IV

From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapor and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet, thy dawning is cast,—
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.

SUMMER AND WINTER

It was a bright and cheerful afternoon
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
From the horizon- and the stainless sky
Opens beyond them like eternity.

All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
The river, and the cornfields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees.

It was a winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when
Among their children comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!

Summer and Winter. Published by Mrs. Shelley, in The Keepsake, 1829.

THE TOWER OF FAMINE

AMID the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people, so that pity

Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of oblivion's wave,
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave

For bread, and gold, and blood; pain, linked to guilt,
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes, each marble-ribbèd roof,
The brazen-gated temples and the bowers

Of solitary wealth; the tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air

Are by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof,

The Tower of Famine. sake, 1829.

And are withdrawn so that the world is bare; As if a spectre, wrapped in shapeless terror, Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,

Published by Mrs. Shelley, in The Keep

11-14 Each... temple... wealth, i' the... pavilion, Rossetti conj.

16 world || void, Rossetti conj.

The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error, Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.

AN ALLEGORY

I

A PORTAL as of shadowy adamant

Stands yawning on the highway of the life Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;

Around it rages an unceasing strife

Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted high Into the whirlwinds of the upper sky.

II

And many pass it by with careless tread,
Not knowing that a shadowy .
Tracks every traveller even to where the dead
Wait peacefully for their companion new;
But others, by more curious humor led,

Pause to examine; these are very few,
And they learn little there, except to know
That shadows follow them where'er they go.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS

I

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

An Allegory. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

ii. 1 pass, Rossetti || passed, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The World's Wanderers. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?

II

Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

III

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

SONNET

YE hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?

O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess
All that pale expectation feigneth fair!
Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess

Sonnet. Published by Hunt, in The Literary Pocket-Book, 1824.

1 grave, Ollier MS. || dead, Harvard MS., Hunt, 1823.

5 pale Expectation, Ollier MS. || anticipation, Harvard MS., Hunt, 1823.

Whence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,
And all that never yet was known would know,—
Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press

With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path,
Seeking alike from happiness and woe

A refuge in the cavern of gray death?

O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do

you

Hope to inherit in the grave below?

LINES TO A REVIEWER

ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate when all the rage
Is on one side. In vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile,
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

7 must, Harvard MS., Hunt, 1823 || mayst, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. 8 all that... would, Harvard MS., Hunt, 1823 || that which, Mrs. Shelley, 1824, wouldst, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

―. Hunt,

Lines to a Reviewer. Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || To 1823; Sonnet. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published by Hunt, in The Literary Pocket-Book, 1823.