Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear : 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away." TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR. I. THY Country's curse is on thee, darkest crest II. Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold, Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown, And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold, Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne. III. And, whilst that slow sure Angel which aye stands Delays to execute her high commands, And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee; IV. Oh let a father's curse be on thy soul, And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb, And both on thy grey head a leaden cowl To weigh thee down to thine approaching doom! V. I curse thee by a parent's outraged love; By hopes long cherished and too lately lost; VI. By those infantine smiles of happy light VII. By those unpractised accents of young speech, Thou strike the lyre of mind! Oh grief and shame! VIII. By all the happy see in children's growth, That undeveloped flower of budding years, Sweetness and sadness interwoven both, Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears: IX. By all the days, under a hireling's care, Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness, Oh wretched ye if ever any were, Sadder than orphans yet not fatherless!— X. By the false cant which on their innocent lips XI. By thy most impious hell, and all its terrors; XII. By thy complicity with lust and hate, Thy thirst for tears, thy hunger after gold, The ready frauds which ever on thee wait, The servile arts in which thou hast grown old; XIII. By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile, And-for thou canst outweep the crocodile- XIV. By all the hate which checks a father's love; By all the scorn which kills a father's care; By those most impious hands that dared remove Nature's high bounds; by thee; and by despair ; XV. Yes, the despair which bids a father groan, XVI. I curse thee, though I hate thee not. O slave! This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well! TO WILLIAM SHELLEY. I. THE billows on the beach are leaping around it; The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it Come with me, thou delightful child, Come with me! Though the wave is wild, II. They have taken thy brother and sister dear, They have made them unfit for thee; To a blighting faith and a cause of crime They have bound them slaves in youthly time; III. Come thou, beloved as thou art ! Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart, With fairest smiles of wonder thrown The dearest playmate unto thee. IV. Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever, Or the priests of the evil faith; They stand on the brink of that raging river Whose waves they have tainted with death. It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells, Around them it foams and rages and swells; And their swords and their sceptres I floating see, Like wrecks, on the surge of eternity. V. Rest, rest, shriek not, thou gentle child! Me and thy mother. Well we know The storm at which thou tremblest so, Less cruel than the savage slaves Who hunt thee o'er these sheltering waves. VI. This hour will in thy memory Be a dream of days forgotten; We soon shall dwell by the azure sea Of serene and golden Italy, Or Greece the mother of the free. And I will teach thine infant tongue To call upon their heroes old In their own language, and will mould LINES. THAT time is dead for ever, child, Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! And stare aghast At the spectres, wailing, pale, and ghast, Of hopes which thou and I beguiled To death on life's dark river. The stream we gazed on then rolled by But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears which fade and fly 5 November 1817. ON FANNY GODWIN. HER voice did quiver as we parted; This world is all too wide for thee! LINES TO A CRITIC. I. HONEY from silkworms who can gather, |