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LINES

I

FAR, far away, O ye
Halcyons of Memory,
Seek some far calmer nest
Than this abandoned breast!
No news of your false spring
To my heart's winter bring;
Once having gone, in vain
Ye come again.

II

Vultures, who build your bowers
High in the Future's towers,
Withered hopes on hopes are spread!

Dying joys, choked by the dead,

Will serve your beaks for prey

Many a day.

THE FUGITIVES

I

THE waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing —
Away!

Lines. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The Fugitives. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The whirlwind is rolling,

The thunder is tolling,

The forest is swinging,

The minster bells ringing—
Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion;
Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm
Come away!

II

"Our boat has one sail,
And the helmsman is pale;

A bold pilot I trow,

Who should follow us now,"
Shouted he;

And she cried, "Ply the oar;
Put off gayly from shore!"
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon cloud broke

And though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast

From the lee.

III

"And fear'st thou, and fear'st thou?

And see'st thou, and hear'st thou ?

And drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,
I and thou?"

One boat-cloak did cover
The loved and the lover;
Their blood beats one measure,
They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low;

While around the lashed Ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
To and fro.

IV

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,

Like a bloodhound well beaten

The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame ;

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the gray tyrant father;
To his voice the mad weather
Seems tame;

And with curses as wild

As e'er clung to child,

He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest, and last
Of his name!

LINES

WRITTEN ON HEARING THE

NEWS OF THE DEATH OF

NAPOLEON

WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth?
Art thou not over-bold?

What! leapest thou forth as of old
In the light of thy morning mirth,
The last of the flock of the starry fold?
Ha! leapest thou forth as of old?

Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled,
And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?

How! is not thy quick heart cold?

What spark is alive on thy hearth?
How! is not his death-knell knolled?
And livest thou still, Mother Earth?
Thou wert warming thy fingers old
O'er the embers covered and cold

Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled;
What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?

"Who has known me of old," replied Earth, "Or who has my story told?

It is thou who art over-bold."

And the lightning of scorn laughed forth
As she sung, "To my bosom I fold
All my sons when their knell is knolled,

Lines written on hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon. Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || Written on hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon, Shelley, 1821. Published with Hellas, 1821.

ii. 8 dost thou, Rossetti.

And so with living motion all are fed,

And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead.

"Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth,
"I grow bolder, and still more bold.

The dead fill me ten thousand-fold
Fuller of speed, and splendor, and mirth.
I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold,
Like a frozen chaos uprolled,

Till by the spirit of the mighty dead
My heart grew warm.

I feed on whom I fed.

"Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth,

66

Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled,

In terror, and blood, and gold,

A torrent of ruin to death from his birth.
Leave the millions who follow to mould
The metal before it be cold ;

And weave into his shame, which like the dead
Shrouds me, the hopes that from his glory fled."

SONNET

POLITICAL GREATNESS

NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or

arts,

Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame; Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts,

Sonnet. Political Greatness, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || Sonnet to the Republic of Benevento, Harvard MS. Published by Mrs. Shelley,

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