TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN MINE I eyes were dim with tears unshed; Yes, I was firm thus wert not thou; My baffled looks did fear yet dread To meet thy looks- I could not know II To sit and curb the soul's mute rage Of fettered grief that dares not groan, III Whilst thou alone, then not regarded, The To spend years thus, and be rewarded, As thou, sweet love, requited me IV Upon my heart thy accents sweet Of peace and pity fell like dew To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin || To Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Composed June, 1814. On flowers half dead; thy lips did meet V We are not happy, sweet! our state VI Gentle and good and mild thou art, MUTABILITY. We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! —yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost forever: Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings Mutability. Published with Alastor, 1816. We resta dream has power to poison sleep; We rise one wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; It is the same!-for, be it joy or sorrow, ON DEATH There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. — ECCLESIASTES. THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. O man! hold thee on in courage of soul Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny. This world is the nurse of all we know, This world is the mother of all we feel; On Death, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || no title, Shelley, 1816. Published with Alastor, 1816. And the coming of death is a fearful blow To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel, The secret things of the grave are there, ear No longer will live to hear or to see Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? Who painteth the shadows that are beneath The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be With the fears and the love for that which we see? A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair Day. Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. A Summer Evening Churchyard. Published with Alastor, 1816. Composed September, 1815. They breathe their spells toward the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars and sea; Light, sound and motion own the potent sway, Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. Thou too, aërial Pile, whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres ; And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around; And mingling with the still night and mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep |