All wept, as I think both ye now would
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

THE QUESTION

I

I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way,
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odors led my steps astray,

Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay

Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.

II

There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;

Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that

wets

(Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth) Its mother's face with Heaven's collected tears, When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.

The Question. Hunt, 1822 || A Dream. Harvard MS. Published by Hunt in The Literary Pocket-Book, 1822.

ii. 6 Harvard MS., Boscombe MS. || omit, Ollier MS., Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

ii 7 Heaven's collected, Harvard MS., Ollier MS., Hunt, 1822 || heaven-collected, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

III

And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, Green cowbind and the moonlight-colored May, And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine

Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day, And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,

With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;

And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.

IV

And nearer to the river's trembling edge

There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white;

And starry river buds among the sedge;

And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge

With moonlight beams of their own watery light;

And bulrushes and reeds, of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.

V

Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours

Within my hand, and then, elate and gay,
I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it! - Oh, to whom?

THE TWO SPIRITS

AN ALLEGORY

FIRST SPIRIT

O THOU, who plumed with strong desire
Wouldst float above the earth, beware!
A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire-
Night is coming!

Bright are the regions of the air,

And among the winds and beams It were delight to wander there— Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT

The deathless stars are bright above;
If I would cross the shade of night,
Within my heart is the lamp of love,
And that is day!

And the moon will smile with gentle light

On my golden plumes where'er they move; The meteors will linger round my flight, And make night day.

FIRST SPIRIT

But if the whirlwinds of darkness waken
Hail, and lightning, and stormy rain?
See, the bounds of the air are shaken
Night is coming!

The red swift clouds of the hurricane
Yon declining sun have overtaken;

The Two Spirits. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain — Night is coming!

SECOND SPIRIT

I see the light, and I hear the sound;

I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark, With the calm within and the light around Which makes night day;

And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark, Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound ; My moon-like flight thou then mayst mark On high, far away.

Some say there is a precipice

Where one vast pine is frozen to ruin O'er piles of snow and chasms of ice Mid Alpine mountains;

And that the languid storm pursuing

That winged shape forever flies
Round those hoar branches, aye renewing
Its aëry fountains.

Some say when nights are dry and clear,

And the death-dews sleep on the morass, Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller, Which make night day;

And a silver shape like his early love doth pass,
Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,
And, when he awakes on the fragrant grass,
He finds night day.

31 moon-like, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || moonlight, Mrs. Shelley, 18391. 44 makes, Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE

LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.

THE spider spreads her webs whether she be
In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree;
The silkworm in the dark green mulberry leaves
His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves;
So I, a thing whom moralists call worm,
Sit spinning still round this decaying form,
From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought-
No net of words in garish colors wrought
To catch the idle buzzers of the day
But a soft cell, where when that fades away
Memory may clothe in wings my living name
And feed it with the asphodels of fame,
Which in those hearts which must remember me
Grow, making love an immortality.

Whoever should behold me now, I wist,
Would think I were a mighty mechanist,
Bent with sublime Archimedean art
To breathe a soul into the iron heart

Of some machine portentous, or strange gin,
Which by the force of figured spells might win
Its way over the sea, and sport therein;

For round the walls are hung dread engines, such
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch
Ixion or the Titan, or the quick

Letter to Maria Gisborne. Mrs. Shelley, 18391 || Letter to Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824.

2 cellar, or barn, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || cellar, barn, Mrs. Shelley, transcript.

13 must, Boscombe MS. || most, Mrs. Shelley, transcript, 1824.