Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,

Like lamps which a student forgets to trim; The beetle forgot to wind his horn;

The crickets were still in the meadow and hill; Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun, Night's dreams and terrors, every one, Fled from the brains which are their prey From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,

Who shaped us to his ends and not our own; The million rose to learn, and one to teach What none yet ever knew or can be known. And many rose

Whose woe was such that fear became desire; Melchior and Lionel were not among those; They from the throng of men had stepped aside, And made their home under the green hillside. It was that hill, whose intervening brow

Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye,
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,
With streams and fields and marshes bare,

Divides from the far Apennines, which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air.

"What think you, as she lies in her green cove,
Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?
If morning dreams are true, why I should guess
That she was dreaming of our idleness,

And of the miles of watery way

We should have led her by this time of day." 33 nor, Rossetti.

"Never mind," said Lionel,

"Give care to the winds, they can bear it well
About yon poplar tops; and see!
The white clouds are driving merrily,
And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.
How it whistles, 'Dominic's long black hair!
List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
Hear how it sings into the air.'

-of us and of our lazy motions,"
Impatiently said Melchior,
"If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before, To have been the devil knows where." And then, in such transalpine Tuscan As would have killed a Della-Cruscan,

So, Lionel according to his art

Weaving his idle words, Melchior said:

"She dreams that we are not yet out of bed; We'll put a soul into her, and a heart

Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat."

"Ay, heave the ballast overboard,

And stow the eatables in the aft locker." "Would not this keg be best a little lowered?" "No, now all's right." "Those bottles of warm

tea

List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
How it scatters Dominic's long black hair,
Singing of us, and our lazy motions,
If I can guess a boat's emotions.

Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

(Give me some straw) - must be stowed tenderly; Such as we used, in summer after six,

To cram in great-coat pockets, and to mix
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton,
And, couched on stolen hay in those green har-
bors

Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbors, Would feast till eight."

With a bottle in one hand,

As if his very soul were at a stand,

Lionel stood, when Melchior brought him steady,"Sit at the helm-fasten this sheet - all ready!"

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,

The living breath is fresh behind, As with dews and sunrise fed

Comes the laughing morning wind.
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio's torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,

And hangs upon the wave, and stems
The tempest of the

Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come,-
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea;

In morning's smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.

The Serchio, twisting forth Between the marble barriers which it clove At Ripafratta, leads through the dread chasm The wave that died the death which lovers love, Living in what it sought; as if this spasm Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling, But the clear stream in full enthusiasm Pours itself on the plain, then wandering,

Down one clear path of effluence crystalline Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine; Then, through the pestilential deserts wild Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine, It rushes to the Ocean.

THE ZUCCA

I

SUMMER was dead and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold; when I, desiring

More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring,
Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn
sand

Of my lorn heart, and o'er the grass and flowers Pale for the falsehood of the flattering hours.

112 then, Boscombe MS. || until, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

114 superfluous, Boscombe MS. || clear, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. 117 pine, Boscombe MS. || fir, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The Zucca. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and dated, January, 1822.

i. 7 lorn, Boscombe MS. || poor, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

II

Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping;
And on the earth lulled in her winter sleep

I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep

The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping From unremembered dreams shalt No death divide thy immortality.

see

III

I loved oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or any earthly one, though ye are dear
As human heart to human heart may
be;

I loved I know not what—but this low sphere, And all that it contains, contains not thee,

Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere. From heaven and earth, and all that in them are Veiled art thou like a star.

IV

By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest,

Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden; Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,

When for a moment thou art not forbidden To live within the life which thou bestowest;

And leaving noblest things vacant and chidden,

iii. 7 Boscombe MS. || Dim object of my soul's idolatry, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

iii. 8 Boscombe MS. || omit, Mrs. Shelley, 18391; Veiled art thou like.... Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

iv. 2 nor, Boscombe MS. || or, 1824.