Yes, Francis! thine was the dear knife that toreA tyrant’s heart-strings from his guilty breast,Thine was the daring at a tyrant’s gore,To smile in triumph, to contemn the rest;And thine, loved glory of thy sex! to tear _55From its base shrine a despot’s haughty soul,To laugh at sorrow in secure despair,To mock, with smiles, life’s lingering control,And triumph mid the griefs that round thy fate did roll.
Yes! the fierce spirits of the avenging deep _60With endless tortures goad their guilty shades.I see the lank and ghastly spectres sweepAlong the burning length of yon arcades;And I see Satan stalk athwart the plain;He hastes along the burning soil of Hell. _65‘Welcome, ye despots, to my dark domain,With maddening joy mine anguished senses swellTo welcome to their home the friends I love so well.’
…
Hark! to those notes, how sweet, how thrilling sweetThey echo to the sound of angels’ feet. _70
…
Oh haste to the bower where roses are spread,For there is prepared thy nuptial bed.Oh haste—hark! hark!—they’re gone.
…
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:Stay, ye days of contentment and joy,Whilst love every care is erasing, _75Stay ye pleasures that never can cloy,And ye spirits that can never cease pleasing.
And if any soft passion be near,Which mortals, frail mortals, can know,Let love shed on the bosom a tear, _80And dissolve the chill ice-drop of woe.
FRANCIS:‘Soft, my dearest angel, stay,Oh! you suck my soul away;Suck on, suck on, I glow, I glow!Tides of maddening passion roll, _85And streams of rapture drown my soul.Now give me one more billing kiss,Let your lips now repeat the bliss,Endless kisses steal my breath,No life can equal such a death.’ _90
CHARLOTTE:‘Oh! yes I will kiss thine eyes so fair,And I will clasp thy form;Serene is the breath of the balmy air,But I think, love, thou feelest me warmAnd I will recline on thy marble neck _95Till I mingle into thee;And I will kiss the rose on thy cheek,And thou shalt give kisses to me.For here is no morn to flout our delight,Oh! dost thou not joy at this? _100And here we may lie an endless night,A long, long night of bliss.’
Spirits! when raptures move,Say what it is to love,When passion’s tear stands on the cheek, _105When bursts the unconscious sigh;And the tremulous lips dare not speakWhat is told by the soul-felt eye.But what is sweeter to revenge’s earThan the fell tyrant’s last expiring yell? _110Yes! than love’s sweetest blisses ’tis more dearTo drink the floatings of a despot’s knell.I wake—’tis done—’tis over.
NOTE: _66 ye]thou 1810.
***
And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calmIn cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?Can you, ye flow’rets, spread your perfumed balmMid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?And you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still _5Whilst 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, _10Louder it floats along the unruffled sky;Some fairy sure has touched the viewless string—Now faint in distant air the murmurs die.Awhile it stills the tide of agony.Now—now it loftier swells—again stern woe _15Arises with the awakening melody.Again fierce torments, such as demons know,In bitterer, feller tide, on this torn bosom flow.
Arise ye sightless spirits of the storm,Ye unseen minstrels of the aereal song, _20Pour the fierce tide around this lonely form,And roll the tempest’s wildest swell along.Dart the red lightning, wing the forked flash,Pour from thy cloud-formed hills the thunder’s roar;Arouse the whirlwind—and let ocean dash _25In fiercest tumult on the rocking shore,—Destroy this life or let earth’s fabric be no more.
Yes! every tie that links me here is dead;Mysterious Fate, thy mandate I obey,Since hope and peace, and joy, for aye are fled, _30I come, terrific power, I come away.Then o’er this ruined soul let spirits of Hell,In triumph, laughing wildly, mock its pain;And though with direst pangs mine heart-strings swell,I’ll echo back their deadly yells again, _35Cursing the power that ne’er made aught in vain.
***
Yes! all is past—swift time has fled away,Yet its swell pauses on my sickening mind;How long will horror nerve this frame of clay?I’m dead, and lingers yet my soul behind.Oh! powerful Fate, revoke thy deadly spell, _5And yet that may not ever, ever be,Heaven will not smile upon the work of Hell;Ah! no, for Heaven cannot smile on me;Fate, envious Fate, has sealed my wayward destiny.
I sought the cold brink of the midnight surge, _10I sighed beneath its wave to hide my woes,The rising tempest sung a funeral dirge,And on the blast a frightful yell arose.Wild flew the meteors o’er the maddened main,Wilder did grief athwart my bosom glare; _15Stilled was the unearthly howling, and a strain,Swelled mid the tumult of the battling air,’Twas like a spirit’s song, but yet more soft and fair.
I met a maniac—like he was to me,I said—‘Poor victim, wherefore dost thou roam? _20And canst thou not contend with agony,That thus at midnight thou dost quit thine home?’‘Ah there she sleeps: cold is her bloodless form,And I will go to slumber in her grave;And then our ghosts, whilst raves the maddened storm, _25Will sweep at midnight o’er the wildered wave;Wilt thou our lowly beds with tears of pity lave?’
‘Ah! no, I cannot shed the pitying tear,This breast is cold, this heart can feel no more—But I can rest me on thy chilling bier, _30Can shriek in horror to the tempest’s roar.’
***
What was the shriek that struck Fancy’s earAs it sate on the ruins of time that is past?Hark! it floats on the fitful blast of the wind,And breathes to the pale moon a funeral sigh.It is the Benshie’s moan on the storm, _5Or a shivering fiend that thirsting for sin,Seeks murder and guilt when virtue sleeps,Winged with the power of some ruthless king,And sweeps o’er the breast of the prostrate plain.It was not a fiend from the regions of Hell _10That poured its low moan on the stillness of night:It was not a ghost of the guilty dead,Nor a yelling vampire reeking with gore;But aye at the close of seven years’ end,That voice is mixed with the swell of the storm, _15And aye at the close of seven years’ end,A shapeless shadow that sleeps on the hillAwakens and floats on the mist of the heath.It is not the shade of a murdered man,Who has rushed uncalled to the throne of his God, _20And howls in the pause of the eddying storm.This voice is low, cold, hollow, and chill,’Tis not heard by the ear, but is felt in the soul.’Tis more frightful far than the death-daemon’s scream,Or the laughter of fiends when they howl o’er the corpse _25Of a man who has sold his soul to Hell.It tells the approach of a mystic form,A white courser bears the shadowy sprite;More thin they are than the mists of the mountain,When the clear moonlight sleeps on the waveless lake. _30More pale HIS cheek than the snows of Nithona,When winter rides on the northern blast,And howls in the midst of the leafless wood.Yet when the fierce swell of the tempest is raving,And the whirlwinds howl in the caves of Inisfallen, _35Still secure mid the wildest war of the sky,The phantom courser scours the waste,And his rider howls in the thunder’s roar.O’er him the fierce bolts of avenging HeavenPause, as in fear, to strike his head. _40The meteors of midnight recoil from his figure,Yet the ‘wildered peasant, that oft passes by,With wonder beholds the blue flash through his form:And his voice, though faint as the sighs of the dead,The startled passenger shudders to hear, _45More distinct than the thunder’s wildest roar.Then does the dragon, who, chained in the cavernsTo eternity, curses the champion of Erin,Moan and yell loud at the lone hour of midnight,And twine his vast wreaths round the forms of the daemons; _50Then in agony roll his death-swimming eyeballs,Though ‘wildered by death, yet never to die!Then he shakes from his skeleton folds the nightmares,Who, shrieking in agony, seek the couchOf some fevered wretch who courts sleep in vain; _55Then the tombless ghosts of the guilty deadIn horror pause on the fitful gale.They float on the swell of the eddying tempest,And scared seek the caves of gigantic…Where their thin forms pour unearthly sounds _60On the blast that sweets the breast of the lake,And mingles its swell with the moonlight air.
***
Art thou indeed forever gone,Forever, ever, lost to me?Must this poor bosom beat alone,Or beat at all, if not for thee?Ah! why was love to mortals given, _5To lift them to the height of Heaven,Or dash them to the depths of Hell?Yet I do not reproach thee, dear!Ah, no! the agonies that swellThis panting breast, this frenzied brain, _10Might wake my —‘s slumb’ring tear.Oh! Heaven is witness I did love,And Heaven does know I love thee still,Does know the fruitless sick’ning thrill,When reason’s judgement vainly strove _15To blot thee from my memory;But which might never, never be.Oh! I appeal to that blest dayWhen passion’s wildest ecstasyWas coldness to the joys I knew, _20When every sorrow sunk away.Oh! I had never lived before,But now those blisses are no more.And now I cease to live again,I do not blame thee, love; ah, no! _25The breast that feels this anguished woe.Throbs for thy happiness alone.Two years of speechless bliss are gone,I thank thee, dearest, for the dream.’Tis night—what faint and distant scream _30Comes on the wild and fitful blast?It moans for pleasures that are past,It moans for days that are gone by.Oh! lagging hours, how slow you fly!I see a dark and lengthened vale, _35The black view closes with the tomb;But darker is the lowering gloomThat shades the intervening dale.In visioned slumber for awhileI seem again to share thy smile, _40I seem to hang upon thy tone.Again you say, ‘Confide in me,For I am thine, and thine alone,And thine must ever, ever be.’But oh! awak’ning still anew, _45Athwart my enanguished senses flewA fiercer, deadlier agony!
