In the absence of the sun :
Come along!

BOYS

Oh, linger long, thou envious eastern lamp In the damp

Caves of the deep!

GIRLS

Nay, return, Vesper! urge thy lazy car!
Swift unbar

The gates of Sleep!

CHORUS

The golden gate of Sleep unbar,

When Strength and Beauty, met together, Kindle their image, like a star

In a sea of glassy weather. May the purple mist of love

Round them rise, and with them move,

Nourishing each tender gem

Which, like flowers, will burst from them.

As the fruit is to the tree

May their children ever be !

EVENING

PONTE AL MARE, PISA

I

THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;

Evening. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,

And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

II

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.

III

Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever

It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the

You, being changed, will find it then as now.

IV

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled-but

Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a space of watery blue, Which the keen evening star is shining through.

i. 6 summer, Mrs. Shelley, 18392 || silent, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. iv. 2 enormous, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || cinereous, Boscombe MS.

THE AZIOLA

I

"Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,"

Said Mary, as we sate

In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought; And I, who thought

This Aziola was some tedious woman,

Asked, "Who is Aziola?" How elate I felt to know that it was nothing human, No mockery of myself to fear or hate! And Mary saw my soul,

And laughed, and said, "Disquiet yourself not, 'Tis nothing but a little downy owl."

II

Sad Aziola! many an eventide
Thy music I had heard

By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,
And fields and marshes wide, -

Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,

The soul ever stirred;

Unlike and far sweeter than them all.

Sad Aziola! from that moment I

Loved thee and thy sad cry.

The Aziola. Published by Mrs. Shelley, in The Keepsake, 1829.

ΤΟ

I

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

II

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow? To. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

REMEMBRANCE

I

SWIFTER far than summer's flight,
Swifter far than youth's delight,
Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone.
As the wood when leaves are shed,

As the night when sleep is fled,
As the heart when joy is dead,
I am left lone, alone.

II

The swallow summer comes again,
The owlet night resumes his reign,
But the wild swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou.
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

ment.

Remembrance. Trelawny MS. || Song. Harvard MS. A LaMrs. Shelley, 1824. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. i. 2, 3 transpose, Trelawny MS.

5-7 Houghton MS. ||

As the earth when leaves are dead,

As the night when sleep is sped,

As the heart when joy is fled,

Trelawny MS., Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

i. 8 Houghton MS., Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || alone, alone, Trelawny MS.

ii. 2 his, Houghton MS. | her, Trelawny MS., Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

ii. 5 Houghton MS., Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || My heart to-day desires to-morrow, Trelawny MS.