TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from which Mr. Locock (“Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 60-62) has, with patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock’s restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley’s obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light of a final recension.)
1.
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed! — Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; 5
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet.
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
2.
A breathless awe, like the swift change 10
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain, 15
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond the mighty moons that wane
Upon the verge of Nature’s utmost sphere,
Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear. 20
3.
Her voice is hovering o’er my soul — it lingers
O’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
The blood and life within those snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
My brain is wild, my breath comes quick — 25
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes;
My heart is quivering like a flame;
As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, 30
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
4.
I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody. —
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, 35
On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o’er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.
Now ‘tis the breath of summer night,
Which when the starry waters sleep,
Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, 40
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
STANZAS 1 AND 2.
As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock.
1.
Cease, cease — for such wild lessons madmen learn
Thus to be lost, and thus to sink and die
Perchance were death indeed! — Constantia turn
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie
Even though the sounds its voice that were 5
Between (thy) lips are laid to sleep:
Within thy breath, and on thy hair
Like odour, it is (lingering) yet
And from thy touch like fire doth leap —
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet — 10
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget.
2.
(A deep and) breathless awe like the swift change
Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers
Wild sweet yet incommunicably strange
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers… 15
TO CONSTANTIA.
(Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and printed by her in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. A copy exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.)
1.
The rose that drinks the fountain dew
In the pleasant air of noon,
Grows pale and blue with altered hue —
In the gaze of the nightly moon;
For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, 5
Makes it wan with her borrowed light.
2.
Such is my heart — roses are fair,
And that at best a withered blossom;
But thy false care did idly wear
Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom; 10
And fed with love, like air and dew,
Its growth —
TO ONE SINGING. (FRAGMENT)
(Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has revised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock (“Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.)
My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim
Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,
Far far away into the regions dim
Of rapture — as a boat, with swift sails winging
Its way adown some many-winding river, 5
Speeds through dark forests o’er the waters swinging…
A FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC. (FRAGMENT)
(Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.
Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).)
Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers. 5
ANOTHER FRAGMENT: TO MUSIC. (FRAGMENT)
(Published in “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.
Dated 1817 (Mrs. Shelley).)
No, Music, thou art not the ‘food of Love.’
Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self,
Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.
‘
MIGHTY EAGLE’.
SUPPOSED TO BE ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM GODWIN.
(Published in 1882 (“Poetical Works of P. B. S.”) by Mr. H. Buxton
Forman, C.B., by whom it is dated 1817.)
Mighty eagle! thou that soarest
O’er the misty mountain forest,
And amid the light of morning
Like a cloud of glory hiest,
And when night descends defiest 5
The embattled tempests’ warning!
TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR.
(Published in part (5-9, 14) by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition (without title); in full 2nd edition (with title). Four transcripts in Mrs. Shelley’s hand are extant: two — Leigh Hunt’s and Ch. Cowden Clarke’s — described by Forman, and two belonging to Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn, described by Woodberry (“Poetical Works”, Centenary Edition, 3 193-6). One of the latter (here referred to as Fa) is corrected in Shelley’s autograph. A much-corrected draft in Shelley’s hand is in the Harvard manuscript book.)
1.
Thy country’s curse is on thee, darkest crest
Of that foul, knotted, many-headed worm
Which rends our Mother’s bosom — Priestly Pest!
Masked Resurrection of a buried Form!
2.
Thy country’s curse is on thee! Justice sold, 5
Truth trampled, Nature’s landmarks overthrown,
And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,
Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction’s throne.
3.
And whilst that sure slow Angel which aye stands
Watching the beck of Mutability 10
Delays to execute h
er high commands,
And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,
4.
Oh, let a father’s curse be on thy soul,
And let a daughter’s hope be on thy tomb;
Be both, on thy gray head, a leaden cowl 15
To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom.
5.
I curse thee by a parent’s outraged love,
By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
By griefs which thy stern nature never crossed; 20
6.
By those infantine smiles of happy light,
Which were a fire within a stranger’s hearth,
Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night
Hiding the promise of a lovely birth:
7.
By those unpractised accents of young speech, 25
Which he who is a father thought to frame
To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach —
THOU strike the lyre of mind! — oh, grief and shame!
8.
By all the happy see in children’s growth —
That undeveloped flower of budding years — 30
Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,
Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears-
9.
By all the days, under an hireling’s care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness, —
O wretched ye if ever any were, — 35
Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!
10.
