NOTES: _6 ruining Harvard manuscript, 1839; raining 1820. _8 sunk Harvard manuscript, 1839; sank 1820. _35 by Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839. _61 has 1820; had 1839. _87 all the Harvard manuscript; all that 1820, 1839. _116 through Harvard manuscript; from 1820, 1839. _121 away]alway cj. A.C. Bradley. _122 cloud Harvard manuscript, 1839; clouds 1820. _160 impetuously 1820, 1839; convulsively Harvard manuscript.
***
[Published with “Prometheus Unbound”, 1820.]
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the seas and the streams;I bear light shade for the leaves when laidIn their noonday dreams.From my wings are shaken the dews that waken _5The sweet buds every one,When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,As she dances about the sun.I wield the flail of the lashing hail,And whiten the green plains under, _10And then again I dissolve it in rain,And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,And their great pines groan aghast;And all the night ’tis my pillow white, _15While I sleep in the arms of the blast.Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,Lightning my pilot sits;In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,It struggles and howls at fits; _20Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,This pilot is guiding me,Lured by the love of the genii that moveIn the depths of the purple sea;Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills. _25Over the lakes and the plains,Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,The Spirit he loves remains;And I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,Whilst he is dissolving in rains. _30
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,And his burning plumes outspread,Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,When the morning star shines dead;As on the jag of a mountain crag, _35Which an earthquake rocks and swings,An eagle alit one moment may sitIn the light of its golden wings.And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,Its ardours of rest and of love, _40And the crimson pall of eve may fallFrom the depth of Heaven above.With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden, _45Whom mortals call the Moon,Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,By the midnight breezes strewn;And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,Which only the angels hear, _50May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof.The stars peep behind her and peer;And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,Like a swarm of golden bees.When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, _55Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl; _60The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,Over a torrent sea,Sunbeam-proof, I hand like a roof,— _65The mountains its columns be.The triumphal arch through which I marchWith hurricane, fire, and snow,When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,Is the million-coloured bow; _70The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,And the nursling of the Sky;I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; _75I change, but I cannot die.For after the rain when with never a stainThe pavilion of Heaven is bare,And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleamsBuild up the blue dome of air, _80I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,And out of the caverns of rain,Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,I arise and unbuild it again.
NOTES: _3 shade 1820; shades 1839. _6 buds 1839; birds 1820. _59 with a 1820; with the 1830.
***
[Composed at Leghorn, 1820, and published with “Prometheus Unbound” in the same year. There is a transcript in the Harvard manuscript.]
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!Bird thou never wert,That from Heaven, or near it,Pourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art. _5
Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springestLike a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. _10
In the golden lightningOf the sunken sun,O’er which clouds are bright’ning.Thou dost float and run;Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. _15
The pale purple evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of Heaven,In the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, _20
Keen as are the arrowsOf that silver sphere,Whose intense lamp narrowsIn the white dawn clearUntil we hardly see—we feel that it is there. _25
All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,As, when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflowed. _30
What thou art we know not;What is most like thee?From rainbow clouds there flow notDrops so bright to seeAs from thy presence showers a rain of melody. _35
Like a Poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not: _40
Like a high-born maidenIn a palace-tower,Soothing her love-ladenSoul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: _45
Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aereal hueAmong the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view! _50
Like a rose emboweredIn its own green leaves,By warm winds deflowered,Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves: _55
Sound of vernal showersOn the twinkling grass,Rain-awakened flowers,All that ever wasJoyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass: _60
Teach us, Sprite or Bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. _65
Chorus Hymeneal,Or triumphal chant,Matched with thine would be allBut an empty vaunt,A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. _70
What objects are the fountainsOf thy happy strain?What fields, or waves, or mountains?What shapes of sky or plain?What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? _75
With thy clear keen joyanceLanguor cannot be:Shadow of annoyanceNever came near thee:Thou lovest—but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. _80
Waking or asleep,Thou of death must deemThings more true and deepThan we mortals dream,Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? _85
We look before and after,And pine for what is not:Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. _90
Yet if we could scornHate, and pride, and fear;If we were things bornNot to shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. _95
Better than all measuresOf delightful sound,Better than all treasuresThat in books are found,Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! _100
Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know,Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flowThe world should listen then—as I am listening now. _105
NOTE: _55 those Harvard manuscript: these 1820, 1839.
***
[Composed early in 1820, and published, with “Prometheus Unbound”, in the same year. A transcript in Shelley’s hand of lines 1-21 is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and amongst the Boscombe manuscripts there is a fragment of a rough draft (Garnett). For further particulars concerning the text see Editor’s Notes.]
Yet, Freedom, yet, thy banner, torn but flying,Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind.—BYRON.