[End of “Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson”.]
***
[Published by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876; dated 1810.]
Tremble, Kings despised of man!Ye traitors to your Country,Tremble! Your parricidal planAt length shall meet its destiny…We all are soldiers fit to fight, _5But if we sink in glory’s nightOur mother Earth will give ye newThe brilliant pathway to pursueWhich leads to Death or Victory…
***
[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1809-10. The title is Rossetti’s (1870).]
1.Dares the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind,The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair?When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hindRepose trust in his footsteps of air?No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, _5The monster transfixes his prey,On the sand flows his life-blood away;Whilst India’s rocks to his death-yells reply,Protracting the horrible harmony.
2.Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, _10Dares fearless to perish defending her brood,Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approachesThirsting—ay, thirsting for blood;And demands, like mankind, his brother for food;Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; _15For hunger, not glory, the preyMust perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead.Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer’s head.
3.Though weak as the lama that bounds on the mountains,And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, _20Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of fountains,Though a fiercer than tiger is there.Though, more dreadful than death, it scatters despair,Though its shadow eclipses the day,And the darkness of deepest dismay _25Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around,And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground.
4.They came to the fountain to draw from its streamWaves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see;They bathed for awhile in its silvery beam, _30Then perished, and perished like me.For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee;The most tenderly loved of my soulAre slaves to his hated control.He pursues me, he blasts me! ’Tis in vain that I fly: _35 -What remains, but to curse him,—to curse him and die?
***
[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1809-10. The poem, with title as above, is included in the Esdaile manuscript book.]
1.Oh! take the pure gem to where southerly breezes,Waft repose to some bosom as faithful as fair,In which the warm current of love never freezes,As it rises unmingled with selfishness there,Which, untainted by pride, unpolluted by care, _5Might dissolve the dim icedrop, might bid it arise,Too pure for these regions, to gleam in the skies.
2.Or where the stern warrior, his country defending,Dares fearless the dark-rolling battle to pour,Or o’er the fell corpse of a dread tyrant bending, _10Where patriotism red with his guilt-reeking gorePlants Liberty’s flag on the slave-peopled shore,With victory’s cry, with the shout of the free,Let it fly, taintless Spirit, to mingle with thee.
3.For I found the pure gem, when the daybeam returning, _15Ineffectual gleams on the snow-covered plain,When to others the wished-for arrival of morningBrings relief to long visions of soul-racking pain;But regret is an insult—to grieve is in vain:And why should we grieve that a spirit so fair _20Seeks Heaven to mix with its own kindred there?
4.But still ’twas some Spirit of kindness descendingTo share in the load of mortality’s woe,Who over thy lowly-built sepulchre bendingBade sympathy’s tenderest teardrop to flow. _25Not for THEE soft compassion celestials did know,But if ANGELS can weep, sure MAN may repine,May weep in mute grief o’er thy low-laid shrine.
5.And did I then say, for the altar of glory,That the earliest, the loveliest of flowers I’d entwine, _30Though with millions of blood-reeking victims ’twas gory,Though the tears of the widow polluted its shrine,Though around it the orphans, the fatherless pine?Oh! Fame, all thy glories I’d yield for a tearTo shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. _35
***
[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1811.The title is Rossetti’s (1870).]
Why is it said thou canst not liveIn a youthful breast and fair,Since thou eternal life canst give,Canst bloom for ever there?Since withering pain no power possessed, _5Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,Nor time’s dread victor, death, confessed,Though bathed with his poison dew,Still thou retain’st unchanging bloom,Fixed tranquil, even in the tomb. _10And oh! when on the blest, reviving,The day-star dawns of love,Each energy of soul survivingMore vivid, soars above,Hast thou ne’er felt a rapturous thrill, _15Like June’s warm breath, athwart thee fly,O’er each idea then to steal,When other passions die?Felt it in some wild noonday dream,When sitting by the lonely stream, _20Where Silence says, ‘Mine is the dell’;And not a murmur from the plain,And not an echo from the fell,Disputes her silent reign.
