THE AZIOLA

I

“ Do you not hear the Aziola cry?
Methinks she must be nigh,”

Said Mary, as we sate
In dusk, ere stars were lit, or candles brought ;

And I, who thought
This Aziola was some tedious woman,

Asked, “Who is Aziola?” How elate
I felt to know that it was nothing human,
No mockery of myself to fear or hate!

And Mary saw my soul, And laughed, and said, “ Disquiet yourself not,

'Tis nothing but a little downy owl.”

II

Sad Aziola ! many an eventide

Thy music I had heard By wood and stream, meadow and mountain-side,

And fields and marshes wide,
Such as nor voice, nor lute, nor wind, nor bird,

The soul ever stirred;
Unlike and far sweeter than them all.
Sad Aziola ! from that moment I

Loved thee and thy sad cry. The Aziola. Published by Mrs. Shelley, in The Keepsake, 1829.

TO

I

ONE word is too often profaned

For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

II

I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above

And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow? To Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

REMEMBRANCE

I
SWIFTER far than summer's flight,
Swifter far than youth's delight,
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and

gone.
As the wood when leaves are shed,
As the night when sleep is fled,
As the heart when joy is dead,

I am left lone, alone.

II

The swallow summer comes again,
The owlet night resumes his reign,
But the wild swan youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou.
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

III
Lilies for a bridal bed,
Roses for a matron's head,
Violets for a maiden dead -

Pansies let my flowers be;
On the living grave I bear,
Scatter them without a tear
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS

I

The serpent is shut out from paradise.
The wounded deer must seek the herb no more

In which its heart-cure lies ;
The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower,
Like that from which its mate with feignèd sighs

Fled in the April hour.
I, too, must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

II

Of hatred I am proud, – with scorn content; Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown

But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.

The miserable one
Turns the mind's poison into food,
Its medicine is tears, — its evil good.

III

Therefore if now I see you seldomer,
Dear friends, dear friend ! know that I only fly

Your looks, because they stir
Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot

die.
The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear; yet I,
So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task
Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene,
Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,
In the world's carnival. I sought
Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot

With various flowers, and every one still said,