I

sung them

All this it knows, but will not tell

A DIRGE
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;

Rough wind, that moanest loud

Grief too sad for song ;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more

Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Is heard than has been felt before,

Knells all the night long ; By those who tempt it to betray

Sad storm, whose tears are vain, These secrets of an elder day:

Bare woods, whose branches stain, But sweetly as its answers will

Deep caves and dreary main,
Flatter hands of perfect skill,

Wail, for the world's wrong!
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY

OF LERICI
TO JANE : “THE KEEN STARS
WERE TWINKLING”

She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceased to climb

The azure path Heaven's steep,
The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them, Balanced on her wings of light,

And like an albatross asleep,
Dear Jane!

Hovered in the purple night,
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you in the chambers of the West.

Ere she sought her ocean nest

She left me, and I stayed alone
Again.

Thinking over every tone

Which, though silent to the ear,
As the moon's soft splendour The enchanted heart could hear,
O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven Like notes which die when born, but still
Is thrown,

Haunt the echoes of the hill;
So your voice most tender

And feeling ever-oh, too much ! To the strings without soul had then the soft vibration of her touch, given

As if her gentle hand, even now,
Its own.

Lightly trembled on my brow;
And thus, although she absent were,

Memory gave me all of her
The stars will awaken,

That even Fancy dares to claim :Though the moon sleep a full hour later, Her presence had made weak and tame To-night ;

All passions, and I lived alone
No leaf will be shaken

In the time which is our own;
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter The past and future were forgot,
Delight.

As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,

The dæmon reassumed his throne
Though the sound overpowers,

In my faint heart.

I dare not speak Sing again, with your dear voice revealing My thoughts, but thus disturbed and A tone

weak
Of some world far from ours, I sat and saw the vessels glide
Where music and moonlight and feeling Over the ocean bright and wide,
Are one.

Like spirit-winged chariots sent

II

III

IV

O'er some serenest element

The death which a heart so truc
For ministrations strange and far;

Sought in your briny dew.
As if to some Elysian star
Sailed for drink to medicine
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
And the wind that winged their flight
From the land came fresh and light,
And the scent of winged fowers,

Methinks too little cost
And the coolness of the hours

For a moment so sound, so lost !
Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay.
And the fisher with his lamp
And spear about the low rocks damp

THE ISLE
Crept, and struck the fish which came
To worship the delusive flame.

There was a little lawny islet
Too happy they, whose pleasure sought By anemone and violet,

Like mosaic, paven: Extinguishes all sense and thought

And its roof was flowers and leaves Of the regret that pleasure leaves,

Which the summer's breath enweaves, Destroying life alone, not peace !

Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze

Pierce the pines and tallest trees,
LINES: "WE MEET NOT AS

Each a gem engraven.
WE PARTED"

Girt by many an azure wave
With which the clouds and mountains

pave We meet not as we parted,

A lake's blue chasm.
We feel more than all may see,
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me.

FRAGMENT: TO THE MOON One moment has bound the free.

Bright wanderer, fair coquette of

heaven, That moment is gone for ever,

To whom alone it has been given
Like lightning that flashed and died, To change and be adored for ever,
Like a snowflake upon the river, Envy not this dim world, for never

Like a sunbeam upon the tide, But once within its shadow grew
Which the dark shadows hide.

One fair as

1

II

III

EPITAPH

That moment from time was singled

As the first of a life of pain, The cup of its joy was mingled

- Delusion too sweet though vain ! Too sweet to be mine again.

IV

THESE are two friends whose lives were

undivided; So let their memory be, now they have

glided Under the grave; let not their bones be

parted, For their two hearts in life were single

Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden

That its life was crushed by you, Ye would not have then forbidden

NOTE ON POEMS OF 1822, BY

The winter of 1822 was passed in Pisa,

if we might call that season winter in MRS. SHELLEY

which autumn merged into spring after This morn thy gallant bark

the interval of but few days of bleaker Sailed on a sunny sea :

weather. Spring sprang up early, and "Tis noon, and tempests dark

with extreme beauty. Shelley had conHave wrecked it on the lee. Ah woe! ah woe!

ceived the idea of writing a tragedy on the By Spirits of the deep

subject of Charles I. It was one that he Thou'rt cradled on the billow

believed adapted for a drama; full of To thy eternal sleep.

intense interest, contrasted character, and Thou sleep'st upon the shore

busy passion. He had recommended it Beside the knelling surge, And Sea-nymphs evermore

long before, when he encouraged me to Shall sadly chaunt thy dirge.

attempt a play. Whether the subject They come, they come, proved more difficult than he anticipated, The Spirits of the deep, -

or whether in fact he could not bend his While near thy seaweed pillow My lonely watch I keep.

mind away from the broodings and

wanderings of thought, divested from From far across the sea I hear a loud lament,

human interest, which he best loved, I By Echo's voice for thee

cannot tell; but he proceeded slowly, and From ocean's caverns sent.

threw it aside for one the most mystical Oh list! oh list! The Spirits of the deep!

of his poems, the Triumph of Life, on They raise a wail of sorrow,

which he was employed at the last. While I for ever weep.

