PART SECOND There was a Power in this sweet place, An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, Was as God is to the starry scheme. A Lady, the wonder of her kind, Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind Tended the garden from morn to even ; Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth, She had no companion of mortal race, But her tremulous breath and her flushing face Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes, That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise: As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed; 15 morn, Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || moon, Shelley, 1820. That the coming and going of the wind And wherever her airy footstep trod, I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet She sprinkled bright water from the stream She lifted their heads with her tender hands, And all killing insects and gnawing worms, In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 23 and going, Shelley, 1820 || and the going, Harvard MS., Shelley, 18391. Mrs. But the bee, and the beam-like ephemeris Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she Make her attendant angels be. And many an antenatal tomb, Where butterflies dream of the life to come, This fairest creature from earliest spring And ere the first leaf looked brown she died! PART THIRD Three days the flowers of the garden fair, She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, The weary sound and the heavy breath, The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass; From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. The garden, once fair, became cold and foul, Swift summer into the autumn flowed, The rose leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, And Indian plants, of scent and hue Were massed into the common clay. And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red, And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 19 lovely, Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || lively, Shelley, 1820 23 of the morning || of morning, Harvard MS. 26 snow, Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || now, Shelley, 1820. 28 And lilies were drooping, white and wan, Harvard MS. 32 by, Harvard MS. || after, Shelley, 1820. 32 after, Harvard MS., Shelley, 1820 || by, Mrs. Shelley, 18391. Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed; And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, Which rotted into the earth with them. The water-blooms under the rivulet Fell from the stalks on which they were set; Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks Between the time of the wind and the snow Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. |