***
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1811.]
By the mossy brink,With me the Prince shall sit and think;Shall muse in visioned Regency,Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.
***
[Published (without title) by Hogg, “Life of Shelley”, 1858; dated 1811.The title is Rossetti’s (1870).]
Sweet star, which gleaming o’er the darksome sceneThrough fleecy clouds of silvery radiance fliest,Spanglet of light on evening’s shadowy veil,Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless lake,Lighting the hour of sacred love; more sweet _5Than the expiring morn-star’s paly fires:—Sweet star! When wearied Nature sinks to sleep,And all is hushed,—all, save the voice of Love,Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy blastOf soft Favonius, which at intervals _10Sighs in the ear of stillness, art thou aught butLulling the slaves of interest to reposeWith that mild, pitying gaze? Oh, I would lookIn thy dear beam till every bond of senseBecame enamoured— _15
***
[Published by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1810-11.]
1.Maiden, quench the glare of sorrowStruggling in thine haggard eye:Firmness dare to borrowFrom the wreck of destiny;For the ray morn’s bloom revealing _5Can never boast so bright an hueAs that which mocks concealing,And sheds its loveliest light on you.
2.Yet is the tie departedWhich bound thy lovely soul to bliss? _10Has it left thee broken-heartedIn a world so cold as this?Yet, though, fainting fair one,Sorrow’s self thy cup has given,Dream thou’lt meet thy dear one,Never more to part, in Heaven. _15
3.Existence would I barterFor a dream so dear as thine,And smile to die a martyrOn affection’s bloodless shrine. _20Nor would I change for pleasureThat withered hand and ashy cheek,If my heart enshrined a treasureSuch as forces thine to break.
***
[Published (from Esdaile manuscript with title as above) by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870. Rossetti’s title is “Mother and Son”.]
1.She was an aged woman; and the yearsWhich she had numbered on her toilsome wayHad bowed her natural powers to decay.She was an aged woman; yet the rayWhich faintly glimmered through her starting tears, _5Pressed into light by silent misery,Hath soul’s imperishable energy.She was a cripple, and incapableTo add one mite to gold-fed luxury:And therefore did her spirit dimly feel _10That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.
2.One only son’s love had supported her.She long had struggled with infirmity,Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die, _15When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.But, when the tyrant’s bloodhounds forced the childFor his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield—Bend to another’s will—become a thing _20More senseless than the sword of battlefield—Then did she feel keen sorrow’s keenest sting;And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.
3.For seven years did this poor woman liveIn unparticipated solitude. _25Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rudePicking the scattered remnants of its wood.If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.The gleanings of precarious charityHer scantiness of food did scarce supply. _30The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dweltWithin her ghastly hollowness of eye:Each arrow of the season’s change she felt.Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run,One only hope: it was—once more to see her son. _35
4.It was an eve of June, when every starSpoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live.She rested on the moor. ’Twas such an eveWhen first her soul began indeed to grieve:Then he was here; now he is very far. _40The sweetness of the balmy eveningA sorrow o’er her aged soul did fling,Yet not devoid of rapture’s mingled tear:A balm was in the poison of the sting.This aged sufferer for many a year _45Had never felt such comfort. She suppressedA sigh—and turning round, clasped William to her breast!
5.And, though his form was wasted by the woeWhich tyrants on their victims love to wreak,Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek _50Of slavery’s violence and scorn did speak,Yet did the aged woman’s bosom glow.The vital fire seemed re-illumed withinBy this sweet unexpected welcoming.Oh, consummation of the fondest hope _55That ever soared on Fancy’s wildest wing!Oh, tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope!Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway,When THOU canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!
6.Her son, compelled, the country’s foes had fought, _60Had bled in battle; and the stern controlWhich ruled his sinews and coerced his soulUtterly poisoned life’s unmingled bowl,And unsubduable evils on him brought.He was the shadow of the lusty child _65Who, when the time of summer season smiled,Did earn for her a meal of honesty,And with affectionate discourse beguiledThe keen attacks of pain and poverty;Till Power, as envying her this only joy, _70From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy.
7.And now cold charity’s unwelcome doleWas insufficient to support the pair;And they would perish rather than would bearThe law’s stern slavery, and the insolent stare _75With which law loves to rend the poor man’s soul—The bitter scorn, the spirit-sinking noiseOf heartless mirth which women, men, and boysWake in this scene of legal misery.