His passion for boating was fostered at

this time by having among our friends With this last year of the life of Shelley several sailors. His favourite companion, these Notes end. They are not what I Edward Ellerker Williams, of the 8th intended them to be. I began with energy, Light Dragoons, had begun his life in the and a burning desire to impart to the

navy, and had afterwards entered the world, in worthy language, the sense I

army; he had spent several years in India, have of the virtues and genius of the and his love for adventure and manly beloved and the lost; my strength has exercises accorded with Shelley's taste. failed under the task. Recurrence to the

It was their favourite plan to build a boat past, full of its own deep and unforgotten such as they could manage themselves, joys and sorrows, contrasted with succeed- and, living on the sea-coast, to enjoy at ing years of painful and solitary struggle, every hour and season the pleasure they has shaken my health. Days of great loved best. Captain Roberts, R.N., suffering have followed my attempts to undertook to build the boat at Genoa, write, and jhese again produced a weak- where he was also occupied in building ness and languor that spread their sinister the Bolivar for Lord Byron. Ours was influence over these notes. I dislike

to be an open boat, on a model taken speaking of myself, but cannot help apolo- from one of the royal dockyards. I have gising to the dead, and to the public, for since heard that there was a defect in this not having executed in the manner I model, and that it was never seaworthy. desired the history I engaged to give of In the month of February, Shelley and his Shelley's writings. 1

friend went to Spezia to seek for houses il at one time feared that the correction for us. Only one was to be found at all of the press might be less exact through my suitable; however, a trifle such as not illness; but I believe that it is nearly free from finding a house could not stop Shelley;

Some asterisks occur in a few pages, as they did in the volume of Posthumous Poems, either because they refer to private concerns, or from so confused a mass, interlined and broken because the original manuscript was left imper: into fragments, so that the sense could only be fect. Did any one see the papers from which I deciphered and joined by guesses which might drew that volume, the wonder would be how any seem rather intuitive than founded on reasoning. eyes or patience were capable of extracting it Yet I believe no mistake was made.

the one found was to serve for all. It heaven bathed the scene in bright and was unfurnished; we sent our furniture by ever-varying tints. sea, and with a good deal of precipitation, The natives were wilder than the place. arising from his impatience, made our Our near neighbours of San Terenzo were removal. We left Pisa on the 26th of more like savages than any people I April.

ever before lived among. Many a night The Bay of Spezia is of considerable they passed on the beach, singing, or extent, and divided by a rocky promontory rather howling; the women dancing about into a larger and smaller one. The town among the waves that broke at their feet, of Lerici is situated on the eastern point, the men leaning against the rocks and and in the depth of the smaller bay, joining in their loud wild chorus. We which bears the name of this town, is the could get no provisions nearer than Sarvillage of San Terenzo. Our house, Casa zana, at a distance of three miles and a Magni, was close to this village; the sea half off, with the torrent of the Magra came up to the door, a steep hill sheltered between; and even there the supply was it behind. The proprietor of the estate very deficient. Had we been wrecked on on which it was situated was insane; he an island of the South Seas, we could had begun to erect a large house at the scarcely have felt ourselves farther from summit of the hill behind, but his malady civilisation and comfort; but, where the prevented its being finished, and it was sun shines, the latter becomes an unnecesfalling into ruin. He had (and this to sary luxury, and we had enough society the Italians had seemed a glaring symptom among ourselves. Yet I confess houseof very decided madness) rooted up the keeping became rather a toilsome task, olives on the hillside, and planted forest especially as I was suffering in my health, trees. These were mostly young, but and could not exert myself actively. the plantation was more in English taste At first the fatal boat had not arrived, than I ever elsewhere saw in Italy; some and was expected with great impatience. fine walnut and ilex trees intermingled On Monday, 12th May, it came. Williams their dark massy foliage, and formed records the long - wished - for fact in his groups which still haunt my memory, as journal: “Cloudy and threatening weather. then they satiated the eye with a sense of M. Maglian called; and after dinner, and loveliness. The scene was indeed of un- while walking with him on the terrace, we imaginable beauty. The blue extent of discovered a strange sail coming round waters, the almost landlocked bay, the the point of Porto Venere, which proved near castle of Lerici shutting it in to the at length to be Shelley's boat. She had cast, and distant Porto Venere to the left Genoa on Thursday last, but had west; the varied forms of the precipitous been driven back by the prevailing bad rocks that bound in the beach, over which winds. A Mr. Heslop and two English there was only a winding rugged footpath seamen brought her round, and they speak towards Lerici, and none on the other most highly of her performances, She side; the tideless sea leaving no sands does indeed excite my surprise and ad. nor shingle, formed a picture such as one miration. Shelley and I walked to sees in Salvator Rosa's landscapes only. Lerici, and made a stretch off the land to Sometimes the sunshine vanished when try her: and I find she fetches whatever the sirocco raged - the "ponente" the she looks at. In short, we have now a wind was called on that shore, The gales perfect plaything for the summer."-It and squalls that hailed our first arrival was thus that short-sighted mortals welsurrounded the bay with foam; the howl. comed Death, he having disguised his ing wind swept round our exposed house, grim form in a pleasing mask! The time and the sea roared unremittingly, so that of the friends was now spent on the sea; we almost fancied ourselves on board ship. the weather became fine, and our whole At other times sunshine and calm invested party often passed the evenings on the sea and sky, and the rich tints of Italian water when the wind promised pleasant