If I look on Spring's soft heaven, Something is not there which was. FRAGMENT: A WANDERER FRAGMENT: LIFE ROUNDED WITH SLEEP FRAGMENT: 'I FAINT, I PERISH WITH MY [Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.] And like a wave under the calm I fail. FRAGMENT: THE LADY OF THE SOUTH Under a heaven of cedar boughs: the drouth FRAGMENT: ZEPHYRUS THE AWAKENER [Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.] COME, thou awakener of the spirit's ocean, Zephyr, whom to thy cloud or cave No thought can trace! speed with thy gentle motion! FRAGMENT: RAIN [Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.] THE gentleness of rain was in the wind. 5 5 5 FRAGMENT: 'WHEN SOFT WINDS AND SUNNY [Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.] WHEN Soft winds and sunny skies Up the windless heaven is gone,- Clouds and whirlwinds watch their prey. FRAGMENT: 'AND THAT I WALK THUS [Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.] I shall not weep out of the vital day, FRAGMENT: 'THE RUDE WIND IS SINGING' [Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 1st ed.] THE rude wind is singing The dirge of the music dead; FRAGMENT: 'GREAT SPIRIT' [Published by Rossetti, Complete P. W. of P. B. S., 1870.] FRAGMENT: 'O THOU IMMORTAL DEITY' [Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W., 1839, 2nd ed.] O THOU immortal deity Whose throne is in the depth of human thought, By all that man may be, by all that he is not, 5 5 FRAGMENT: THE FALSE LAUREL AND THE TRUE Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest? In sacred dedication ever grew: One of the crowd thou art without a name.' As that which bound Milton's immortal hair; FRAGMENT: MAY THE LIMNER 5 10 [This and the three following Fragments were edited from MS. Shelley D 1 at the Bodleian Library and published by Mr. C. D. Locock, Examination, &c., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903. They are printed here as belonging probably year 1821.] to the WHEN May is painting with her colours gay The landscape sketched by April her sweet twin FRAGMENT: BEAUTY'S HALO [Published by Mr. C. D. Locock, Examination, &c., 1903.] Thy voice, as silver bells that strike FRAGMENT: 'THE DEATH KNELL IS RINGING ’1 THE death knell is ringing The raven is singing The earth worm is creeping The mourners are weeping FRAGMENT: 'I STOOD UPON A HEAVEN-CLEAVING TURRET' I STOOD Upon a heaven-cleaving turret 5 1 This reads like a study for Autumn, A Dirge' (Locock). Might it not be part of a projected Fit v. of The Fugitives ?—ED. Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss It shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer NOTE ON POEMS OF 1821, BY MRS. SHELLEY My task becomes inexpressibly painful as the year draws near that which sealed our earthly fate, and each poem, and each event it records, has a real or mysterious connexion with the fatal catastrophe. I feel that I am incapable of putting on paper the history of those times. The heart of the man, abhorred of the poet, who could 'peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave,' 5 those we love have passed into eternity, life is the desert and the solitude' in which we are forced to linger-but never find comfort more. There is much in the Adonais which seems now more applicable to Shelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The poetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards his calumniators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received among immortal critics has vanished into emptiness before the fame he inherits. does not appear to me more inex-names, and the poisonous breath of plicably framed than that of one who can dissect and probe past woes, and repeat to the public ear the groans drawn from them in the throes of their agony. Shelley's favourite taste was boating; when living near the Thames or by the Lake of Geneva, much of his life was The year 1821 was spent in Pisa, or spent on the water. On the shore of at the Baths of San Giuliano. We were every lake or stream or sea near which not, as our wont had been, alone; friends he dwelt, he had a boat moored. He had gathered round us. Nearly all are had latterly enjoyed this pleasure again. dead, and, when Memory recurs to the There are no pleasure-boats on the past, she wanders among tombs. The Arno; and the shallowness of its waters genius, with all his blighting errors and (except in winter-time, when the stream mighty powers; the companion of Shel- is too turbid and impetuous for boating) ley's ocean-wanderings, and the sharer rendered it difficult to get any skiff light of his fate, than whom no man ever enough to float. Shelley, however, existed more gentle, generous, and fear-overcame the difficulty; he, together less; and others, who found in Shelley's with a friend, contrived a boat such society, and in his great knowledge and as the huntsmen carry about with them warm sympathy, delight, instruction, in the Maremma, to cross the sluggish and solace; have joined him beyond but deep streams that intersect the the grave. A few survive who have felt forests, -a boat of laths and pitched life a desert since he left it. What mis- canvas. It held three persons; and he fortune can equal death? Change can was often seen on the Arno in it, to convert every other into a blessing, or the horror of the Italians, who remonheal its sting-death alone has no cure. strated on the danger, and could not It shakes the foundations of the earth understand how any one could take on which we tread; it destroys its pleasure in an exercise that risked life. beauty; it casts down our shelter; itMa va per la vita!' they exclaimed. exposes us bare to desolation. When I little thought how true their words would prove. He once ventured, with a friend, on the glassy sea of a calm day, down the Arno and round the coast to Leghorn, which, by keeping close in shore, was very practicable. They returned to Pisa by the canal, when, missing the direct cut, they got entangled among weeds, and the boat upset; a wetting was all the harm done, except that the intense cold of his drenched clothes made Shelley faint. Once I went down with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and swift, met the tideless sea, and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was a waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched into a point surrounded by waves that broke idly though perpetually around; it was a scene very similar to Lido, of which he had said'I love all waste And solitary places; where we taste The pleasure of believing what we see Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be: And such was this wide ocean, and this shore More barren than its billows.' Our little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when we removed to the Baths. Some friends lived at the village of Pugnano, four miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the canal; which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and picturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks, sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country where chance appeared to cast us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm situated on the height of one of It the near hills, surrounded by chestnut and pine woods, and overlooking a wide extent of country: or settling still farther in the maritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished poems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us. is the nature of that poetry, however, which overflows from the soul oftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed by the weight of life, and away from those he loves, that the poet has recourse to the solace of expression in verse. Still, Shelley's passion was the ocean; and he wished that our summers, instead of being passed among the hills near Pisa, should be spent on the shores of the sea. It was very difficult to find a spot. We shrank from Naples from a fear that the heats would disagree with Percy Leghorn had lost its only attraction, since our friends who had resided there were returned to England; and, Monte Nero being the resort of many English, we did not wish to find ourselves in the midst of a colony of chance travellers. No one then thought it possible to reside at Via Reggio, which latterly has become a summer resort. The low lands and bad air of Maremma stretch the whole length of the western shores of the Mediterranean, till broken by the rocks and hills of Spezia. It was a vague idea, but Shelley suggested an excursion to Spezia, to see whether it would be feasible to spend a summer there. The beauty of the bay enchanted him. We saw no house to suit us; but the notion took root, and many circumstances, enchained as by fatality, occurred to urge him to execute it. He looked forward this autumn with great pleasure to the prospect of a visit from Leigh Hunt. When Shelley visited Lord Byron at Ravenna, the latter had suggested his coming out, together with the plan of a periodical work in which they should all join. Shelley saw a prospect of good for the fortunes of his friend, and pleasure in his society; and |