Harriet! if all who long to live In the warm sunshine of thine eye, That price beyond all pain must give, Beneath thy scorn to die ; Then hear thy chosen own too late Be thou, then, one among mankind And by a slight endurance seal A fellow-being's lasting weal. For pale with anguish is his cheek, His breath comes fast, his eyes are dim, Thy name is struggling ere he speak, Oh, trust for once no erring guide! Bid the remorseless feeling flee ; 'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride, 'Tis anything but thee; Oh, deign a nobler pride to prove, TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN I MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed; To meet thy looks - I could not know II To sit and curb the soul's mute rage Of fettered grief that dares not groan, III Whilst thou alone, then not regarded, The To spend years thus, and be rewarded, IV Upon my heart thy accents sweet To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin || To—. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Composed June, 1814. On flowers half dead; thy lips did meet V We are not happy, sweet! our state VI Gentle and good and mild thou art, MUTABILITY. WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon ; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! —yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost forever : Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings Mutability. Published with Alastor, 1816. We rest a dream has power to poison sleep; We rise - one wandering thought pollutes the day; We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep; It is the same!-for, be it joy or sorrow, ON DEATH There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.-ECCLESIASTES. THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile Which the meteor beam of a starless night Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle, Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light, Is the flame of life so fickle and wan That flits round our steps till their strength is gone. O man! hold thee on in courage of soul Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny. This world is the nurse of all we know, This world is the mother of all we feel; On Death, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || no title, Shelley, 1816. Published with Alastor, 1816. And the coming of death is a fearful blow To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel, When all that we know, or feel, or see, Shall pass like an unreal mystery. The secret things of the grave are there, ear No longer will live to hear or to see Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? Who lifteth the veil of what is to come? Who painteth the shadows that are beneath The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb? Or uniteth.the hopes of what shall be With the fears and the love for that which we see? A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Day. Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. A Summer Evening Churchyard. Published with Alastor, 1816. Composed September, 1815. |