Betrayal

In the youth of the year, when the birds were building,
    When the green was showing on tree and hedge,
And the tenderest light of all lights was gilding
    The world from zenith to outermost edge,
My soul grew sad and longingly lonely!
    I sighed for the season of sun and rose,
And I said, "In the Summer and that time only
    Lies sweet contentment and blest repose."

With bee and bird for her maids of honour
    Came Princess Summer in robes of green.
And the King of day smiled down upon her
    And wooed her, and won her, and made her queen.
Fruit of their union and true love's pledges,
    Beautiful roses bloomed day by day,
And rambled in gardens and hid in hedges
    Like royal children in sportive play.

My restless soul for a little sea...

Winter's gone, the summer breezes
Breathe the shepherd's joys again,
Village scene no longer pleases,
Pleasures meet upon the plain;
Snows are fled that hung the bowers,
Buds to blossoms softly steal,
Winter's rudeness melts in flowers:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.

Careless here shall pleasures lull thee,
From domestic troubles free;
Rushes for thy couch I'll pull thee,
In the shade thy seat shall be;
All the flower-buds will I get
Spring's first sunbeams do unseal,
Primrose, cowslip, violet:--
Charmer, leave thy spinning wheel,
And tend the sheep with me.

Cast away thy "twilly willy,"
Winter's warm protecting gown,
Storms no longer blow to chill thee;
Come with mantle loosely thrown,

I' piansi, or canto; che 'l celeste lume.

AT HER RETURN, HIS SORROWS VANISH.


    I wept, but now I sing; its heavenly light
That living sun conceals not from my view,
But virtuous love therein revealeth true
His holy purposes and precious might;
Whence, as his wont, such flood of sorrow springs
To shorten of my life the friendless course,
Nor bridge, nor ford, nor oar, nor sails have force
To forward mine escape, nor even wings.
But so profound and of so full a vein
My suff'ring is, so far its shore appears,
Scarcely to reach it can e'en thought contrive:
Nor palm, nor laurel pity prompts to gain,
But tranquil olive, and the dark sky clears,
And checks my grief and wills me to survive.

MACGREGOR.

Stuck in a bottle on the window-sill,
In the cold gaslight burning gaily red
Against the luminous blue of London night,
These flowers are mine: while somewhere out of sight
In some black-throated alley's stench and heat,
Oblivious of the racket of the street,
A poor old weary woman lies in bed.

Broken with lust and drink, blear-eyed and ill,
Her battered bonnet nodding on her head,
From a dark arch she clutched my sleeve and said:
'I've sold no bunch to-day, nor touched a bite ...
Son, buy six-pennorth; and 't will mean a bed.'

So blazing gaily red
Against the luminous deeps
Of starless London night,
They burn for my delight:
While somewhere, snug in bed,
A worn old woman sleeps.

And yet to-morrow will these blooms be dead
With...

O lovers' eyes are sharp to see,
And lovers' ears in hearing;
And love in life's extremity
Can lend an hour of cheering.
Disease had been in Mary's bower,
And slow decay from mourning,
Though now she sits on Neidpath's tower
To watch her love's returning.

All sunk and dim her eyes so bright,
Her form decay'd by pining,
Till through her wasted hand, at night,
You saw the taper shining;
By fits, a sultry hectic hue
Across her cheek was flying,
By fits, so ashy pale she grew,
Her maidens thought her dying.

Yet keenest powers to see and hear
Seem'd in her frame residing;
Before the watch-dog bunny'd his ear,
She heard her lover's riding;
Ere scarce a distant form was kenn'd,
She knew, and waved to greet him;
And o'er the b...

(Published by Medwin, "Life of Shelley", 1847, with Shelley's corrections in italics [''].)

INFERNO 33, 22-75.

[Translated by Medwin and corrected by Shelley.]

Now had the loophole of that dungeon, still
Which bears the name of Famine's Tower from me,
And where 'tis fit that many another will

Be doomed to linger in captivity,
Shown through its narrow opening in my cell
'Moon after moon slow waning', when a sleep,

'That of the future burst the veil, in dream
Visited me. It was a slumber deep
And evil; for I saw, or I did seem'

To see, 'that' tyrant Lord his revels keep
The leader of the cruel hunt to them,
Chasing the wolf and wolf-cubs up the steep

Ascent, that from 'the Pisan is the screen'
Of 'Lucca'; with him Gualan...

Love that is dead and buried, yesterday
Out of his grave rose up before my face,
No recognition in his look, no trace
Of memory in his eyes dust-dimmed and grey.
While I, remembering, found no word to say,
But felt my quickened heart leap in its place;
Caught afterglow thrown back from long set days,
Caught echoes of all music passed away.
Was this indeed to meet? - I mind me yet
In youth we met when hope and love were quick,
We parted with hope dead, but love alive:
I mind me how we parted then heart sick,
Remembering, loving, hopeless, weak to strive: -
Was this to meet? Not so, we have not met.

    All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree!
        Ere spring was going--ah, spring is gone!
    And there comes no summer to the like of you and me,--
        Blossom time is early, but no fruit sets on.

    All the dog-wood blossoms are underneath the tree,
        Browned at the edges, turned in a day;
    And I would with all my heart they trimmed a mound for me,
        And weeds were tall on all the paths that led that way!

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that ...

