Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed; And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, Which rotted into the earth with them. The water-blooms under the rivulet Fell from the stalks on which they were set; Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks Between the time of the wind and the snow Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank, And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath, Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth, Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue, Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould, Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, Dammed it up with roots knotted like watersnakes. And hour by hour, when the air was still, And unctuous meteors from spray to spray The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 63 mists, Harvard MS. 66: Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high, Infecting the winds that wander by. Shelley, 1820, Harvard MS. cancelled, omit, Mrs. Shelley, 18391 The sap shrank to the root through every pore, For Winter came; the wind was his whip; He had torn the cataracts from the hills His breath was a chain which without a sound Then the weeds which were forms of living death Their decay and sudden flight from frost And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant First there came down a thawing rain, And its dull drops froze on the boughs again; And a northern whirlwind, wandering about Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 96 and their sudden flight from the, Harvard MS. 98 And, omit, Harvard MS. Shook the boughs thus laden and heavy and stiff, And snapped them off with his rigid griff. When Winter had gone and Spring came back, The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck; But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. CONCLUSION Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that Whether that lady's gentle mind, I dare not guess; but in this life It is a modest creed, and yet 114 Whether || And if, Harvard MS. That garden sweet, that lady fair, And all sweet shapes and odors there, For love, and beauty, and delight, A VISION OF THE SEA 'Tis the terror of tempest. The rags of the sail Are flickering in ribbons within the fierce gale; From the stark night of vapors the dim rain is driven, And, when lightning is loosed, like a deluge from heaven, She sees the black trunks of the waterspouts spin And bend, as if heaven was ruining in, Which they seemed to sustain with their terrible mass As if ocean had sunk from beneath them; they pass To their graves in the deep with an earthquake of sound, And the waves and the thunders, made silent around, A Vision of the Sea. Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820. Composed at Pisa, and dated, in the Harvard MS., April, 1820. 6 ruining, Harvard MS. Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || raining, Shelley, 1820. 8 sunk, Harvard MS., Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || sank, Shelley, 1820. |