Posthumous Fragments Of Margaret Mcholson.

Being Poems found amongst the Papers of that noted Female who attempted the life of the King in 1786. Edited by John Fitzvictor.

[The "Posthumous Fragments", published at Oxford by Shelley, appeared in November, 1810.]



Despair.

And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calm
In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?
Can you, ye flow'rets, spread your perfumed balm
Mid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?
And you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still
Whilst throbs the tempest of my breast so high?
Can the fierce night-fiends rest on yonder hill,
And, in the eternal mansions of the sky,
Can the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie?

Hark! I hear music on the zephyr's wing,
L...

On the green leaf mine eyes were fix'd, like his
Who throws away his days in idle chase
Of the diminutive, when thus I heard
The more than father warn me: "Son! our time
Asks thriftier using. Linger not: away."

Thereat my face and steps at once I turn'd
Toward the sages, by whose converse cheer'd
I journey'd on, and felt no toil: and lo!
A sound of weeping and a song: "My lips,
O Lord!" and these so mingled, it gave birth
To pleasure and to pain. "O Sire, belov'd!
Say what is this I hear?" Thus I inquir'd.

"Spirits," said he, "who as they go, perchance,
Their debt of duty pay." As on their road
The thoughtful pilgrims, overtaking some
Not known unto them, turn to them, and look,
But stay not; thus, approaching from behind
With speedier motion,...

Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling cauldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing then blotting from our sight!
Halt through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony f...

With her 't is well now. She died young,
With all her hope and faith unmarred,
Nor lived to see the pearls, Love strung,
Without regard,
Cast, lost among
The disillusions that make life so hard.
Time on her body now can lay
No soiling hand and spoil what's fair:
He shall not turn the gold hair gray,
Nor bring crabbed Care,
Day after day,
To line the white brow with the heart's despair.
Far better thus. Yea, even so,
To die before faith turns to dust,
Before the heart has learned to know,
As learn it must,
Of love the woe,
And of all human life the deep disgust.

Infant' graves are steps of angels, where
Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.
God is their parent, and they need no tear;
He takes them to His bosom from earth's woes,
A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.
Their spirits are an Iris of the skies,
Needing no prayers; a sunset's happy close.
Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes;
Flowers weep in dew-drops oer them, and the gale gently sighs

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower,
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye.
Their deaths were dew-drops on Heaven's amaranth bower,
And tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by.
They bowed and trembled, and they left no sigh,
And the sun smiled to show their end was well.
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die;
All praye...

Long has the pall of Midnight quench'd the scene,
    And wrapt the hush'd horizon. - All around,
    In scatter'd huts, Labor, in sleep profound,
    Lies stretch'd, and rosy Innocence serene
Slumbers; - but creeps, with pale and starting mien,
    Benighted SUPERSTITION. - Fancy-found,
    The late self-slaughter'd Man, in earth yet green
    And festering, burst from his incumbent mound,
Roams! - and the Slave of Terror thinks he hears
    A mutter'd groan! - sees the sunk eye, that glares
    As shoots the Meteor. - But no more forlorn
He strays; - the Spectre sinks into his tomb!
    For now the jocund Herald of the Morn
    Claps his bold wings, and sounds along the gloom[1].

1: "It faded at the crowing of the cock." HAMLET.

Before the golden gate she stands,
With drooping head, with idle hands
Loose-clasped, and bent beneath the weight
Of unseen woe. Too late, too late!
Those carved and fretted,
Starred, resetted
Panels shall not open ever
To her who seeks the perfect mate.

Only the tearless enter there:
Only the soul that, like a prayer,
No bolt can stay, no wall may bar,
Shall dream the dreams grief cannot mar.
No door of cedar,
Alas, shall lead her
Unto the stream that shows forever
Love's face like some reflected star!

They say that golden barrier hides
A realm where deathless spring abides;
Where flowers shall fade not, and there floats
Thro' moon-rays mild or sunlit motes -
'Mid dewy alleys
That gird the palace,
And fountain'd spray...

S' io avessi pensato che sì care.

HIS POEMS WERE WRITTEN ONLY TO SOOTHE HIS OWN GRIEF: OTHERWISE HE WOULD HAVE LABOURED TO MAKE THEM MORE DESERVING OF THE FAME THEY HAVE ACQUIRED.


    Had I e'er thought that to the world so dear
The echo of my sighs would be in rhyme,
I would have made them in my sorrow's prime
Rarer in style, in number more appear.
Since she is dead my muse who prompted here,
First in my thoughts and feelings at all time,
All power is lost of tender or sublime
My rough dark verse to render soft and clear.
And certes, my sole study and desire
Was but--I knew not how--in those long years
To unburthen my sad heart, not fame acquire.
I wept, but wish'd no honour in my tears.
Fain would I now taste joy; but that high fair,
Sile...

