A SATIRE ON SATIRE IF gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains, Are the true secrets of the commonweal To make men wise and just; And not the sophisms of revenge and fear, Bloodier than is revenge Then send the priests to every hearth and home If Satire's scourge could wake the slumbering hounds Of Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds, The leprous scars of callous infamy; If it could make the present not to be, Or charm the dark past never to have been, A Satire on Satire. Published by Dowden, Correspondence of Robert Southey and Caroline Bowles, 1880, and dated, 1820. The strokes of the inexorable scourge Until the heart be naked, till his soul See the contagion's spots foul; And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike shield, From which his Parthian arrow . . Flash on his sight the spectres of the past, Let scorn like yawn below, And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow. Men take a sullen and a stupid pride In being all they hate in others' shame, and, beside, 'Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, how If any friend would take Southey some day, Softening harsh words with friendship's gentle tone, How incorrect his public conduct is, And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss. GINEVRA WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one Who staggers forth into the air and sun From the dark chamber of a mortal fever, Bewildered, and incapable, and ever Ginevra. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated, Pisa, 1821. Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain Of objects and of persons passed like things The vows to which her lips had sworn assent And so she moved under the bridal veil, Was less heavenly fair- her face was bowed, The bride-maidens who round her thronging came, Some with a sense of self-rebuke and shame, Envying the unenviable; and others Making the joy which should have been another's Their own by gentle sympathy; and some Sighing to think of a unhappy home; 22 was less were less, Rossetti. Some few admiring what can ever lure But they are all dispersed — and lo! she stands Looking in idle grief on her white hands, Alone within the garden now her own; And through the sunny air, with jangling tone, Killing the azure silence, sinks and swells;- Antonio stood before her, pale as she. And said "Is this thy faith?" and then as one Whose sleeping face is stricken by the sun With light like a harsh voice, which bids him rise And look upon his day of life with eyes Which weep in vain that they can dream no more, Ginevra saw her lover, and forbore To shriek or faint, and checked the stifling blood Rushing upon her heart, and unsubdued Said "Friend, if earthly violence or ill, Of parents, chance, or custom, time, or change, Or wildered looks, or words, or evil speech, Our love, we love not. If the grave, which hides The victim from the tyrant, and divides The cheek that whitens from the eyes that dart That is another's, could dissever ours, We love not." "What! do not the silent hours Beckon thee to Gherardi's bridal bed? Is not that ring" — a pledge, he would have said, Of broken vows, but she with patient look so soon That even the dying violet will not die fear, Making her but an image of the thought, |