LXXIII.

The priests would write an explanation full,
Translating hieroglyphics into Greek,
How the god Apis really was a bull,

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
Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

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 fled like a shadow before its noon;

He is gone, and my peace is turned to strife,
And I wander and wane like the weary moon.
O sweet Echo, wake,

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,
Though tender and true, yet can answer not,
And the shadow that moves in the soul's eclipse
Can return not the kiss by his now forgot; 11
Sweet lips! he who hath
On my desolate path

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
My mansion is; where I have lived insphered
From the beginning, and around my sleep
Have woven all the wondrous imagery
Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world;
Infinite depths of unknown elements
Massed into one impenetrable mask;
Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins
Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron.
And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven
I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves,
and clouds,

And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns
In the dark space of interstellar air.

[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,
Why would you lighten it?-

That which I seek, some human sympathy
In this mysterious island.

INDIAN.

Oh! my friend,

My sister, my beloved!-What do I say?
My brain is dizzy, and I scarce know whether
I speak to thee or her.

LADY.

Peace, perturbed heart!

I am to thee only as thou to mine,

The passing wind which heals the brow at noon,
And may strike cold into the breast at night,
Yet cannot linger where it soothes the most,
Or long soothe could it linger.

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.