From out the chamber where the women kept; THE DIRGE Old winter was gone In his weakness back to the mountains hoar, From the planet that hovers upon the shore On the limits of wintry night; - She is still, she is cold On the bridal couch. One step to the white death-bed, And one to the bier, And one to the charnel — and one, oh where ? In the noon. Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, The rats in her heart Will have made their nest, And the worms be alive in her golden hair; THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream, Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. The stars burned out in the pale blue air, Day had kindled the dewy woods, And the rocks above and the stream below, And the vapors in their multitudes, And the Apennine's shroud of summer snow, And clothed with light of aëry gold The mists in their eastern caves uprolled. Day had awakened all things that be, The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, The Boat on the Serchio. Published, 1-61, 88-118, by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated, July, 1821. Revised and enlarged by Rossetti, 1870. Glow-worms went out on the river's brim, Like lamps which a student forgets to trim; The beetle forgot to wind his horn; The crickets were still in the meadow and hill; Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, Night's dreams and terrors, every one, Fled from the brains which are their prey From the lamp's death to the morning ray. All rose to do the task He set to each, Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and one to teach What none yet ever knew or can be known. And many rose Whose woe was such that fear became desire; Melchior and Lionel were not among those ; They from the throng of men had stepped aside, And made their home under the green hillside. It was that hill, whose intervening brow Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye, With streams and fields and marshes bare, "What think you, as she lies in her green cove, And of the miles of watery way guess We should have led her by this time of day." "Never mind," said Lionel, "Give care to the winds, they can bear it well The white clouds are driving merrily, How it whistles, Dominic's long black hair! of us and of our lazy motions," Impatiently said Melchior, "If I can guess a boat's emotions; And how we ought, two hours before, To have been the devil knows where." And then, in such transalpine Tuscan As would have killed a Della-Cruscan, Weaving his idle words, Melchior said: "She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; We'll put a soul into her, and a heart Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat." "Ay, heave the ballast overboard, And stow the eatables in the aft locker." “Would not this keg be best a little lowered?" "No, now all's right." "Those bottles of warm 58-61: tea List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair; Singing of us, and our lazy motions, If I can guess a boat's emotions. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. (Give me some straw) — must be stowed tenderly ; Such as we used, in summer after six, To cram in great-coat pockets, and to mix And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbors Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbors, Would.feast till eight." With a bottle in one hand, As if his very soul were at a stand, Lionel stood, when Melchior brought him steady,"Sit at the helm-fasten this sheet - all ready!" The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, The living breath is fresh behind, As with dews and sunrise fed Comes the laughing morning wind. And hangs upon the wave, and stems Which fervid from its mountain source It sweeps into the affrighted sea; In morning's smile its eddies coil, |