…
NOTES: _28 grieve Esdaile manuscript; feel, 1870. _37 to those on earth that live Esdaile manuscripts; omitted, 1870.
***
[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript with title as above) byRossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; dated 1812.Rossetti’s title is “The Mexican Revolution”.]
1.Brothers! between you and meWhirlwinds sweep and billows roar:Yet in spirit oft I seeOn thy wild and winding shoreFreedom’s bloodless banners wave,— _5Feel the pulses of the braveUnextinguished in the grave,—See them drenched in sacred gore,—Catch the warrior’s gasping breathMurmuring ‘Liberty or death!’ _10
2.Shout aloud! Let every slave,Crouching at Corruption’s throne,Start into a man, and braveRacks and chains without a groan:And the castle’s heartless glow, _15And the hovel’s vice and woe,Fade like gaudy flowers that blow—Weeds that peep, and then are goneWhilst, from misery’s ashes risen,Love shall burst the captive’s prison. _20
3.Cotopaxi! bid the soundThrough thy sister mountains ring,Till each valley smile aroundAt the blissful welcoming!And, O thou stern Ocean deep, _25Thou whose foamy billows sweepShores where thousands wake to weepWhilst they curse a villain king,On the winds that fan thy breastBear thou news of Freedom’s rest! _30
4.Can the daystar dawn of love,Where the flag of war unfurledFloats with crimson stain aboveThe fabric of a ruined world?Never but to vengeance driven _35When the patriot’s spirit shrivenSeeks in death its native Heaven!There, to desolation hurled,Widowed love may watch thy bier,Balm thee with its dying tear. _40
***
[Published, 1-10, by Rossetti, “Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1870; 11-17, 25-28, by Dowden, “Life of Shelley”, 1887; 18-24 by Kingsland, “Poet-Lore”, July, 1892. Dated 1812.]
1.Bear witness, Erin! when thine injured isleSees summer on its verdant pastures smile,Its cornfields waving in the winds that sweepThe billowy surface of thy circling deep!Thou tree whose shadow o’er the Atlantic gave _5Peace, wealth and beauty, to its friendly wave, its blossoms fade,And blighted are the leaves that cast its shade;Whilst the cold hand gathers its scanty fruit,Whose chillness struck a canker to its root. _10
2.I could standUpon thy shores, O Erin, and could countThe billows that, in their unceasing swell,Dash on thy beach, and every wave might seemAn instrument in Time the giant’s grasp, _15To burst the barriers of Eternity.Proceed, thou giant, conquering and to conquer;March on thy lonely way! The nations fallBeneath thy noiseless footstep; pyramidsThat for millenniums have defied the blast, _20And laughed at lightnings, thou dost crush to nought.Yon monarch, in his solitary pomp,Is but the fungus of a winter dayThat thy light footstep presses into dust.Thou art a conqueror, Time; all things give way _25Before thee but the ‘fixed and virtuous will’;The sacred sympathy of soul which wasWhen thou wert not, which shall be when thou perishest.
…
***
[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated 1812.]
…
6.No trump tells thy virtues—the grave where they restWith thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.
7.When the storm-cloud that lowers o’er the day-beam is gone, _5Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,She will smile through the tears of revival on thine.
***
[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887.]
A scene, which ‘wildered fancy viewedIn the soul’s coldest solitude,With that same scene when peaceful loveFlings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,When mountain, meadow, wood and stream _5With unalloying glory gleam,And to the spirit’s ear and eyeAre unison and harmony.The moonlight was my dearer day;Then would I wander far away, _10And, lingering on the wild brook’s shoreTo hear its unremitting roar,Would lose in the ideal flowAll sense of overwhelming woe;Or at the noiseless noon of night _15Would climb some heathy mountain’s height,And listen to the mystic soundThat stole in fitful gasps around.I joyed to see the streaks of dayAbove the purple peaks decay, _20And watch the latest line of lightJust mingling with the shades of night;For day with me was time of woeWhen even tears refused to flow;Then would I stretch my languid frame _25Beneath the wild woods’ gloomiest shade,And try to quench the ceaseless flameThat on my withered vitals preyed;Would close mine eyes and dream I wereOn some remote and friendless plain, _30And long to leave existence there,If with it I might leave the painThat with a finger cold and leanWrote madness on my withering mien.
