Anon the sky is cleared, and the high dome
Of serene Heaven, starred with fiery flowers,
Shuts in the shaken earth; or the still moon
Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk,
Rising all bright behind the eastern hills.
I talk of moon, and wind, and stars, and not
Of song; but, would I echo his high song,
Nature must lend me words ne'er used before,
Or I must borrow from her perfect works,
To picture forth his perfect attributes.
He does no longer sit upon his throne
Of rock upon a desert herbless plain,
For the evergreen and knotted ilexes,
And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs,
And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit,
And elms dragging along the twisted vines,
Which drop their berries as they follow fast,
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race
Of blushing rose blooms; beeches, to lovers dear.
And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow,
As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne; and Earth herself
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth
Of starlike flowers and herbs of odors sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy

Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,
And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.
Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound.

94 with fiery, Rossetti || with its fiery, Garnett.

102 his, Boscombe MS. || its, Rossetti.

106 that, Garnett || who, Rossetti.

112 willow trees, Rossetti || willows, too, Garnett.

113 huge, Rossetti || long, Garnett.

116 starlike . . . odors, Rossetti || starry . . . odor, Garnett.

The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,
Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;
Not even the nightingale intrudes a note
In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.

FIORDISPINA

THE season was the childhood of sweet June,
Whose sunny hours from morning until noon
Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure, slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina, and thy Cosimo,

For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,

Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers

They were two cousins, almost like two twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins

Nature had rased their love which could not

be

But by dissevering their nativity.

And so they grew together like two flowers

Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers

Lull or awaken in their purple prime,

Which the same hand will gather, the same clime Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see

Fiordispina. Published, 11-30, by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, 1–82, by Garnett, 1862, and dated, 1820.

11 two, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || to, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

All those who love and who e'er loved like

thee,

Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,

Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow The ardors of a vision which obscure

The very idol of its portraiture.

He faints, dissolved into a sea of love;
But thou art as a planet sphered above;

But thou art Love itself ruling the motion
Of his subjected spirit; such emotion
Must end in sin or sorrow, if sweet May

Had not brought forth this morn, your weddingday.

"Lie there; sleep awhile in your own dew,

Ye faint-eyed children of the

Hours,"

Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers

Which she had from the breathing –

A table near of polished porphyry.

They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye

That looked on them, a fragrance from the touch Whose warmth checked their life; a light

such

As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love,

Of gentle beauty on the flowers; there lay

20 e'er, Garnett || ever, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.
25 sea, Garnett || sense, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

All gems that make the earth's dark bosom

gay.

rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms,
And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes
The livery of unremembered snow-
Violets whose eyes have drunk

Fiordispina and her nurse are now
Upon the steps of the high portico;
Under the withered arm of Media
She flings her glowing arm

step by step and stair by stair,

That withered woman, gray and white and

brown

More like a trunk by lichens overgrown

Than anything which once could have been hu

"How slow and painfully you seem to walk, Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.”

"And well it may,

Fiordispina, dearest well-a-day!

You are hastening to a marriage-bed;

I to the grave! "And if

dead,

Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie
Beside him in my shroud as willingly

As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.'
"Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought
Not be remembered till it snows in June;
Such fancies are a music out of tune

With the sweet dance your heart must keep to

night.

What! would you take all beauty and delight
Back to the Paradise from which you sprung,

And leave to grosser mortals?

And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet

And subtle mystery by which spirits meet?
Who knows whether the loving game is played,
When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed,
The naked soul goes wandering here and there
Through the wide deserts of Elysian air?
The violet dies not till it "

THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE

AT the creation of the Earth
Pleasure, that divinest birth,
From the soil of Heaven did rise,
Wrapped in sweet wild melodies-
Like an exhalation wreathing
To the sound of air low-breathing
Through Æolian pines, which make
A shade and shelter to the lake
Whence it rises soft and slow;
Her life-breathing [limbs] did flow
In the harmony divine

Of an ever-lengthening line
Which enwrapped her perfect form
With a beauty clear and warm.

The Birth of Pleasure. Forman || no title, Garnett. Published by Garnett, 1862, and dated, 1819.