1.A glorious people vibrated againThe lightning of the nations: LibertyFrom heart to heart, from tower to tower, o’er Spain,Scattering contagious fire into the sky,Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, _5And in the rapid plumes of songClothed itself, sublime and strong;As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among,Hovering inverse o’er its accustomed prey;Till from its station in the Heaven of fame _10The Spirit’s whirlwind rapped it, and the rayOf the remotest sphere of living flameWhich paves the void was from behind it flung,As foam from a ship’s swiftness, when there cameA voice out of the deep: I will record the same. _15
2.The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth:The burning stars of the abyss were hurledInto the depths of Heaven. The daedal earth,That island in the ocean of the world,Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air: _20But this divinest universeWas yet a chaos and a curse,For thou wert not: but, power from worst producing worse,The spirit of the beasts was kindled there,And of the birds, and of the watery forms, _25And there was war among them, and despairWithin them, raging without truce or terms:The bosom of their violated nurseGroaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on worms,And men on men; each heart was as a hell of storms. _30
3.Man, the imperial shape, then multipliedHis generations under the pavilionOf the Sun’s throne: palace and pyramid,Temple and prison, to many a swarming millionWere, as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. _35This human living multitudeWas savage, cunning, blind, and rude,For thou wert not; but o’er the populous solitude,Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves,Hung Tyranny; beneath, sate deified _40The sister-pest, congregator of slaves;Into the shadow of her pinions wideAnarchs and priests, who feed on gold and bloodTill with the stain their inmost souls are dyed,Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. _45
4.The nodding promontories, and blue isles,And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous wavesOf Greece, basked glorious in the open smilesOf favouring Heaven: from their enchanted cavesProphetic echoes flung dim melody. _50On the unapprehensive wildThe vine, the corn, the olive mild,Grew savage yet, to human use unreconciled;And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,Like the man’s thought dark in the infant’s brain, _55Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,Art’s deathless dreams lay veiled by many a veinOf Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child,Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strainHer lidless eyes for thee; when o’er the Aegean main _60
5.Athens arose: a city such as visionBuilds from the purple crags and silver towersOf battlemented cloud, as in derisionOf kingliest masonry: the ocean-floorsPave it; the evening sky pavilions it; _65Its portals are inhabitedBy thunder-zoned winds, each headWithin its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,—A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will _70Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;For thou wert, and thine all-creative skillPeopled, with forms that mock the eternal deadIn marble immortality, that hillWhich was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. _75
6.Within the surface of Time’s fleeting riverIts wrinkled image lies, as then it layImmovably unquiet, and for everIt trembles, but it cannot pass away!The voices of thy bards and sages thunder _80With an earth-awakening blastThrough the caverns of the past:(Religion veils her eyes; Oppression shrinks aghast:)A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder,Which soars where Expectation never flew, _85Rending the veil of space and time asunder!One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew;One Sun illumines Heaven; one Spirit vastWith life and love makes chaos ever new,As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. _90
7.Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest,Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmaean Maenad,She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearestFrom that Elysian food was yet unweaned;And many a deed of terrible uprightness _95By thy sweet love was sanctified;And in thy smile, and by thy side,Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.But when tears stained thy robe of vestal-whiteness,And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, _100Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,The senate of the tyrants: they sunk proneSlaves of one tyrant: Palatinus sighedFaint echoes of Ionian song; that toneThou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown _105
8.From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill,Or piny promontory of the Arctic main,Or utmost islet inaccessible,Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign,Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, _110And every Naiad’s ice-cold urn,To talk in echoes sad and sternOf that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn?For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocksOf the Scald’s dreams, nor haunt the Druid’s sleep. _115What if the tears rained through thy shattered locksWere quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not weep,When from its sea of death, to kill and burn,The Galilean serpent forth did creep,And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. _120
9.A thousand years the Earth cried, ‘Where art thou?’And then the shadow of thy coming fellOn Saxon Alfred’s olive-cinctured brow:And many a warrior-peopled citadel.Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, _125Arose in sacred Italy,Frowning o’er the tempestuous seaOf kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty;That multitudinous anarchy did sweepAnd burst around their walls, like idle foam, _130Whilst from the human spirit’s deepest deepStrange melody with love and awe struck dumbDissonant arms; and Art, which cannot die,With divine wand traced on our earthly homeFit imagery to pave Heaven’s everlasting dome. _135
10.Thou huntress swifter than the Moon! thou terrorOf the world’s wolves! thou bearer of the quiver,Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error,As light may pierce the clouds when they disseverIn the calm regions of the orient day! _140Luther caught thy wakening glance;Like lightning, from his leaden lanceReflected, it dissolved the visions of the tranceIn which, as in a tomb, the nations lay;And England’s prophets hailed thee as their queen, _145In songs whose music cannot pass away,Though it must flow forever: not unseenBefore the spirit-sighted countenanceOf Milton didst thou pass, from the sad sceneBeyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. _150
11.The eager hours and unreluctant yearsAs on a dawn-illumined mountain stood.Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears,Darkening each other with their multitude,And cried aloud, ‘Liberty!’ Indignation _155Answered Pity from her cave;Death grew pale within the grave,And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save!When like Heaven’s Sun girt by the exhalationOf its own glorious light, thou didst arise. _160Chasing thy foes from nation unto nationLike shadows: as if day had cloven the skiesAt dreaming midnight o’er the western wave,Men started, staggering with a glad surprise,Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. _165
12.Thou Heaven of earth! what spells could pall thee thenIn ominous eclipse? a thousand yearsBred from the slime of deep Oppression’s den.Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears.Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away; _170How like Bacchanals of bloodRound France, the ghastly vintage, stoodDestruction’s sceptred slaves, and Folly’s mitred brood!When one, like them, but mightier far than they,The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, _175Rose: armies mingled in obscure array,Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowersOf serene Heaven. He, by the past pursued,Rests with those dead, but unforgotten hours,Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral towers. _180
13.England yet sleeps: was she not called of old?Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunderVesuvius wakens Aetna, and the coldSnow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder:O’er the lit waves every Aeolian isle _185From Pithecusa to PelorusHowls, and leaps, and glares in chorus:They cry, ‘Be dim; ye lamps of Heaven suspended o’er us!’Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smileAnd they dissolve; but Spain’s were links of steel, _190Till bit to dust by virtue’s keenest file.Twins of a single destiny! appealTo the eternal years enthroned before usIn the dim West; impress us from a seal,All ye have thought and done! Time cannot dare conceal. _195
14.Tomb of Arminius! render up thy deadTill, like a standard from a watch-tower’s staff,His soul may stream over the tyrant’s head;Thy victory shall be his epitaph,Wild Bacchanal of truth’s mysterious wine, _200King-deluded Germany,His dead spirit lives in thee.Why do we fear or hope? thou art already free!And thou, lost Paradise of this divineAnd glorious world! thou flowery wilderness! _205Thou island of eternity! thou shrineWhere Desolation, clothed with loveliness,Worships the thing thou wert! O Italy,Gather thy blood into thy heart; repressThe beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. _210
15.Oh, that the free would stamp the impious nameOf KING into the dust! or write it there,So that this blot upon the page of fameWere as a serpent’s path, which the light airErases, and the flat sands close behind! _215Ye the oracle have heard:Lift the victory-flashing sword.And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bindInto a mass, irrefragably firm, _220The axes and the rods which awe mankind;The sound has poison in it, ’tis the spermOf what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. _225
16.Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindleSuch lamps within the dome of this dim world,That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindleInto the hell from which it first was hurled,A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure; _230Till human thoughts might kneel alone,Each before the judgement-throneOf its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown!Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscureFrom which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew _235From a white lake blot Heaven’s blue portraiture,Were stripped of their thin masks and various hueAnd frowns and smiles and splendours not their own,Till in the nakedness of false and trueThey stand before their Lord, each to receive its due! _240
17.He who taught man to vanquish whatsoeverCan be between the cradle and the graveCrowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour!If on his own high will, a willing slave,He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor _245What if earth can clothe and feedAmplest millions at their need,And power in thought be as the tree within the seed?Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor,Driving on fiery wings to Nature’s throne, _250Checks the great mother stooping to caress her,And cries: ‘Give me, thy child, dominionOver all height and depth’? if Life can breedNew wants, and wealth from those who toil and groan,Rend of thy gifts and hers a thousandfold for one! _255
18.Come thou, but lead out of the inmost caveOf man’s deep spirit, as the morning-starBeckons the Sun from the Eoan wave,Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her carSelf-moving, like cloud charioted by flame; _260Comes she not, and come ye not,Rulers of eternal thought,To judge, with solemn truth, life’s ill-apportioned lot?Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the FameOf what has been, the Hope of what will be? _265O Liberty! if such could be thy nameWert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee:If thine or theirs were treasures to be boughtBy blood or tears, have not the wise and freeWept tears, and blood like tears?—The solemn harmony _270
19.Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singingTo its abyss was suddenly withdrawn;Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely wingingIts path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn,Sinks headlong through the aereal golden light _275On the heavy-sounding plain,When the bolt has pierced its brain;As summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain;As a far taper fades with fading night,As a brief insect dies with dying day,— _280My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,Drooped; o’er it closed the echoes far awayOf the great voice which did its flight sustain,As waves which lately paved his watery wayHiss round a drowner’s head in their tempestuous play. _285
NOTES: _4 into]unto Harvard manuscript. _9 inverse cj. Rossetti; in verse 1820. _92 See the Bacchae of Euripides—[SHELLEY’S NOTE]. _113 lore 1839; love 1820. _116 shattered]scattered cj. Rossetti. _134 wand 1820; want 1830. _194 us]as cj. Forman. _212 KING Boscombe manuscript; **** 1820, 1839; CHRIST cj. Swinburne. _249 Or 1839; O, 1820. _250 Driving 1820; Diving 1839.
***
[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]
Within a cavern of man’s trackless spiritIs throned an Image, so intensely fairThat the adventurous thoughts that wander near itWorship, and as they kneel, tremble and wearThe splendour of its presence, and the light _5Penetrates their dreamlike frameTill they become charged with the strength of flame.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden,Thou needest not fear mine;My spirit is too deeply ladenEver to burthen thine.
2.I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, _5Thou needest not fear mine;Innocent is the heart’s devotionWith which I worship thine.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, and dated by her ‘Pisa, 1820.’ There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 24.]
1.Arethusa aroseFrom her couch of snowsIn the Acroceraunian mountains,—From cloud and from crag,With many a jag, _5Shepherding her bright fountains.She leapt down the rocks,With her rainbow locksStreaming among the streams;—Her steps paved with green _10The downward ravineWhich slopes to the western gleams;And gliding and springingShe went, ever singing,In murmurs as soft as sleep; _15The Earth seemed to love her,And Heaven smiled above her,As she lingered towards the deep.
2.Then Alpheus bold,On his glacier cold, _20With his trident the mountains strook;And opened a chasmIn the rocks—with the spasmAll Erymanthus shook.And the black south wind _25It unsealed behindThe urns of the silent snow,And earthquake and thunderDid rend in sunderThe bars of the springs below. _30And the beard and the hairOf the River-god wereSeen through the torrent’s sweep,As he followed the lightOf the fleet nymph’s flight _35To the brink of the Dorian deep.
3.‘Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!And bid the deep hide me,For he grasps me now by the hair!’The loud Ocean heard, _40To its blue depth stirred,And divided at her prayer;And under the waterThe Earth’s white daughterFled like a sunny beam; _45Behind her descendedHer billows, unblendedWith the brackish Dorian stream:—Like a gloomy stainOn the emerald main _50Alpheus rushed behind,—As an eagle pursuingA dove to its ruinDown the streams of the cloudy wind.
4.Under the bowers _55Where the Ocean PowersSit on their pearled thrones;Through the coral woodsOf the weltering floods,Over heaps of unvalued stones; _60Through the dim beamsWhich amid the streamsWeave a network of coloured light;And under the caves,Where the shadowy waves _65Are as green as the forest’s night:—Outspeeding the shark,And the sword-fish dark,Under the Ocean’s foam,And up through the rifts _70Of the mountain cliftsThey passed to their Dorian home.
5.And now from their fountainsIn Enna’s mountains,Down one vale where the morning basks, _75Like friends once partedGrown single-hearted,They ply their watery tasks.At sunrise they leapFrom their cradles steep _80In the cave of the shelving hill;At noontide they flowThrough the woods belowAnd the meadows of asphodel;And at night they sleep _85In the rocking deepBeneath the Ortygian shore;—Like spirits that lieIn the azure skyWhen they love but live no more. _90
NOTES: _6 unsealed B.; concealed 1824. _31 And the B.; The 1824. _69 Ocean’s B.; ocean 1824.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination,” etc., 1903, page 24.]
1.Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth,Thou from whose immortal bosomGods, and men, and beasts have birth,Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom,Breathe thine influence most divine _5On thine own child, Proserpine.
2.If with mists of evening dewThou dost nourish these young flowersTill they grow, in scent and hue,Fairest children of the Hours, _10Breathe thine influence most divineOn thine own child, Proserpine.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]
1.The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,Curtained with star-inwoven tapestriesFrom the broad moonlight of the sky,Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,—Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, _5Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.
2.Then I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome,I walk over the mountains and the waves,Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves _10Are filled with my bright presence, and the airLeaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.
3.The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I killDeceit, that loves the night and fears the day;All men who do or even imagine ill _15Fly me, and from the glory of my rayGood minds and open actions take new might,Until diminished by the reign of Night.
4.I feed the clouds, the rainbows and the flowersWith their aethereal colours; the moon’s globe _20And the pure stars in their eternal bowersAre cinctured with my power as with a robe;Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shineAre portions of one power, which is mine.
5.I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven, _25Then with unwilling steps I wander downInto the clouds of the Atlantic even;For grief that I depart they weep and frown:What look is more delightful than the smileWith which I soothe them from the western isle? _30
6.I am the eye with which the UniverseBeholds itself and knows itself divine;All harmony of instrument or verse,All prophecy, all medicine is mine,All light of art or nature;—to my song _35Victory and praise in its own right belong.
NOTES: _32 itself divine]it is divine B. _34 is B.; are 1824. _36 its cj. Rossetti, 1870, B.; their 1824.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a fair draft amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 25.]
1.From the forests and highlandsWe come, we come;From the river-girt islands,Where loud waves are dumbListening to my sweet pipings. _5The wind in the reeds and the rushes,The bees on the bells of thyme,The birds on the myrtle bushes,The cicale above in the lime,And the lizards below in the grass, _10Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,Listening to my sweet pipings.
2.Liquid Peneus was flowing,And all dark Tempe layIn Pelion’s shadow, outgrowing _15The light of the dying day,Speeded by my sweet pipings.The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,To the edge of the moist river-lawns, _20And the brink of the dewy caves,And all that did then attend and follow,Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,With envy of my sweet pipings.
3.I sang of the dancing stars, _25I sang of the daedal Earth,And of Heaven—and the giant wars,And Love, and Death, and Birth,—And then I changed my pipings,—Singing how down the vale of Maenalus _30I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed.Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed:All wept, as I think both ye now would,If envy or age had not frozen your blood, _35At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.
NOTE: _5, _12 Listening to]Listening B.
***
[Published by Leigh Hunt (with the signature Sigma) in “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1822. Reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824. Copies exist in the Harvard manuscript book, amongst the Boscombe manuscripts, and amongst Ollier manuscripts.]
1.I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,And gentle odours led my steps astray,Mixed with a sound of waters murmuringAlong a shelving bank of turf, which lay _5Under a copse, and hardly dared to flingIts green arms round the bosom of the stream,But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
2.There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth, _10The constellated flower that never sets;Faint oxslips; tender bluebells, at whose birthThe sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets—Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth—Its mother’s face with Heaven’s collected tears, _15When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
3.And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may,And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wineWas the bright dew, yet drained not by the day; _20And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold,Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
4.And nearer to the river’s trembling edge _25There grew broad flag-flowers, purple pranked with white.And starry river buds among the sedge,And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,Which lit the oak that overhung the hedgeWith moonlight beams of their own watery light; _30And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep greenAs soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
5.Methought that of these visionary flowersI made a nosegay, bound in such a wayThat the same hues, which in their natural bowers _35Were mingled or opposed, the like arrayKept these imprisoned children of the HoursWithin my hand,—and then, elate and gay,I hastened to the spot whence I had come,That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom? _40
NOTES: _14 Like…mirth Harvard manuscript, Boscombe manuscript; wanting in Ollier manuscript, 1822, 1824, 1839. _15 Heaven’s collected Harvard manuscript, Ollier manuscript, 1822; Heaven-collected 1824, 1839.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
FIRST SPIRIT:O thou, who plumed with strong desireWouldst float above the earth, beware!A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire—Night is coming!Bright are the regions of the air, _5And among the winds and beamsIt were delight to wander there—Night is coming!
SECOND SPIRIT:The deathless stars are bright above;If I would cross the shade of night, _10Within my heart is the lamp of love,And that is day!And the moon will smile with gentle lightOn my golden plumes where’er they move;The meteors will linger round my flight, _15And make night day.
FIRST SPIRIT:But if the whirlwinds of darkness wakenHail, and lightning, and stormy rain;See, the bounds of the air are shaken—Night is coming! _20The red swift clouds of the hurricaneYon declining sun have overtaken,The clash of the hail sweeps over the plain—Night is coming!
SECOND SPIRIT:I see the light, and I hear the sound; _25I’ll sail on the flood of the tempest darkWith the calm within and the light aroundWhich makes night day:And thou, when the gloom is deep and stark,Look from thy dull earth, slumber-bound, _30My moon-like flight thou then mayst markOn high, far away.
…
Some say there is a precipiceWhere one vast pine is frozen to ruinO’er piles of snow and chasms of ice _35Mid Alpine mountains;And that the languid storm pursuingThat winged shape, for ever fliesRound those hoar branches, aye renewingIts aery fountains. _40
Some say when nights are dry and clear,And the death-dews sleep on the morass,Sweet whispers are heard by the traveller,Which make night day:And a silver shape like his early love doth pass _45Upborne by her wild and glittering hair,And when he awakes on the fragrant grass,He finds night day.
NOTES: _2 Wouldst 1839; Would 1824. _31 moon-like 1824; moonlight 1839. _44 make]makes 1824, 1839.
***
(The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baiae with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.])
[Composed at San Juliano di Pisa, August 17-25, 1820; published in“Posthumous Poems”, 1824. There is a copy, ‘for the most part neat andlegible,’ amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. SeeMr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 14-18.]
EPODE 1a.
I stood within the City disinterred;And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfallsOf spirits passing through the streets; and heardThe Mountain’s slumberous voice at intervalsThrill through those roofless halls; _5The oracular thunder penetrating shookThe listening soul in my suspended blood;I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke—I felt, but heard not:—through white columns glowedThe isle-sustaining ocean-flood, _10A plane of light between two heavens of azure!Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchreOf whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasureWere to spare Death, had never made erasure;But every living lineament was clear _15As in the sculptor’s thought; and thereThe wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine,Like winter leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,Seemed only not to move and growBecause the crystal silence of the air _20Weighed on their life; even as the Power divineWhich then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.
NOTE: _1 Pompeii.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
EPODE 2a.
Then gentle winds aroseWith many a mingled closeOf wild Aeolian sound, and mountain-odours keen; _25And where the Baian oceanWelters with airlike motion,Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves,Even as the ever stormless atmosphere _30Floats o’er the Elysian realm,It bore me, like an Angel, o’er the wavesOf sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy airNo storm can overwhelm.I sailed, where ever flows _35Under the calm SereneA spirit of deep emotionFrom the unknown gravesOf the dead Kings of Melody.Shadowy Aornos darkened o’er the helm _40The horizontal aether; Heaven stripped bareIts depth over Elysium, where the prowMade the invisible water white as snow;From that Typhaean mount, Inarime,There streamed a sunbright vapour, like the standard _45Of some aethereal host;Whilst from all the coast,Louder and louder, gathering round, there wanderedOver the oracular woods and divine seaProphesyings which grew articulate—They seize me—I must speak them!—be they fate! _50
NOTES: _25 odours B.; odour 1824. _42 depth B.; depths 1824. _45 sun-bright B.; sunlit 1824. _39 Homer and Virgil.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantestNaked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!Elysian City, which to calm enchantestThe mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even _55As sleep round Love, are driven!Metropolis of a ruined ParadiseLong lost, late won, and yet but half regained!Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrificeWhich armed Victory offers up unstained _60To Love, the flower-enchained!Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,—Hail, hail, all hail! _65
Thou youngest giant birthWhich from the groaning earthLeap’st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!Last of the Intercessors!Who ’gainst the Crowned Transgressors _70Pleadest before God’s love! Arrayed in Wisdom’s mail,Wave thy lightning lance in mirthNor let thy high heart fail,Though from their hundred gates the leagued OppressorsWith hurried legions move! _75Hail, hail, all hail!
ANTISTROPHE 1a.
What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blasphemeFreedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirrorTo make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleamTo turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; _80A new Actaeon’s errorShall theirs have been—devoured by their own hounds!Be thou like the imperial BasiliskKilling thy foe with unapparent wounds!Gaze on Oppression, till at that dread risk _85Aghast she pass from the Earth’s disk:Fear not, but gaze—for freemen mightier grow,And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe:—If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail,Thou shalt be great—All hail! _90
ANTISTROPHE 2a.
From Freedom’s form divine,From Nature’s inmost shrine,Strip every impious gawd, rendError veil by veil;O’er Ruin desolate,O’er Falsehood’s fallen state, _95Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale!And equal laws be thine,And winged words let sail,Freighted with truth even from the throne of God:That wealth, surviving fate, _100Be thine.—All hail!
NOTE: _100 wealth-surviving cj. A.C. Bradley.
ANTISTROPHE 1b.
Didst thou not start to hear Spain’s thrilling paeanFrom land to land re-echoed solemnly,Till silence became music? From the AeaeanTo the cold Alps, eternal Italy _105Starts to hear thine! The SeaWhich paves the desert streets of Venice laughsIn light, and music; widowed Genoa wanBy moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,Murmuring, ‘Where is Doria?’ fair Milan, _110Within whose veins long ranThe viper’s palsying venom, lifts her heelTo bruise his head. The signal and the seal(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail)Art thou of all these hopes.—O hail! _115
NOTES: _104 Aeaea, the island of Circe.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.] _112 The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan.—[SHELLEY’S NOTE.]
ANTISTROPHE 2b.
Florence! beneath the sun,Of cities fairest one,Blushes within her bower for Freedom’s expectation:From eyes of quenchless hopeRome tears the priestly cope, _120As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,—An athlete stripped to runFrom a remoter stationFor the high prize lost on Philippi’s shore:—As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, _125So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail!
EPODE 1b.
Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born FormsArrayed against the ever-living Gods?The crash and darkness of a thousand stormsBursting their inaccessible abodes _130Of crags and thunder-clouds?See ye the banners blazoned to the day,Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride?Dissonant threats kill Silence far away,The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide _135With iron light is dyed;The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legionsLike Chaos o’er creation, uncreating;An hundred tribes nourished on strange religionsAnd lawless slaveries,—down the aereal regions _140Of the white Alps, desolating,Famished wolves that bide no waiting,Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory,Trampling our columned cities into dust,Their dull and savage lust _145On Beauty’s corse to sickness satiating—They come! The fields they tread look black and hoaryWith fire—from their red feet the streams run gory!
EPODE 2b.
Great Spirit, deepest Love!Which rulest and dost move _150All things which live and are, within the Italian shore;Who spreadest Heaven around it,Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it;Who sittest in thy star, o’er Ocean’s western floor;Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command _155The sunbeams and the showers distil its foisonFrom the Earth’s bosom chill;Oh, bid those beams be each a blinding brandOf lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison!Bid the Earth’s plenty kill! _160Bid thy bright Heaven above,Whilst light and darkness bound it,Be their tomb who plannedTo make it ours and thine!Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill _165And raise thy sons, as o’er the prone horizonThy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire—Be man’s high hope and unextinct desireThe instrument to work thy will divine!Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, _170And frowns and fears from thee,Would not more swiftly fleeThan Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.—Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrineThou yieldest or withholdest, oh, let be _175This city of thy worship ever free!
NOTES: _143 old 1824; lost B. _147 black 1824; blue B.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,And the YearOn the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,Is lying. _5Come, Months, come away,From November to May,In your saddest array;Follow the bierOf the dead cold Year, _10And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
2.The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knellingFor the Year;The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone _15To his dwelling;Come, Months, come away;Put on white, black, and gray;Let your light sisters play—Ye, follow the bier _20Of the dead cold Year,And make her grave green with tear on tear.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
And like a dying lady, lean and pale,Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,Out of her chamber, led by the insaneAnd feeble wanderings of her fading brain,The moon arose up in the murky East, _5A white and shapeless mass—
***
[Published (1) by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, (2) by W.M.Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works”, 1870.]
1.Art thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth,—And ever changing, like a joyless eye _5That finds no object worth its constancy?
2.Thou chosen sister of the Spirit,That grazes on thee till in thee it pities…
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.Death is here and death is there,Death is busy everywhere,All around, within, beneath,Above is death—and we are death.
2.Death has set his mark and seal _5On all we are and all we feel,On all we know and all we fear,
…
3.First our pleasures die—and thenOur hopes, and then our fears—and whenThese are dead, the debt is due, _10Dust claims dust—and we die too.
4.All things that we love and cherish,Like ourselves must fade and perish;Such is our rude mortal lot—Love itself would, did they not. _15
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.The fiery mountains answer each other;Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;The tempestuous oceans awake one another,And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter’s throne,When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. _5
2.From a single cloud the lightening flashes,Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the soundIs bellowing underground. _10
3.But keener thy gaze than the lightening’s glare,And swifter thy step than the earthquake’s tramp;Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stareMakes blind the volcanoes; the sun’s bright lampTo thine is a fen-fire damp. _15
4.From billow and mountain and exhalationThe sunlight is darted through vapour and blast;From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,—And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night _20In the van of the morning light.
NOTE: _4 zone editions 1824, 1839; throne later editions.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting.]
It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,Towards the end of the sunny month of June,When the north wind congregates in crowdsThe floating mountains of the silver cloudsFrom the horizon—and the stainless sky _5Opens beyond them like eternity.All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,And the firm foliage of the larger trees. _10
It was a winter such as when birds dieIn the deep forests; and the fishes lieStiffened in the translucent ice, which makesEven the mud and slime of the warm lakesA wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when, _15Among their children, comfortable menGather about great fires, and yet feel cold:Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!
NOTE: _11 birds die 1839; birds do die 1829.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “The Keepsake”, 1829. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley’s handwriting.]
Amid the desolation of a city,Which was the cradle, and is now the graveOf an extinguished people,—so that Pity
Weeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave,There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built _5Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,Agitates the light flame of their hours,Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.
There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers _10And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
Of solitary wealth,—the tempest-proofPavilions of the dark Italian air,—Are by its presence dimmed—they stand aloof, _15
And are withdrawn—so that the world is bare;As if a spectre wrapped in shapeless terrorAmid a company of ladies fair
Should glide and glow, till it became a mirrorOf all their beauty, and their hair and hue, _20The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew.
NOTE: _7 For]With 1829.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.A portal as of shadowy adamantStands yawning on the highway of the lifeWhich we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt;Around it rages an unceasing strifeOf shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt _5The gap of some cleft mountain, lifted highInto the whirlwinds of the upper sky.
2.And many pass it by with careless tread,Not knowing that a shadowy …Tracks every traveller even to where the dead _10Wait peacefully for their companion new;But others, by more curious humour led,Pause to examine;—these are very few,And they learn little there, except to knowThat shadows follow them where’er they go. _15
NOTE: _8 pass Rossetti; passed editions 1824, 1839.
***
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]
1.Tell me, thou Star, whose wings of lightSpeed thee in thy fiery flight,In what cavern of the nightWill thy pinions close now?
2.Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray _5Pilgrim of Heaven’s homeless way,In what depth of night or daySeekest thou repose now?
3.Weary Wind, who wanderestLike the world’s rejected guest, _10Hast thou still some secret nestOn the tree or billow?
***
[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. There is a transcript amongst the Ollier manuscripts, and another in the Harvard manuscript book.]
Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,Ye restless thoughts and busy purposesOf the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear?O thou quick heart, which pantest to possessAll that pale Expectation feigneth fair! _5Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guessWhence thou didst come, and whither thou must go,And all that never yet was known would know—Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press,With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path, _10Seeking, alike from happiness and woe,A refuge in the cavern of gray death?O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do youHope to inherit in the grave below?
NOTE: _1 grave Ollier manuscript; dead Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839. _5 pale Expectation Ollier manuscript; anticipation Harvard manuscript, 1823, editions 1824, 1839. _7 must Harvard manuscript, 1823; mayst 1824; mayest editions 1839. _8 all that Harvard manuscript, 1823; that which editions 1824, 1839. would Harvard manuscript, 1823; wouldst editions 1839.
***
[Published by Leigh Hunt, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1823. These lines, and the “Sonnet” immediately preceding, are signed Sigma in the “Literary Pocket-Book”.]
Alas, good friend, what profit can you seeIn hating such a hateless thing as me?There is no sport in hate where all the rageIs on one side: in vain would you assuageYour frowns upon an unresisting smile, _5In which not even contempt lurks to beguileYour heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!For to your passion I am far more coyThan ever yet was coldest maid or boy _10In winter noon. Of your antipathyIf I am the Narcissus, you are freeTo pine into a sound with hating me.
NOTE: _3 where editions 1824, 1839; when 1823.
***
[Published by Edward Dowden, “Correspondence of Robert Southey andCaroline Bowles”, 1880.]
If gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains,And racks of subtle torture, if the painsOf shame, of fiery Hell’s tempestuous wave,Seen through the caverns of the shadowy grave,Hurling the damned into the murky air _5While the meek blest sit smiling; if DespairAnd Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with which TerrorHunts through the world the homeless steps of Error,Are the true secrets of the commonwealTo make men wise and just;… _10And not the sophisms of revenge and fear,Bloodier than is revenge…Then send the priests to every hearth and homeTo preach the burning wrath which is to come,In words like flakes of sulphur, such as thaw _15The frozen tears…If Satire’s scourge could wake the slumbering houndsOf Conscience, or erase the deeper wounds,The leprous scars of callous Infamy;If it could make the present not to be, _20Or charm the dark past never to have been,Or turn regret to hope; who that has seenWhat Southey is and was, would not exclaim,‘Lash on!’ … be the keen verse dipped in flame;Follow his flight with winged words, and urge _25The strokes of the inexorable scourgeUntil the heart be naked, till his soulSee the contagion’s spots … foul;And from the mirror of Truth’s sunlike shield,From which his Parthian arrow… _30Flash on his sight the spectres of the past,Until his mind’s eye paint thereon—Let scorn like … yawn below,And rain on him like flakes of fiery snow.This cannot be, it ought not, evil still— _35Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow ill.Rough words beget sad thoughts, … and, beside,Men take a sullen and a stupid prideIn being all they hate in others’ shame,By a perverse antipathy of fame. _40’Tis not worth while to prove, as I could, howFrom the sweet fountains of our Nature flowThese bitter waters; I will only say,If any friend would take Southey some day,And tell him, in a country walk alone, _45Softening harsh words with friendship’s gentle tone,How incorrect his public conduct is,And what men think of it, ’twere not amiss.Far better than to make innocent ink—
***
[Published by Leigh Hunt over the signature Sigma, “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1822. It is included in the Harvard manuscript book, and there is a transcript by Shelley in a copy of “The Literary Pocket-Book”, 1819, presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820. (See “Love’s Philosophy” and “Time Long Past”.) Our text is that of the editio princeps, 1822, with which the Harvard manuscript and “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, agree. The variants of the Stacey manuscript, 1820, are given in the footnotes.]
1.Good-night? ah! no; the hour is illWhich severs those it should unite;Let us remain together still,Then it will be GOOD night.
2.How can I call the lone night good, _5Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?Be it not said, thought, understood—Then it will be—GOOD night.
3.To hearts which near each other moveFrom evening close to morning light, _10The night is good; because, my love,They never SAY good-night.
NOTES: _1 Good-night? no, love! the night is ill Stacey manuscript. _5 How were the night without thee good Stacey manuscript. _9 The hearts that on each other beat Stacey manuscript. _11 Have nights as good as they are sweet Stacey manuscript. _12 But never SAY good night Stacey manuscript.
***
[Published by Medwin, “The Angler in Wales, or Days and Nights of Sportsmen”, 1834. The text is revised by Rossetti from the Boscombe manuscript.]
1.‘Buona notte, buona notte!’—Come maiLa notte sara buona senza te?Non dirmi buona notte,—che tu sai,La notte sa star buona da per se.
2.Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, _5La notte quando Lilla m’abbandona;Pei cuori chi si batton insiemeOgni notte, senza dirla, sara buona.
3.Come male buona notte ci suonaCon sospiri e parole interrotte!— _10Il modo di aver la notte buonaE mai non di dir la buona notte.