SUFFICIENT UNTO THE DAY

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

Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?

Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?

And will the day that follows change thy doom?

5

Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way;

And who waits for thee in that cheerless home

Whence thou hast fled, whither thou must return

Charged with the load that makes thee faint and mourn?

FRAGMENT: 'YE GENTLE VISITATIONS OF CALM

THOUGHT'

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]

YE gentle visitations of calm thought-
Moods like the memories of happier earth,

Which come arrayed in thoughts of little worth,

Like stars in clouds by the weak winds enwrought,-
But that the clouds depart and stars remain,
While they remain, and ye, alas, depart!

5

5

FRAGMENT: MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]
How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause-

FRAGMENT: THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]

AND where is truth? On tombs ? for such to thee
Has been my heart-and thy dead memory

Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

FRAGMENT: WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST' [Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

I

WHEN a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair-her epitaph!

FRAGMENT: WAKE THE SERPENT NOT'

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

WAKE the serpent not-lest he

Should not know the way to go,

Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping

Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,

Not a may-fly shall awaken

From its cradling blue-bell shaken,

Not the starlight as he's sliding

Through the grass with silent gliding.

FRAGMENT: RAIN

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]
THE fitful alternations of the rain,

When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.

FRAGMENT: A TALE UNTOLD

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

ONE sung of thee who left the tale untold,

Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;

Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,

Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

10

5

FRAGMENT: TO ITALY

[Published by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]
As the sunrise to the night,

As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake's fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,

Everlasting Italy,

Be those hopes and fears on thee.

FRAGMENT: WINE OF THE FAIRIES
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]
I AM drunk with the honey wine
Of the moon-unfolded eglantine,
Which fairies catch in hyacinth bowls.
The bats, the dormice, and the moles
Sleep in the walls or under the sward
Of the desolate castle yard;
And when 'tis spilt on the summer earth
Or its fumes arise among the dew,
Their jocund dreams are full of mirth,

They gibber their joy in sleep; for few
Of the fairies bear those bowls so new!

FRAGMENT: A ROMAN'S CHAMBER
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]

I

IN the cave which wild weeds cover
Wait for thine aethereal lover;
For the pallid moon is waning,
O'er the spiral cypress hanging
And the moon no cloud is staining.

II

It was once a Roman's chamber,

Where he kept his darkest revels,
And the wild weeds twine and clamber;
It was then a chasm for devils.

FRAGMENT: ROME AND NATURE
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.]
ROME has fallen, ye see it lying

Heaped in undistinguished ruin:
Nature is alone undying.

VARIATION OF THE SONG OF THE MOON

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.]

(Prometheus Unbound, ACT Iv.)

As a violet's gentle eye

Gazes on the azure sky

beholds;

As a gray and empty mist
Lies like solid amethyst

folds,

5

5

10

5

5

Until its hue grows like what it Over the western mountain it en