Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand-
Come, long sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,

I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,

And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,

I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried :—
'Wouldst thou me?'

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noon-tide bee:-
'Shall I nestle near thy side?

Wouldst thou me?'-And I replied :-
No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon!

Sleep will come when thou art fled.
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

389

FROM THE ARABIC: AN IMITATION

My faint spirit was sitting in the light
Of thy looks, my love;

It panted for thee like the hind at noon
For the brooks, my love.

Thy barb whose hoofs outspeed the tempest's flight
Bore thee far from me;

My heart, for my weak feet were weary soon,

Did companion thee.

Ah! fleeter far than fleetest storm or steed,

Or the death they bear,

The heart which tender thought clothes like a dove
With the wings of care;

In the battle, in the darkness, in the need,
Shall mine cling to thee,

Nor claim one smile for all the comfort, love,
It may bring to thee.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

390

SONG

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken ;
Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the belovéd's bed:
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

391

LAMENT

O WORLD! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before,
When will return the glory of your prime ?
No more-O, never more!

Out of the day and night

A joy has taken flight:

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more-O, never more!

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

A

392

BRIDAL SONG

THE golden gates of Sleep unbar,

Where Strength and Beauty, met together, Kindle their image, like a star

In a sea of glassy weather.

Night, with all thy stars look down-
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew-
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true!

Let eyes not see their own delight:
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew!

Fairies, sprites, and angels keep her!
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn-ere it be long !

O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!

WHEN the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute :
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest:
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possessed.
O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee
As the storms rock the ravens on high.
Bright reason will mock thee,
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home
Leave thee naked to laughter,

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

394

TO JANE

THE keen stars were twinkling,

And the fair moon was rising among them,

Dear Jane!

The guitar was tinkling,

But the notes were not sweet till you sung them Again.

As the moon's soft splendour

O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven

Is thrown,

So your voice most tender

To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.

The stars will awaken,

Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;

No leaf will be shaken,

Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing

A tone

Of some world far from ours,

Where music and moonlight and feeling

Are one.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

395

HYMN TO PAN

'O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang
From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth
Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death
Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness;
Who lovest to see the Hamadryads dress

Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken;

And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken

The dreary melody of bedded reeds

In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds

The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth,
Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth

Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx-do thou now,
By thy love's milky brow,

By all the trembling mazes that she ran,
Hear us, great Pan !

'O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet turtles
Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles,
What time thou wanderest at eventide
Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side
Of thine enmosséd realms: O thou, to whom
Broad-leaved fig-trees even now foredoom
Their ripened fruitage; yellow-girted bees
Their golden honey-combs; our village leas
Their fairest-blossomed beans and poppied corn ;
The chuckling linnet its five young unborn,
To sing for thee; low-creeping strawberries
Their summer coolness; pent-up butterflies

Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh-budding year
All its completions—be quickly near,

By every wind that nods the mountain pine,
O forester divine !

'Thou, to whom every Faun and Satyr flies
For willing service; whether to surprise
The squatted hare while in half-sleeping fit;
Or upward ragged precipices flit

To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw;
Or by mysterious enticement draw
Bewildered shepherds to their path again;
Or to tread breathless round the frothy main,
And gather up all fancifullest shells
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,