LXXIII. The priests would write an explanation full, And nothing more; and bid the herald stick The same against the temple doors, and pull The old cant down; they licensed all to speak Whate'er they thought of hawks, and cats, and geese, By pastoral letters to each diocese. LXXIV. The king would dress an ape up in his crown And robes, and seat him on his glorious seat, And on the right hand of the sunlike throne Would place a gaudy mock-bird to repeat The chatterings of the monkey. Every one Of the prone courtiers crawled to kiss the feet Of their great Emperor, when the morning came, And kissed-alas, how many kiss the same! LXXV. The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, and Walked out of quarters in somnambulism; Round the red anvils you might see them stand Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;-in a band The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis, much, I wis To the annoyance of king Amasis. LXXVI. And timid lovers who had been so coy They hardly knew whether they loved or not Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shone; LXXVII. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Of many thousand schemes which lovers find, The Witch found one, and so they took their fill Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart, a wide wound, mind from mind! She did unite again with visions clear LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties To do her will, and show their subtle slights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nights, Than for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see. FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA.1 SCENE, before the Cavern of the Indian Enchantress. The ENCHANTRESS comes forth. ENCHANTRESS. HE came like a dream in the dawn of life, He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife, And for my sake Make answer the while my heart shall break! 1 Mrs. Shelley records that the unfinished drama of which these are the fragments was undertaken for the amusement of their Pisa intimates of 1822. Trelawny's adventures, afterwards published to the world in his book, The Adventures of a Younger Son, must be reckoned among the sources of suggestion. The scheme of the drama is thus described by Mrs. Shelley :-" An Enchantress, living in one of the islands of the Indian Archipelago, saves the life of a Pirate, a man of savage but noble nature. She becomes enamoured of him; and he, inconstant to his mortal love, for a while returns her passion: but at length, recalling the memory of her whom he left, and who laments his loss, he escapes from the enchanted island, and returns to his lady. His mode of life makes him again go to sea; and the Enchantress seizes the opportunity to bring him, by a spiritbrewed tempest, back to her island." The first 27 But my heart has a music which Echo's lips, Cast the darkness of absence, worse than death! (The ENCHANTRESS makes her spell: she is answered by a SPIRIT.) SPIRIT. 20 Within the silent centre of the earth And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns [ANOTHER SCENE.] INDIAN YOUTH and LADY. INDIAN. And if my grief should still be dearer to me lines are divided from what follows them in Mrs. Shelley's editions by the statement that "a good Spirit, who watches over the Pirate's fate, leads, in a mysterious manner, the lady of his love to the Enchanted Isle. She is accompanied by a youth, who loves the lady, but whose passion she returns only with a sisterly affection."-ÉD. Than all the pleasures in the world beside, That which I seek, some human sympathy INDIAN. Oh! my friend, My sister, my beloved!-What do I say? LADY. Peace, perturbed heart! I am to thee only as thou to mine, The passing wind which heals the brow at noon, Loved! Oh, I love. Methinks This word of love is fit for all the world, And that for gentle hearts another name Would speak of gentler thoughts than the world owns. I have loved. INDIAN. And thou lovest not? if so, Young as thou art thou canst afford to weep. |