virtue were a crown of glory to the world-whose love had been the source of happiness, peace, and good,-to be buried with him!

The concluding stanzas of the Adonais pointed out where the remains ought to be deposited; in addition to which our beloved child lay buried in the cemetery at Rome. Thither Shelley's ashes were conveyed; and they rest beneath one of the antique weed-grown towers that recur at intervals in the circuit of the massy ancient wall of Rome. He selected the hallowed place himself; there is

"And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand;

And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime,
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned
This refuge for his memory, doth stand

Like flame transformed to marble; and beneath

A field is spread, on which a newer band

Have pitched in heaven's smile their camp of death,
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath."

Could sorrow for the lost, and shuddering anguish at the vacancy left behind, be soothed by poetic imaginations, there was something in Shelley's fate to mitigate pangs which yet, alas! could not be so mitigated; for hard reality brings too miserably home to the mourner all that is lost of happiness, all of lonely unsolaced struggle that remains. Still, though dreams and hues of poetry cannot blunt grief, it invests his fate with a sublime fitness, which those less nearly allied may regard with complacency. A year before, he had poured into verse all such ideas about death as give it a glory of its own. He had, as it now seems, almost anticipated his own destiny ; and, when the mind figures his skiff wrapped from sight by the thunder-storm, as it was last seen upon the purple sea, and then, as the cloud of the tempest passed away, no sign remained of where it had been *-who but will regard as a prophecy the last stanza of the Adonais?

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven!
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar!

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are."

Putney, May 1st, 1839.

*Captain Roberts watched the vessel with his glass from the top of the light-house of Leghorn, on its homeward track. They were off Via Reggio, at some distance from shore, when a storm was driven over the sea. It enveloped them and several larger vessels in darkness. When the cloud passed onward, Roberts looked again, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean except their little schooner, which had vanished. From that time he could scarcely doubt the fatal truth; yet we fancied that they might have been driven towards Elba, or Corsica, and so be saved. The observation made as to the spot where the boat disappeared caused it to be found, through the exertions of Trelawny for that effect. It had gone down in ten fathom water; it had not capsized, and, except such things as had floated from her, everything was found on board exactly as it had been placed when they sailed. The boat itself was uninjured. Roberts possessed himself of her, and decked her; but she proved not sea-worthy, and her shattered planks now lie rotting on the shore of one of the Ionian islands, on which she was wrecked.

THY dewy looks sink in my breast;
Thy gentle words stir poison there:
Thou hast disturbed the only rest

That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty's hard control,

I could have borne my wayward lot;

The chains that bind this ruined soul

March 1814.

Had cankered then, but crushed it not.

II.

TO MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT GODWIN.

I.

MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed;
Yes, I was firm. Thus wert not thou.
My baffled looks did fear yet dread

To meet thy looks-I could not know
How anxiously they sought to shine
With soothing pity upon mine.

II.

To sit and curb the soul's mute rage
Which preys upon itself alone;
To curse the life which is the cage

Of fettered grief that dares not groan,

Hiding from many a careless eye
The scorned load of agony :-

III.

Whilst thou alone, then not regarded,
The.... thou alone shouldst be.
To spend years thus, and be rewarded
As thou, sweet love, requitedst me
When none were near-Oh! I did wake
From torture for that moment's sake!

IV.

Upon my heart thy accents sweet
Of peace and pity fell, like dew

On flowers half dead; thy lips did meet
Mine tremblingly; thy dark eyes threw
Their soft persuasion on my brain,

Charming away its dream of pain.

V.

We are not happy, sweet! our state
Is strange and full of doubt and fear;
More need of words that ills abate;-

Reserve or censure come not near
Our sacred friendship, lest there be
No solace left for thee and me.

VI.

Gentle and good and mild thou art;
Nor can I live if thou appear
Aught but thyself, or turn thine heart
Away from me, or stoop to wear
The mask of scorn, although it be
To hide the love thou feel'st for me.

June 1814.

III.

ΤΟ

YET look on me-take not thine eyes away, Which feed upon the love within mine own,Which is indeed but the reflected ray

Of thine own beauty from my spirit thrown. Yet speak to me: thy voice is as the tone Of my heart's echo, and I think I hear

That thou yet lovest me. Yet thou alone, Like one before a mirror, without care

Of aught but thine own features imaged there;And yet I wear out life in watching thee,

A toil so sweet at times. And thou indeed Art kind when I am sick, and pityest me.

1816.

1816.

IV.

DEAR home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,
The least of which wronged Memory ever makes
Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.

1817.

V.

A SHOVEL of his ashes took
From the hearth's obscurest nook,
Muttering mysteries as she went.
Helen and Henry knew that granny
Was as much afraid of ghosts as any,
And so they followed hard-

But Helen clung to her brother's arm,
And her own spasm made her shake.

VI.

THOSE Whom nor power, nor lying faith, nor toil,
Nor Custom, queen of many slaves, makes blind,
Have ever grieved that man should be the spoil
Of his own weakness, and with earnest mind
Fed hopes of its redemption: these recur

Chastened by deathful victory now, and find
Foundations in this foulest age, and stir

Me whom they cheer to be their minister.

VII.

FOR me, my friend,-if not that tears did tremble
In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast
With feelings which make rapture pain resemble,-
Yet, from thy voice that Falsehood starts aghast,
I thank thee. Let the tyrant keep
His chains and tears; yea, let him weep
With rage to see thee freshly risen,

Like strength from slumber, from the prison

In which he vainly hoped the soul to bind

Which on the chains must prey that fetter humankind.

1817.

VIII.

ONCE more descend

The shadows of my soul upon mankind;

1817.

For, to those hearts with which they never blend, Thoughts are but shadows which the flashing mind, From the swift clouds which track its flight of fire, Casts on the gloomy world it leaves behind.

IX.

Oh that a chariot of cloud were mine

Of cloud which the wild tempest weaves in air,
When the moon over the ocean's line

Is spreading the locks of her bright grey hair! Oh that a chariot of cloud were mine!

I would sail on the waves of the billowy wind
To the mountain peak and the rocky lake,
And the

1817.

X.

A GOLDEN-WINGED Angel stood
Before the Eternal Judgment-seat:
His looks were wild, and Devils' blood
Stained his dainty hands and feet.
The Father and the Son

Knew that strife was now begun.

They knew that Satan had broken his chain,

And, with millions of demons in his train,

Was ranging over the world again.

Before the Angel had told his tale,

A sweet and a creeping sound

Like the rushing of wings was heard around;

And suddenly the lamps grew pale

The lamps, before the Archangels seven,

That burn continually in heaven.

XI.

PRINCE ATHANASE.

PART I.

THERE was a youth who, as with toil and travel, Had grown quite weak and grey before his time; Nor any could the restless griefs unravel