TO CONSTANTIA. THE rose that drinks the fountain dew And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom ! DEATH. THEY die-the dead return not. Misery Misery, my sweetest friend-O! weep no more! SONNET.-OZYMANDIAS. I MET a traveller from an antique land 66 "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : ON F. G. HER voice did quiver as we parted, This world is all too wide for thee. LINES TO A CRITIC. HONEY from silkworms who can gather, Hate men who cant, and men who pray, And men who rail like thee; An equal passion to repay They are not coy like me. Or seek some slave of power and gold, I prove A passion like the one Cannot divided be; I hate thy want of truth and love— December, 1817. LINES. THAT time is dead for ever, child, And stare aghast At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, The stream we gazed on then rolled by; Its waves are unreturning; But we yet stand In a lone land, Like tombs to mark the memory Of hopes and fears, which fade and flee In the light of life's dim morning. NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817. BY THE EDITOR. THE very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appears to have kindled to yet keener life the spirit of poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. "The Revolt of Islam," written and printed, was a great effort"Rosalind and Helen" was begun-and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period, show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours. 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. Thus in the same book that addresses "Constantia, singing, I find these lines: My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing, Far away into the regions dim Of rapture-as a boat with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river. |