FRAGMENT. THE gentleness of rain was in the wind FRAGMENT OF A DREAM. METHOUGHT I was a billow in the crowd Of common men, that stream without a shore, That ocean which at once is deaf and loud; That I, a man, stood amid many more which the aspect bore By a wayside. Of some imperial metropolis, Where mighty shapes-pyramid, dome, and tower Gleamed like a pile of crags. FRAGMENT ON KEATS, WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED "HERE lieth One whose name was writ on water." But, ere the breath that could erase it blew, Death, in remorse for that fell slaughter, Death, the immortalizing winter, flew Athwart the stream,-and time's printless torrent grew A scroll of crystal, blazoning the name FRAGMENT: INSECURITY. WHEN Soft winds and sunny skies And the young and dewy dawn, COUPLETS. AND that I walk thus proudly crowned withal FRAGMENT. THE rude wind is singing FRAGMENT OF TERZA RIMA:1 FALSE LAURELS AND TRUE. "WHAT art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest The wreath to mighty poets only due, Even whilst like a forgotten moon thou wanest ? 1 It seems probable that this fragment is connected with The Triumph of Life.-ED. Touch not those leaves which for the eternal few, Who wander o'er the paradise of fame, In sacred dedication ever grew: One of the crowd thou art without a name.' 66 Ah, friend, 'tis the false laurel that I wear; Bright though it seem, it is not the same As that which bound Milton's immortal hair; Its dew is poison and the hopes that quicken Under its chilling shade, though seeming fair, Are flowers which die almost before they sicken." TWO FRAGMENTS OF INVOCATION.1 I. GREAT Spirit whom the sea of boundless thought Nurtures within its unimagined caves, In which thou sittest sole, as in my mind, Giving a voice to its mysterious waves. II. O thou immortal deity Whose throne is in the depth of human thought, I do adjure thy power and thee By all that man may be, by all that he is not, By all that he has been and yet must be! 1 Probably addressed to Liberty.-ED. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822. THE ZUCCA.' I. SUMMER was dead and Autumn was expiring, II. Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep III. I loved-O no, I mean not one of ye, see Or any earthly one, though ye are dear As human heart to human heart may be ;I loved, I know not what-but this low sphere, And all that it contains, contains not thee, Thou whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere. 1 Mrs. Shelley explains that a zucca is a pumpkin.-ED. From heaven and earth, and all that in them are, Veiled art thou, like a IV. star. By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest. Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden, Making divine the loftiest and the lowest, When for a moment thou art not forbidden To live within the life which thou bestowest; And leaving noblest things vacant and chidden, Cold as a corpse after the spirit's flight, V. In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common, In music and the sweet unconscious tone Of animals, and voices which are human, Meant to express some feelings of their own; In the soft motions and rare smile of woman, In flowers and leaves, and in the grass freshshown, Or dying in the autumn, I the most VI. And thus I went lamenting, when I saw And in despair had cast him down to die; Its leaves, which had outlived the frost, the thaw Had blighted; like a heart which hatred's eye Can blast not, but which pity kills; the dew Lay on its spotted leaves like tears too true. |