'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase Passed the white Alps; those eagle-baffling moun tains Slept in their shrouds of snow; beside the ways The waterfalls were voiceless, for their fountains Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now; Or, by the curdling winds, like brazen wings Which clanged along the mountain's marble brow, Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew! Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls Investest it; and when the heavens are blue Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear Beauty like some bright robe; thou ever soar est Among the towers of men, and as soft air 142 Invests it: and when heavens are blue, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Investeth, Rossetti. 144 Shadows, Rossetti. In spring, which moves the unawakened forest, Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak, Thou floatest among men, and aye implorest That which from thee they should implore; the weak Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts A garment whom thou clothest not? Her hair was brown, her spherèd eyes were brown, Yet when the spirit flashed beneath, there came THE WOODMAN AND THE NIGHTINGALE A WOODMAN, whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good), Hated to hear, under the stars or moon, One nightingale in an interfluous wood 180 flame, Boscombe MS. || frame, Mrs. Shelley, 18392. The Woodman and the Nightingale. Published, 1-67, by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and, 68-70, by Garnett, 1862. Dated, 1818. Or as the moonlight fills the open sky Struggling with darkness, as a tuberose Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie Like clouds above the flower from which they rose, The singing of that happy nightingale In this sweet forest, from the golden close Of evening till the star of dawn may fail, Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear Of the circumfluous waters; every sphere And every flower and beam and cloud and wave, And every wind of the mute atmosphere, And every beast stretched in its rugged cave, Which is its cradle; Of one serene and unapproached star, Itself how low, how high beyond all height The heaven where it would perish! and every form That worshipped in the temple of the night Was awed into delight, and by the charm Girt as with an interminable zone, Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion In every And so this man returned with axe and saw Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green With jagged leaves, and from the forest tops Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft, They spread themselves into the loveliness kiss, 49 their her, Rossetti. Make a green space among the silent bowers, All overwrought with branch-like traceries Odors and gleams and murmurs, which the lute Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute, Wakening the leaves and waves ere it has passed To such brief unison as on the brain One tone, which never can recur, has cast, One accent never to return again. The world is full of Woodmen who expel OTHO I THOU wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be, Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim From Brutus his own glory, and on thee Rests the full splendor of his sacred fame; Otho. Published, i., ii., by Mrs. Shelley, 18391, iii., by Garnett, 1862. Composed, 1817. |