Ireland is now our royal care,
We lately fix'd our viceroy there.
How near was she to be undone,
Till pious love inspired her son!
What cannot our vicegerent do,
As poet and as patriot too?
Let his success our subjects sway,
Our inspirations to obey,
And follow where he leads the way:
Then study to correct your taste;
Nor beaten paths be longer traced.
    No simile shall be begun,
With rising or with setting sun;
And let the secret head of Nile
Be ever banish'd from your isle.
    When wretched lovers live on air,
I beg you'll the chameleon spare;
And when you'd make a hero grander,
Forget he's like a salamander.[1]
    No son of mine shall dare to say,
Aurora usher'd in the day,
Or ever name the milky-way.
You all agree, I make ...

Under the rose-tree's dancing shade
There stands a little ivory girl,
Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl
With pale green nails of polished jade.

The red leaves fall upon the mould,
The white leaves flutter, one by one,
Down to a blue bowl where the sun,
Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.

The white leaves float upon the air,
The red leaves flutter idly down,
Some fall upon her yellow gown,
And some upon her raven hair.

She takes an amber lute and sings,
And as she sings a silver crane
Begins his scarlet neck to strain,
And flap his burnished metal wings.

She takes a lute of amber bright,
And from the thicket where he lies
Her lover, with his almond eyes,
Watches her movements in delight.

And now she gives a...

As a pale phantom with a lamp
    Ascends some ruin's haunted stair,
So glides the moon along the damp
    Mysterious chambers of the air.

Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed,
    As if this phantom, full of pain,
Were by the crumbling walls concealed,
    And at the windows seen again.

Until at last, serene and proud
    In all the splendor of her light,
She walks the terraces of cloud,
    Supreme as Empress of the Night.

I look, but recognize no more
    Objects familiar to my view;
The very pathway to my door
    Is an enchanted avenue.

All things are changed.    One mass of shade,
    The elm-trees drop their curtains down;
By palace, park, and colonnade
    I walk as in a foreign town.

The very ground b...

Mine eye and heart are at a mortal war,
How to divide the conquest of thy sight;
Mine eye my heart thy picture’s sight would bar,
My heart mine eye the freedom of that right.
My heart doth plead that thou in him dost lie,
A closet never pierc’d with crystal eyes
But the defendant doth that plea deny,
And says in him thy fair appearance lies.
To side this title is impannelled
A quest of thoughts, all tenants to the heart;
And by their verdict is determined
The clear eye’s moiety, and the dear heart’s part:
As thus; mine eye’s due is thy outward part,
And my heart’s right, thy inward love of heart.

The blue bell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air;
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care.

There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear;
The violet has a fragrant breath
But fragrance will not cheer.

The trees are bare, the sun is cold;
And seldom, seldom seen;
The heavens have lost their zone of gold
The earth its robe of green;

And ice upon the glancing stream
Has cast its sombre shade
And distant hills and valleys seem
In frozen mist arrayed


The blue bell cannot charm me now
The heath has lost its bloom,
The violets in the glen below
They yield no sweet perfume.

But though I mourn the heather-bell
'Tis better far, away;
I know how fast my tears...

Since there is no escape, since at the end
My body will be utterly destroyed,
This hand I love as I have loved a friend,
This body I tended, wept with and enjoyed;
Since there is no escape even for me
Who love life with a love too sharp to bear:
The scent of orchards in the rain, the sea
And hours alone too still and sure for prayer,
Since darkness waits for me, then all the more
Let me go down as waves sweep to the shore
In pride; and let me sing with my last breath;
In these few hours of light I lift my head;
Life is my lover, I shall leave the dead
If there is any way to baffle death.

I said I would have my fling,
    And do what a young man may;
And I didn't believe a thing
    That the parsons have to say.
I didn't believe in a God
    That gives us blood like fire,
Then flings us into hell because
    We answer the call of desire.

And I said:    'Religion is rot,
    And the laws of the world are nil;
For the bad man is he who is caught
    And cannot foot his bill.
And there is no place called hell;
    And heaven is only a truth
When a man has his way with a maid,
    In the fresh keen hour of youth.

'And money can buy us grace,
    If it rings on the plate of the church:
And money can neatly erase
    Each sign of a sinful smirch.'
For I saw men everywhere,
    Hotfooting the road of vice;
And...

Unless our Souls win back to Thee,
We shall have lost this fight.
Yes, though we win on field and sea,
Though mightier still our might may be,
We still shall lose if we win not Thee.
    Help us to climb, as in Thy sight,
    The Great High Way of Thy Delight.

It is the world-old strife again,--
The fight 'twixt good and ill.
Since first the curse broke out in Cain,
Each age has worn the grim red chain,
And ill fought good for sake of gain.
    Help us, through all life's conflict, still
    To battle upwards to Thy Will.

Are we to be like all the rest,
Or climb we loftier height?
Can we our wayward steps arrest?--
All life with nobler life invest?--
And so fulfil our Lord's behest?
    Help us, through all the world's dark night,

[To the memory of Lieut. Wm. W. Wardell, of the First Massachusetts Cavalry, killed May 28, 1864.]


Above his head the cypress waves
    Its dark green drooping leaves;
The sunlight through its branches wide
Where bright birds linger side by side
    A golden net-work weaves.

Within the church-yard's silent gloom
    He lies in quiet rest;
And never more to cold, pale brow,
Or proud lips mute with silence now
    Will loving lips be pressed.

Perhaps even now in death's dark dream
    He sees the deadly strife;
Where brothers fought with blinded eyes,
Forgetting all the tender ties
    That bound them life to life.

Ah! nobly there he proudly rode
    With honest, warm, true heart;
And shrank not from the carnage red,
...