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story's finished, what's the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day's vanity, the night's remorse.

(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...

With shadowy immortelles of memory
About her brow, she sits with eyes that look
Upon the stream of Lethe wearily,
In hesitant hands Death's partly-opened book.

Father Keeler died February 28, 1880, in Mobile, Ala.
Inscribed to his sister.



"Sweet Christ! let him live, ah! we need his life,
    And woe to us if he goes!
Oh! his life is beautiful, sweet, and fair,
Like a holy hymn, and the stillest prayer;
Let him linger to help us in the strife
    On earth, with our sins and woes."

'Twas the cry of thousands who loved him so,
The Angel of Death said: "No! oh! no!"
He was passing away -- and none might save
The virgin priest from a spotless grave.

"O God! spare his life, we plead and pray,
    He taught us to love You so --
So, so much -- his life is so sweet and fair --
A still, still song -- and a holy prayer;
He is our Father; oh! let him stay --
    He gone, to whom shall we go?"<...

Name not his deed: in shuddering and in haste
We dragged him darkly o'er the windy fell:
That night there was a gibbet in the waste,
And a new sin in hell.

Be his deed hid from commonwealths and kings,
By all men born be one true tale forgot;
But three things, braver than all earthly things,
Faced him and feared him not.

Above his head and sunken secret face
Nested the sparrow's young and dropped not dead.
From the red blood and slime of that lost place
Grew daisies white, not red.

And from high heaven looking upon him,
Slowly upon the face of God did come
A smile the cherubim and seraphim
Hid all their faces from.

Dust of the desert are thy walls
And temple-towers, O Babylon!
O'er crumbled halls the lizard crawls,
And serpents bask in blaze of sun.

In vain kings piled the Pyramids;
Their tombs were robbed by ruthless hands.
Who now shall sing their fame and deeds,
Or sift their ashes from the sands?

Deep in the drift of ages hoar
Lie nations lost and kings forgot;
Above their graves the oceans roar,
Or desert sands drift o'er the spot.

A thousand years are but a day
When reckoned on the wrinkled earth;
And who among the wise shall say
What cycle saw the primal birth

Of man, who lords on sea and land,
And builds his monuments to-day,
Like Syrian on the desert sand,
To crumble and be blown away.

Proud chiefs of pageant arm...

Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.

Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.

Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.

Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow;
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.

Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming.

This is the house. On one side there is darkness,
On one side there is light.
Into the darkness you may lift your lanterns,
O, any number, it will still be night.
And here are echoing stairs to lead you downward
To long sonorous halls.
And here is spring forever at these windows,
With roses on the walls.

This is her room. On one side there is music,
On one side not a sound.
At one step she could move from love to silence,
Feel myriad darkness coiling round.
And here are balconies from which she heard you,
Your steady footsteps on the stair.
And here the glass in which she saw your shadow
As she unbound her hair.

Here is the room, with ghostly walls dissolving,
The twilight room in which she called you ‘lover’;
And the floorless room in wh...

Adieu to France! Land of the Brave, farewell!
Sleep sweetly there, thy sons will watch by thee,
High as thy hills their burning blood will swell,
To leave thee as they find thee, fair and free.
The nations gaze and tremble at thy spell,
A vision of eternal Liberty,
Emerging from a swift and bloody birth,
The terror, wonder, glory of the earth.

Yet, France, farewell! One son may find his grave
Beneath thy soil, and leave thee marching still,
Napoleon with his millions of the brave,
Along the paths of glory, at thy will.
Soldiers, farewell! And when your banners wave
Above my bones beside some nameless hill,
Stop not the thunder of your glorious tread,
To mark me sleeping with th' inglorious dead.

And farewell, Foes! Brave hearts and grand of soul;

I

What will happen, Widow La Rue?
For last night at three o'clock
You woke and saw by your window again
Amid the shadowy locust grove
The phantom of the old soldier:
A shadow of blue, like mercury light -
What will happen, Widow La Rue?

        *        *        *        *        *

What may not happen
In this place of summer loneliness?
For neither the sunlight of July,
Nor the blue of the lake,
Nor the green boundaries of cool woodlands,
Nor the song of larks and thrushes,
Nor the bravuras of bobolinks,
Nor scents of hay new mown,
Nor the ox-blood sumach cones,
Nor the snow of nodding yarrow,
Nor clover blossoms on the dizzy crest
Of the bluff by the lake
Can take away the loneliness
Of this July by the lake!