EPIPSYCHIDION

VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE

AND UNFORTUNATE LADY

EMILIA V[IVIANI]

NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF [ST. ANNE]

L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro.

HER OWN WORDS.

ADVERTIZEMENT

[By Shelley]

fiction

THE Writer of the following Lines died at A poetic Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realized a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings.

LXXVII

pranks reserved

Her other And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, The Witch found one, and so they took their fill

Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart,— -a wide wound, mind from

mind!

She did unite again with visions clear

Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

LXXVIII

These were the pranks she played among the

cities

Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties To do her will, and show their subtle slights, I will declare another time; for it is

A tale more fit for the weird winter nights, Than for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

and Vita

Epipsy. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of chidion Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain Nuova class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that, gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento.

The present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous Canzone

Voi, ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, etc.

The presumptuous application of the concluding
lines to his own composition will raise a smile
at the
expense of my unfortunate friend: be it

a smile not of contempt, but pity.

S.

[STANZAS FROM DANTE
REFERRED TO OPPOSITE]

My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring
Thee to base company, (as chance may do,)
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

From Dante's "Voi ch'intendendo"