They breathe their spells toward the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars and sea; Light, sound and motion own the potent sway, Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. Thou too, aërial Pile, whose pinnacles Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, Around whose lessening and invisible height The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres; And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around; And mingling with the still night and mute sky Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep TO WORDSWORTH POET of Nature, thou hast wept to know Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. These common woes I feel. One loss is mine, Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore; Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shine On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar; Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE I HATED thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne To Wordsworth. Published with Alastor, 1816. Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte. Published with Alastor, 1816. 3 thou, shouldst || thee, Rossetti conj., should, Rossetti. Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer Too late, since thou and France are in the dust, That Virtue owns a more eternal foe Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, Legal Crime, LINES THE cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone; And all around, With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow The breath of night like death did flow The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare thorn's breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Thine eyes glowed in the glare Of the moon's dying light; Lines. Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || November, 1815. Pocket-Book, 1823. Published by Hunt, 1823. The Literary As a fen-fire's beam On a sluggish stream Gleams dimly so the moon shone there, And it yellowed the strings of thy tangled hair, That shook in the wind of night. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved The wind made thy bosom chill; On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky iii. 6 tangled, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || raven, Hunt, 1823. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816 THE SUNSET THERE late was One within whose subtle being, There now the sun had sunk; but lines of gold Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points The Sunset. Published in part by Hunt in The Literary PocketBook, 1823, 9–20, with title, Sunset. From an unpublished poem, and, 28-42, with title, Grief. A Fragment; and, entire, by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Composed at Bishopsgate in the spring. 4 death, Mrs. Shelley, 1839 1 || youth, Mrs. Shelley, 1824. |