TO

I

ONE word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

II

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow ? То Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

REMEMBRANCE

I
SWIFTER far than summer's flight,
Swifter far than youth's delight,
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and

gone.
As the wood when leaves are shed,
As the night when sleep is fled,
As the heart when joy is dead,

I am left lone, alone.

II

The swallow summer comes again,
The owlet night resumes his reign,
But the wild swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou.
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

III
Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead
Pansies let my flowers be;

;
On the living grave I bear,
Scatter them without a tear
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS

I The serpent is shut out from paradise. The wounded deer must seek the herb no more

In which its heart-cure lies ;
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower,
Like that from which its mate with feignèd sighs

Fled in the April hour.
I, too, must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II Of hatred I am proud, - with scorn content; Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown Itself indifferent

t;

But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.

The miserable one
Turns the mind's poison into food, -
Its medicine is tears, — its evil good.

III

Therefore if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend ! know that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot

die.
The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear; yet I,
So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life’s dull scene,
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,
In the world's carnival. I sought
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

V

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,

“ She loves me

loves me not." And if this meant a vision long since fled If it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought If it meant,

but I dread To speak what you may know too well : Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;
No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,

When it no more would roam ;
The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast
Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,

And thus at length find rest:
Doubtless there is a place of peace

weak heart and all its throbs will cease.

Where my

VII

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed
That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved
His heart with words, – but what his judgment

bade
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved.

These verses are too sad
To send to you, but that I know,
Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.
vi. 3 Whence, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.