FRAGMENT: THE DESERTS OF SLEEP.

I WENT into the deserts of dim sleep

That world which, like an unknown wilder

ness,

Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep.

And

FRAGMENT: CONSEQUENCE.

THE viewless and invisible Consequence Watches thy goings-out and comings-in, hovers o'er thy guilty sleep, Unveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts More ghastly than those deeds.

FRAGMENT: MILTON'S SPIRIT.

I DREAMED that Milton's spirit rose, and took
From life's green tree his Uranian lute;
And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and
shook

All human things built in contempt of man,And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked,

Prisons and citadels. . .

FRAGMENT: A FACE.

His face was like a snake's-wrinkled and loose

And withered.

FRAGMENT.

My head is heavy, my limbs are weary,
And it is not life that makes me move.

HOPE, FEAR, AND DOUBT.

SUCH hope, as is the sick despair of good,
Such fear, as is the certainty of ill,

Such doubt, as is pale Expectation's food Turned while she tastes to poison, when the will

Is powerless, and the spirit. . . .

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.
I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged
glen.

In mine own heart I saw as in a glass
The hearts of others

And when
I went among my kind, with triple brass.
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!

FRAGMENT: UNRISEN SPLENDOUR.

UNRISEN splendour of the brightest sun,
To rise upon our darkness, if the star
Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne
Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure

war

With thy young brightness!

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

I.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,-
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

II.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,

So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wail aloud

For your mother in her shroud.

III.

As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
Rocks the year:---be calm and mild,
Trembling hours,-she will arise
With new love within her eyes.

IV.

January grey is here,

Like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave, And April weeps-but, O, ye hours, Follow with May's fairest flowers.

35 lence

TO NIGHT.

I.

25

SWIFTLY Walk o'er the western wave,1
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,

Where all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear,—
Swift be thy flight!

II.

Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,

Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes

of Day;

Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long sought!

III.

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,

1 In the Harvard College manuscript book Shelley wrote this first line as now printed. Hitherto it has read

Swiftly walk over the western wave

perhaps a more beautiful line in itself; but the poet would hardly have written it both ways at different times the metric impulse being entirely changed by the variation; and in the version which he certainly did write the metre is the same as that of the other first lines throughout the poem.-ED.

Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

IV.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noon-tide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me ?-And I replied,
No, not thee!

V.

Death will come when thou art dead,'
Soon, too soon--

Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,

Come soon, soon!

FROM THE ARABIC: AN IMITATION.

I.

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's

flight

Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon, Did companion thee.

II.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,
Or the death they bear,