By the false cant which on their innocent lips
Must hang like poison on an opening bloom,
By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb — 40
11.
By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;
By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt
Of thine impostures, which must be their error —
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built —
12.
By thy complicity with lust and hate — 45
Thy thirst for tears — thy hunger after gold —
The ready frauds which ever on thee wait —
The servile arts in which thou hast grown old —
13.
By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile —
By all the arts and snares of thy black den, 50
And — for thou canst outweep the crocodile —
By thy false tears — those millstones braining men —
14.
By all the hate which checks a father’s love —
By all the scorn which kills a father’s care —
By those most impious hands which dared remove 55
Nature’s high bounds — by thee — and by despair —
15.
Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,
And cry, ‘My children are no longer mine —
The blood within those veins may be mine own,
But — Tyrant — their polluted souls are thine; — 60
16.
I curse thee — though I hate thee not. — O slave!
If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell
Of which thou art a daemon, on thy grave
This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!
TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley (1, 5, 6), “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; in full, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. A transcript is extant in Mrs. Shelley’s hand.)
1.
The billows on the beach are leaping around it,
The bark is weak and frail,
The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale.
Come with me, thou delightful child,
Come with me, though the wave is wild, 5
And the winds are loose, we must not stay,
Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.
2.
They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee; 10
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.
To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee 15
Because we fearless are and free.
3.
Come thou, beloved as thou art;
Another sleepeth still
Near thy sweet mother’s anxious heart,
Which thou with joy shalt fill, 20
With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be
The dearest playmate unto thee.
4.
Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, 25
Or the priests of the evil faith;
They stand on the brink of that raging river,
Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells; 30
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.
5.
Rest, rest, and shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild? — 35
There, sit between us two, thou dearest —
Me and thy mother — well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,
Less cruel than the savage slaves 40
Who hunt us o’er these sheltering waves.
6.
This hour will in thy memory
Be a dream of days forgotten long.
We soon shall dwell by the azure sea
Of serene and golden Italy,
Or Greece, the Mother of the free; 45
And I will teach thine infant tongue
To call upon those heroes old
In their own language, and will mould
Thy growing spirit in the flame
Of Grecian lore, that by such name 50
A patriot’s birthright thou mayst claim!
FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.
1.
The world is now our dwelling-place;
Where’er the earth one fading trace
Of what was great and free does keep,
That is our home!…
Mild thoughts of man’s ungentle race 5
Shall our contented exile reap;
For who that in some happy place
His own free thoughts can freely chase
By woods and waves can clothe his face
In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. 10
2.
This lament,
The memory of thy grievous wrong
Will fade…
But genius is omnipotent
To hallow… 15
ON FANNY GODWIN.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, among the poems of 1817, in “Poetical
Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
Her voice did quiver as we parted,
Yet knew I not that heart was broken
From which it came, and I departed
Heeding not the words then spoken.
Misery — O Misery, 5
This world is all too wide for thee.
LINES.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley with the date ‘November 5th, 1817,’ in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
1.
That time is dead for ever, child!
Drowned, frozen, dead for ever!
We look on the past
And stare aghast
At the spect
res wailing, pale and ghast, 5
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life’s dark river.
2.
The stream we gazed on then rolled by;
Its waves are unreturning;
But we yet stand 10
In a lone land,
Like tombs to mark the memory
Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee
In the light of life’s dim morning.
DEATH.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
1.
They die — the dead return not — Misery
Sits near an open grave and calls them over,
A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye —
They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,
Which he so feebly calls — they all are gone — 5
Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,
This most familiar scene, my pain —
These tombs — alone remain.
2.
Misery, my sweetest friend — oh, weep no more!
Thou wilt not be consoled — I wonder not! 10
For I have seen thee from thy dwelling’s door
Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot
Was even as bright and calm, but transitory,
And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;
This most familiar scene, my pain — 15
These tombs — alone remain.
OTHO.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
1.
Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,
Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim
From Brutus his own glory — and on thee
Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame:
Nor he who dared make the foul tyrant quail 5
Amid his cowering senate with thy name,
Though thou and he were great — it will avail
To thine own fame that Otho’s should not fail.
2.
‘Twill wrong thee not — thou wouldst, if thou couldst feel,
Abjure such envious fame — great Otho died 10
Like thee — he sanctified his country’s steel,
At once the tyrant and tyrannicide,
In his own blood — a deed it was to bring
Tears from all men — though full of gentle pride,
Such pride as from impetuous love may spring, 15
That will not be refused its offering.