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Wrapt in the

to us

of that which is Whence thou hast fled, whither thou

The health of life's own life.

FRAGMENT: FELLOWSHIP OF

SOULS

I AM as a spirit who has dwelt Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt

His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known

The inmost converse of his soul, the tone

Unheard but in the silence of his blood, When all the pulses in their multitude Image the trembling calm of summer

seas.

I have unlocked the golden melodies
Of his deep soul, as with a master-key,
And loosened them and bathed myself
therein-

Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist
Clothing his wings with lightning.

FRAGMENT: REMINISCENCE

AND DESIRE

Is it that in some brighter sphere
We part from friends we meet with
here?

Or do we see the Future pass
Over the Present's dusky glass?
Or what is that that makes us seem
To patch up fragments of a dream,
Part of which comes true, and part
Beats and trembles in the heart?

FRAGMENT: FOREBODINGS

Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer Into the darkness of the day to come? Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?

And will the day that follows change thy doom?

Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way; And who waits for thee in that cheerless home

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When the sunset sleeps

Upon its snow;

As a strain of sweetest sound
Wraps itself the wind around
Until the voiceless wind be music too;
As aught dark, vain, and dull,
Basking in what is beautiful,
Is full of light and love.

1819.

CANCELLED STANZA OF THE
MASK OF ANARCHY
(FOR WHICH STANZAS LXVIII, LXIX
HAVE BEEN SUBSTITUTED)
FROM the cities where from caves,
Like the dead from putrid graves,
Troops of starvelings gliding come,
Living Tenants of a tomb.

NOTE BY MRS. SHELLEY Shelley loved the People; and respected them as often more virtuous, as always more suffering, and therefore more deserving of sympathy, than the great. He believed that a clash between the two classes of society was inevitable, and he

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820

THE SENSITIVE PLANT

PART FIRST

A SENSITIVE Plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew,

And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light,

And closed them beneath the kisses of
night.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's
dark breast

Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.

But none ever trembled and panted with bliss

In the garden, the field, or the wilder

ness,

Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want,

As the companionless Sensitive Plant.

The snowdrop, and then the violet, Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,

From

Then

odour, sent

the turf, like the voice and the instrument.

the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,

eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could And their breath was mixed with fresh not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, and with what heartfelt compassion he went home to the direct point of injury that oppression is detestable as being the parent of starvation, nakedness, and ignorance. Besides these outpourings of compassion and indignation, he had meant to adorn the cause he loved with loftier poetry of glory and triumph: such is the scope of the Ode to the Assertors of Liberty. He sketched also a new version of our national anthem, as addressed to Liberty.

And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's

recess,

Till they die of their own dear loveliness;

And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale,

That the light of its tremulous bells is

seen

Through their pavilions of tender green;

And the hyacinth purple, and white, Were all paved with daisies and delicate

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Which flung from its bells a sweet peal As fair as the fabulous asphodels,

anew

Of music so delicate, soft, and intense, It was felt like an odour within the

sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath

addrest,

And flowrets which drooping as day

drooped too

Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,

To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing And from this undefiled Paradise

breast,

Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:

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And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, Can first lull, and at last must awaken As a Mænad, its moonlight-coloured

cup,

Till the fiery star, which is its eye, Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,

The sweetest flower for scent that blows; And all rare blossoms from every clime Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom

Was prankt under boughs of embowering blossom,

With golden and green light, slanting through

Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,
And around them the soft stream did
glide and dance

With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and

moss,

of

Which led through the garden along and

across,

Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,

Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

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Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear

Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.

But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit

Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,

Received more than all, it loved more than ever,

Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,

For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;

Radiance and odour are not its dower; It loves, even like Love, its deep heart

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The beams which dart from many a And snatches of its Elysian chant

star

Of the flowers whose hues they bear
afar;

The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;

The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides
high,

Were mixed with the dreams of the
Sensitive Plant.)

The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Up-gathered into the bosom of rest;
A sweet child weary of its delight,
The feeblest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of night.

PART SECOND

There was a Power in this sweet place, Then wander like spirits among the An Eve in this Eden; a ruling grace Which to the flowers did they waken

spheres,

Each cloud faint with the fragrance it
bears;

The quivering vapours of dim noontide,
Which like a sea o'er the warm earth

glide,

or dream,

Was as God is to the starry scheme.

A Lady, the wonder of her kind,
Whose form was upborne by a lovely
mind

In which every sound, and odour, and Which, dilating, had moulded her mien

beam,

Move, as reeds in a single stream;

Each and all like ministering angels were For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear,

and motion

Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the

ocean,

Tended the garden from morn to even :
And the meteors of that sublunar heaven,

Whilst the lagging hours of the day Like the lamps of the air when night

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And the Earth was all rest, and the air But her tremulous breath and her flush

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And delight, tho' less bright, was far Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep more deep, from her eyes

And the day's veil fell from the world That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise:

of sleep,

And the beasts, and the birds, and the As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake

insects were drowned

In an ocean of dreams without a sound; Had deserted heaven while the stars Whose waves never mark, tho' they

ever impress

The light sand which paves it, conscious

ness;

(Only overhead the sweet nightingale Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,

were awake,

As if yet around her he lingering were, Tho' the veil of daylight concealed him from her.

Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest; You might hear by the heaving of her breast,

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