SONG.

RARELY, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismayed;

Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not neas.

And reproach thou wilt not hear.

Let me set my mournful ditty

To a merry measure;

Thou wilt never come for pity,

Thou wilt come for pleasure;—

Pity then will cut away

Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.

I love tranquil solitude,
And such society

As is quiet, wise, and good;

Between thee and me

What difference? but thou dost possess
The things I seek, not love them less.

I love Love-though he has wings,
And like light can flee,

But, above all other things,
Spirit, I love thee-

Thou art love and life! O come,

Make once more my heart thy home.

EVENING.

PONTE A MARE, PISA.

THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the grey air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep;
And evening's breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.

Within the surface of the fleeting river

The wrinkled image of the city lay,

Immovably unquiet, and for ever

It trembles, but it never fades away;

Go to the [

You, being changed, will find it then as now.

The chasm in which the sun has sunk, is shut
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.

LINES

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON.

WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?

Art thou not over-bold?

What leapest thou forth as of old

In the light of thy morning mirth, The last of the flock of the starry fold?

Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is filed,

And canst thou more, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled-
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth,
"Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art over bold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "To my bosom I fold

All my sons when their knell is knolled,

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,
"I grow bolder, and still more bold.
The dead fill me ten thousand fold

Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth;
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,

Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm.

I feed on whom I fed.

"Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth,
Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror, and blood, and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould

The metal before it be cold,

And weave into his shaine, which like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

MUTABILITY.

THE flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow dies;

All that we wish to stay,

Tempts and then flies;
What is this world's delight?
Lightning that mocks the night,
Brief even as bright.

Virtue, how frail it is!

Friendship too rare!

Love, how it sells poor blise

For proud despair!

But we, though soon they fall,
Survive their joy and all
Which ours we call.

Whilst skies are blue and bright,
Whilst flowers are gay,

Whilst eyes that change ere night
Make glad the day;

Whilst yet the calm hours creep,
Dream thou-and from thy sleep
Then wake to weep.

SONNET.

POLITICAL GREATNESS.

NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame;
Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts:
History is but the shadow of their shame;
Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts
As to oblivion their blind millions fleet,
Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery
Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit
By force or custom? Man who man would be.
Must rule the empire of himself! in it
Must be supreme, establishing his throne
On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy
Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.

هية

GINEVRA.

WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever

Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train
Of objects and of persons passed like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;

The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil,
Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,
And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth,
And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,-
And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious, but the weary glare
Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,
Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight.
A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud
Was less heavenly fair-her face was bowed,
And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair
Which led from the cathedral to the street;
And even as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.

The bride-maidens who round her thronging came
Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame,

Envying the unenviable; and others

Making the joy which should have been another's

Their own by gentle sympathy; and some
Sighing to think of an unhappy home;

Some few admiring what can ever lure

Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure

Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing
Bitter to taste, sweet in imagining.

But they are all dispersed-and lo! she stands
Looking in idle grief on her white hands,

* This fragment is part of a poem which Shelley intended to write, founded on a story to be found in the first volume of a book entitled "L'Osservatore Fiorentino."