FRAGMENTS SUPPOSED TO BE PARTS OF OTHO.
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862, — where, however, only the fragment numbered 2 is assigned to “Otho”. Forman (1876) connects all three fragments with that projected poem.)
1.
Those whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,
Nor custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,
Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil
Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind
Fed hopes of its redemption; these recur 5
Chastened by deathful victory now, and find
Foundations in this foulest age, and stir
Me whom they cheer to be their minister.
2.
Dark is the realm of grief: but human things
Those may not know who cannot weep for them. 10
…
3.
Once more descend
The shadows of my soul upon mankind,
For to those hearts with which they never blend,
Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind
From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, 15
Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.
…
‘
O THAT A CHARIOT OF CLOUD WERE MINE’.
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
O that a chariot of cloud were mine!
Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,
When the moon over the ocean’s line
Is spreading the locks of her bright gray hair.
O that a chariot of cloud were mine! 5
I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind
To the mountain peak and the rocky lake,
And the…
TO A FRIEND RELEASED FROM PRISON. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble
In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast
With feelings which make rapture pain resemble,
Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast,
I thank thee — let the tyrant keep 5
His chains and tears, yea, let him weep
With rage to see thee freshly risen,
Like strength from slumber, from the prison,
In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind
Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind. 10
SATAN BROKEN LOOSE. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.)
A golden-winged Angel stood
Before the Eternal Judgement-seat:
His looks were wild, and Devils’ blood
Stained his dainty hands and feet.
The Father and the Son 5
Knew that strife was now begun.
They knew that Satan had broken his chain,
And with millions of daemons in his train,
Was ranging over the world again.
Before the Angel had told his tale, 10
A sweet and a creeping sound
Like the rushing of wings was heard around;
And suddenly the lamps grew pale —
The lamps, before the Archangels seven,
That burn continually in Heaven. 15
IGNICULUS DESIDERII. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63.)
To thirst and find no fill — to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps — to pause and ponder —
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses 5
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick…
AMOR AETERNUS. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
Wealth and dominion fade into the mass
Of the great sea of human right and wrong,
When once from our possession they must pass;
But love, though misdirected, is among
The things which are immortal, and surpass 5
All that frail stuff which will be — or which was.
THOUGHTS COME AND GO IN SOLITUDE. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.)
My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,
The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl! 5
A HATE-SONG.
(Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870.)
And he took an old cracked lute;
And he sang a song which was more of a screech
‘Gainst a woman that was a brute.
LINES TO A CRITIC.
(Published by Hunt in “The Liberal”, No. 3, 1823. Reprinted in
“Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.)
1.
Honey from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee?
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.
2.
Hate men who cant, and men who pray, 5
And men who rail like thee;
An equal passion to repay
They are not coy like me.
3.
Or seek some slave of power and gold
To be thy dear heart’s mate; 10
Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me, thy hate.
4.
A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;
I hate thy want of truth and love — 15
How should I then hate thee?
OZYMANDIAS.
(Published by Hunt in “The Examiner”, January, 1818. Reprinted with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903.)
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818.
TO THE NILE.
(‘Found by Mr. Townshend Meyer among the papers of Leigh Hunt, (and) published in the “St. James’s Magazine” for March, 1876.’ (Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B.; “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Library Edition, 1876, volume 3 page 410.) First included among Shelley’s poetical works in Mr. Forman’s Library Edition, where a facsimile of the manuscript is given. Composed February 4, 1818. See “Complete Works of John Keats”, edition H. Buxton Forman, Glasgow, 1901, volume 4 page 76.)
Month after month the gathered rains descend
Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells,
And from the desert’s ice-girt pinnacles
Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend
&nbs
p; On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. 5
Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells
By Nile’s aereal urn, with rapid spells
Urging those waters to their mighty end.
O’er Egypt’s land of Memory floods are level
And they are thine, O Nile — and well thou knowest 10
That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil
And fruits and poisons spring where’er thou flowest.
Beware, O Man — for knowledge must to thee,
Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES.
(Composed May 4, 1818. Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, which supplies the last word of the fragment.)
Listen, listen, Mary mine,
To the whisper of the Apennine,
It bursts on the roof like the thunder’s roar,
Or like the sea on a northern shore,
Heard in its raging ebb and flow 5
By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day
Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,
Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread 10
On the dim starlight then is spread,
And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm,
Shrouding…
THE PAST.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
1.
Wilt thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love’s sweet bowers,
Heaping over their corpses cold
Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould?
Blossoms which were the joys that fell, 5
And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.
2.
Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it,
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit’s gloom, 10
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is pain.
TO MARY — .
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
O Mary dear, that you were here
With your brown eyes bright and clear.
And your sweet voice, like a bird
Singing love to its lone mate
In the ivy bower disconsolate; 5
Voice the sweetest ever heard!
And your brow more…
Than the … sky
Of this azure Italy.
Mary dear, come to me soon, 10
I am not well whilst thou art far;
As sunset to the sphered moon,
As twilight to the western star,
Thou, beloved, art to me.
O Mary dear, that you were here; 15
The Castle echo whispers ‘Here!’
ON A FADED VIOLET.
(Published by Hunt, “Literary Pocket-Book”, 1821. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Again reprinted, with several variants, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1821. A transcript is extant in a letter from Shelley to Sophia Stacey, dated March 7, 1820.)
1.
The odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!
2.
A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, 5
It lies on my abandoned breast,
And mocks the heart which yet is warm,
With cold and silent rest.
3.
I weep, — my tears revive it not!
I sigh, — it breathes no more on me; 10
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be.
LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.
OCTOBER, 1818.
(Composed at Este, October, 1818. Published with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819. Amongst the late Mr. Fredk. Locker-Lampson’s collections at Rowfant there is a manuscript of the lines (167-205) on Byron, interpolated after the completion of the poem.)
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on —
Day and night, and night and day, 5
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track:
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 10
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o’er-brimming deep; 15
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore 20
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on
O’er the unreposing wave 25
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe’er he may, 30
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ‘twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no: 35
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve 40
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.
On the beach of a northern sea 45
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones, 50
Where a few gray rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
O’er the billows of the gale; 55
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides:
Those unburied bones around 60
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour, dim,
Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not. 65
Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led,
My bark by soft winds piloted:
‘Mid the mountains Euganean 70
I stood listening to the paean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mist they soar 75
Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie
In the unfathomable sky,
So their plumes of purple grain, 80
Starred with drops of golden rain,
G
leam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail, 85
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
Beneath is spread like a green sea 90
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath Day’s azure eyes
Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies, 95
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 100
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright, 105
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
Sun-girt City, thou hast been 115
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier. 120
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 125
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace gate 130
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of Ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
Wandering at the close of day, 135
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep