'The thickest billows of that living storm I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform. 'Before the chariot had begun to climb The opposing steep of that mysterious dell, Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme 471 'Of him who from the lowest depths of hell, Through every paradise and through all glory, Love led serene, and who returned to tell 'The words of hate and awe, - the wondrous story How all things are transfigured except Humble, like falcons, sate upon the fist Of common men, and round their heads did soar; Love; For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary, 'The world can hear not the sweet notes that move The sphere whose light is melody to lovers, A wonder worthy of his rhyme. The grove These minor fragments have been recovered, often with great difficulty, principally from the Shelley MSS., by successive editors. Their general character is described by Mrs. Shelley: In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing. I find many such in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley's mind, and desire to trace its workings.' The titles are, as a rule, those given in previous editions. The dates of composition, often conjectural, and of publication, are affixed. Mrs. Shelley describes Shelley's grief for the death of this child: Shelley had suffered severely from the death of our son during this sunimer. His heart, attuned to every kindly affection, was full of burning love for his offspring. No words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were torn from him... When afterwards this child [William] died at Rome, he wrote, apropos of the English burying ground in that city: "This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent's heart are now prophetic; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death. My beloved child is buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body, the other crushes the affections." The memory of thy grievous wrong Will fade But genius is Omnipotent To hallow 1818. Garnett, 1862. TO WILLIAM SHELLEY THY little footsteps on the sands Thy mingled look of love and glee When we returned to gaze on thee 1819. Mrs. Shelley, 1839, 1st ed. TO CONSTANTIA I THE rose that drinks the fountain dew In the gaze of the nightly moon; |