Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace. On one side of this jagged and shapeless hill Upon the startled sense. There is a cave, from which there eddies When he had lost Eurydice. up A pale mist, like aërial gossamer, A moment shudders on the fearful brink The rock-then, scattered by the wind, Of a swift stream-the cruel hounds it flies press on Along the stream, or lingers on the With deafening yell, the arrows glance clefts, Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide there. Upon the beetling edge of that dark rock There stands a group of cypresses; not such As, with a graceful spire and stirring life, Pierce the pure heaven of your native vale, Whose branches the air plays among, but not Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn grace; But blasted and all wearily they stand, One to another clinging; their weak boughs Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they shake Beneath its blasts-a weatherbeaten and wound, He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and torn By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief, Mænad-like waved his lyre in the bright air, And wildly shrieked "Where she is, it is dark!" And then he struck from forth the strings Of deep and fearful melody. Alas! He gently sang of high and heavenly As in a brook, fretted with little waves, A many-sided mirror for the sun, Chorus. What wondrous sound is Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and crew! that, mournful and faint, wind But more melodious than the murmuring So flowed his song, reflecting the deep fresh, joy Which through the columns of a temple And tender love that fed those sweetest glides? notes, A. It is the wandering voice of The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food. But that is past. Returning from drear Orpheus' lyre, There rose to Heaven a sound of angry Or I must borrow from her perfect song. 'Tis as a mighty cataract that parts Two sister rocks with waters swift and strong, And casts itself with horrid roar and din Adown a steep; from a perennial source It ever flows and falls, and breaks the air With loud and fierce, but most harmonious roar, And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris light. works, To picture forth his perfect attributes. He does no longer sit upon his throne Of rock upon a desert herbless plain, For the evergreen and knotted ilexes, And cypresses that seldom wave their boughs, And sea-green olives with their grateful fruit, And elms dragging along the twisted vines, Which drop their berries as they follow fast Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief And blackthorn bushes with their infant Is clothed in sweetest sounds and vary race Of blushing rose blooms; beeches, to lovers dear, And weeping willow trees; all swift or slow, As their huge boughs or lighter dress permit, Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself Has sent from her maternal breast a growth Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour sweet, To pave the temple that his poesy Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch, And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair. Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. The birds are silent, hanging down their heads, Perched on the lowest branches of the trees; Not even the nightingale intrudes a note In rivalry, but all entranced she listens. FIORDISPINA Of song; but would I echo his high THE season was the childhood of sweet and not song, June, Nature must lend me words ne'er used Whose sunny hours from morning until Went creeping through the day with Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers Which she had from the breathing silent feet, Each with its load of pleasure, slow yet sweet; Like the long years of blest Eternity For thou the wonders of the depth canst know -A table near of polished porphyry. They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye That looked on them-a fragrance from the touch Whose warmth a light such checked their life; Of this unfathomable flood of hours, embowers they love, which did reprove They were two cousins, almost like to The childish pity that she felt for them, Which the same hand will gather-the And that leaf tinted lightly which Shake with decay. This fair day smiles The livery of unremembered snow Within whose bosom and whose brain Under the withered arm of Media now glow The ardours of a vision which obscure The very idol of its portraiture. He faints, dissolved into a sea of love; But thou art as a planet sphered above; But thou art Love itself-ruling the motion Of his subjected spirit: such emotion She flings her glowing arm step by step and stair by stair, That withered woman, gray and white and brown More like a trunk by lichens overgrown Than anything which once could have been human. Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet And ever as she goes the palsied woman FRAGMENT: "ALAS! THIS IS NOT WHAT I THOUGHT LIFE WAS."1 NOTE ON POEMS OF 1820, BY MRS. SHELLEY WE spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed Alas! this is not what I thought life several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on its ancient works was. I knew that there were crimes and evil of art. His thoughts were a good deal Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen. In mine own heart I saw as in a glass I went among my kind, with triple brass Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed, taken up also by the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to ply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of money. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly disappointed when it was thrown aside. There was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his health, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we left it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful had some friends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vaccà as to the cause of Shelley's sufferings. He, like every other medical man, could only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he enjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave his complaint to Nature. he had vainly consulted medical men of the highest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this advice. As Pain and ill-health followed him to the end; but the residence at Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence we remained. In the Spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wandering among the lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of the fireflies, that we heard the carolling of the skylark which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house, which was hers: he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank She had the and affectionate nature. most intense love of knowledge, a delicate |