Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart. YET look on me ΤΟ -take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own, Which is indeed but the reflected ray Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me-thy voice is as the tone Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear That thou yet lovest me; yet thou alone Like one before a mirror, without care Of aught but thine own features, imaged there; And yet I wear out life in watching thee; A toil so sweet at times, and thou indeed Art kind when I am sick, and pity me. LINES.1 I. THE cold earth slept below, Above the cold sky shone; And all around, with a chilling sound, 1 Though usually assigned to November 1815, these lines probably belong to November 1816, the month in which Harriett Shelley drowned herself. 66 If so, raven hair" is used as a disguise, Harriett's hair having been light brown.-ED. II. The wintry hedge was black, The green grass was not seen, The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Had bound their folds o'er many a crack, Which the frost had made between. III. Thine eyes glowed in the glare As a fenfire's beam on a sluggish stream IV. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved— The night did shed on thy dear head THE SUNSET. THERE late was One within whose subtle being, He walked along the pathway of a field Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, But to the west was open to the sky. II There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold That night the youth and lady mingled lay In love and sleep-but when the morning came The lady found her lover dead and cold. Let none believe that God in mercy gave That stroke. wild, The lady died not, nor grew But Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief;- 1 This line is probably corrupt in two particulars. I believe the true reading to be sun-rise for sun and wake for walk; but I know of no authority for making the changes.-ED. Her lips and cheeks were like things dead—so pale; Her hands were thin, and through their wandering veins 40 And weak articulations might be seen "Inheritor of more than earth can give, Passionless calm and silence unreproved, Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep! but rest, And are the uncomplaining things they seem, Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love; Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph werePeace!" This was the only moan she ever made. FRAGMENT ON HOME. 50 DEAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys, The least of which wronged Memory ever makes Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears. FRAGMENT OF A GHOST-STORY. A SHOVEL of his ashes took But Helen clung to her brother's arm, POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817. MARIANNE'S DREAM.1 I. A PALE dream came to a Lady fair, And things are lost in the glare of day, II. And thou shalt know of things unknown, III. At first all deadly shapes were driven IV. And, as towards the east she turned, 1 Mrs. Leigh Hunt, the "Marianne" of this poem, dreamed the dream in question and related it to Shelley.-ED. |