His song, though very sweet, was low and faint,

A simple strain —

A mighty Phantasm, half concealed

In darkness of his own exceeding light, Which clothed his awful presence unrevealed,

Charioted on the

night

Of thunder-smoke, whose skirts were chrysolite.

And like a sudden meteor, which outstrips
The splendor-wingèd chariot of the sun,

eclipse
The armies of the golden stars, each one
Pavilioned in its tent of light all strewn
Over the chasms of blue night-

LINES WRITTEN FOR HELLAS

I

FAIREST of the Destinies,

Disarray thy dazzling eyes:
Keener far thy lightnings are

Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,

And the smile thou wearest

Wraps thee as a star

Is wrapped in light.

II

Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn
From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,
Or could the morning shafts of purest light

Lines Written for Hellas. Published by Garnett, 1862.

Again into the quivers of the Sun

Be gathered - could one thought from its wild

flight

Return into the temple of the brain
Without a change, without a stain,
Could aught that is, ever again
Be what it once has ceased to be,
Greece might again be free!

III

A star has fallen upon the earth 'Mid the benighted nations,

A quenchless atom of immortal light,
A living spark of Night,

A cresset shaken from the constellations.
Swifter than the thunder fell

To the heart of Earth, the well
Where its pulses flow and beat,

And unextinct in that cold source

Guides the sphere which is its prison,

Like an angelic spirit pent

In a form of mortal birth,

Till, as a spirit half arisen

Shatters its charnel, it has rent,
In the rapture of its mirth,

The thin and painted garment of the Earth,
Ruining its chaos- a fierce breath

Consuming all its forms of living death.

THE PINE FOREST OF THE CASCINE NEAR

PISA

FIRST DRAFT OF "TO JANE: THE INVITATION,. THE RECOLLECTION"

DEAREST, best and brightest,
Come away,

To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.

The eldest of the hours of Spring,
Into the winter wandering,
Looks upon the leafless wood;

And the banks all bare and rude
Found, it seems, this halcyon Morn
In February's bosom born,
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

;

The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all the roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Sapless, gray, and ivy dun

Round stems that never kiss the sun
To the sandhills of the sea,
Where the earliest violets be.

Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
And do thy wonted work and trace
The epitaph of glory fled;

For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven's brow.

We wandered to the Pine Forest

That skirts the Ocean's foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the woods, and on the deep,
The smile of Heaven lay.

It seemed as if the day were one

Sent from beyond the skies,

30 stems, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || stones, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

Which shed to earth above the sun
A light of Paradise.

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,

Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
With stems like serpents interlaced.

How calm it was

the silence there

By such a chain was bound

That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound

The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew With its soft motion made not less The calm that round us grew.

It seemed that from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain's waste,
To the bright flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced; —

A spirit interfused around,

A thinking silent life,
To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife;

And still it seemed the centre of
The magic circle there,

Was one whose being filled with love
The breathless atmosphere.