It was not unrequited love _35That bade my ‘wildered spirit rove;’Twas not the pride disdaining life,That with this mortal world at strifeWould yield to the soul’s inward sense,Then groan in human impotence, _40And weep because it is not givenTo taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.’Twas not that in the narrow sphereWhere Nature fixed my wayward fateThere was no friend or kindred dear _45Formed to become that spirit’s mate,Which, searching on tired pinion, foundBarren and cold repulse around;Oh, no! yet each one sorrow gaveNew graces to the narrow grave. _50For broken vows had early quelledThe stainless spirit’s vestal flame;Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled,Then the envenomed arrow came,And Apathy’s unaltering eye _55Beamed coldness on the misery;And early I had learned to scornThe chains of clay that bound a soulPanting to seize the wings of morn,And where its vital fires were born _60To soar, and spur the cold controlWhich the vile slaves of earthly nightWould twine around its struggling flight.
Oh, many were the friends whom fameHad linked with the unmeaning name, _65Whose magic marked among mankindThe casket of my unknown mind,Which hidden from the vulgar glareImbibed no fleeting radiance there.My darksome spirit sought—it found _70A friendless solitude around.For who that might undaunted stand,The saviour of a sinking land,Would crawl, its ruthless tyrant’s slave,And fatten upon Freedom’s grave, _75Though doomed with her to perish, whereThe captive clasps abhorred despair.
They could not share the bosom’s feeling,Which, passion’s every throb revealing,Dared force on the world’s notice cold _80Thoughts of unprofitable mould,Who bask in Custom’s fickle ray,Fit sunshine of such wintry day!They could not in a twilight walkWeave an impassioned web of talk, _85Till mysteries the spirits pressIn wild yet tender awfulness,Then feel within our narrow sphereHow little yet how great we are!But they might shine in courtly glare, _90Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,And might command where’er they moveA thing that bears the name of love;They might be learned, witty, gay,Foremost in fashion’s gilt array, _95On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,Be princes’ friends, but never mine!
Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,Whence I would watch its lustre pale _100Steal from the moon o’er yonder valeThou rock, whose bosom black and vast,Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,Ever its giant shade doth castOn the tumultuous surge below: _105
Woods, to whose depths retires to dieThe wounded Echo’s melody,And whither this lone spirit bentThe footstep of a wild intent:
Meadows! whose green and spangled breast _110These fevered limbs have often pressed,Until the watchful fiend DespairSlept in the soothing coolness there!Have not your varied beauties seenThe sunken eye, the withering mien, _115Sad traces of the unuttered painThat froze my heart and burned my brain.How changed since Nature’s summer formHad last the power my grief to charm,Since last ye soothed my spirit’s sadness, _120Strange chaos of a mingled madness!Changed!—not the loathsome worm that fedIn the dark mansions of the dead,Now soaring through the fields of air,And gathering purest nectar there, _125A butterfly, whose million huesThe dazzled eye of wonder views,Long lingering on a work so strange,Has undergone so bright a change.How do I feel my happiness? _130I cannot tell, but they may guessWhose every gloomy feeling gone,Friendship and passion feel alone;Who see mortality’s dull cloudsBefore affection’s murmur fly, _135Whilst the mild glances of her eyePierce the thin veil of flesh that shroudsThe spirit’s inmost sanctuary.O thou! whose virtues latest known,First in this heart yet claim’st a throne; _140Whose downy sceptre still shall shareThe gentle sway with virtue there;Thou fair in form, and pure in mind,Whose ardent friendship rivets fastThe flowery band our fates that bind, _145Which incorruptible shall lastWhen duty’s hard and cold controlHas thawed around the burning soul,—The gloomiest retrospects that bindWith crowns of thorn the bleeding mind, _150The prospects of most doubtful hueThat rise on Fancy’s shuddering view,—Are gilt by the reviving rayWhich thou hast flung upon my day.
***
[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August 1, 1812.]
Ever as now with Love and Virtue’s glowMay thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o’erflowWhich force from mine such quick and warm return.
***
[Published, 5-13, by Forman, “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, 1876; 58-69, by Shelley, “Notes to Queen Mab”, 1813; and entire (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Dowden, “Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated 1812.]
It is not blasphemy to hope that HeavenMore perfectly will give those nameless joysWhich throb within the pulses of the bloodAnd sweeten all that bitterness which EarthInfuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou _5Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy pathWhich this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold,Yet swiftly leading to those awful limitsWhich mark the bounds of Time and of the spaceWhen Time shall be no more; wilt thou not turn _10Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me,Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven,And Heaven is Earth?—will not thy glowing cheek,Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine,And breathe magnetic sweetness through the frame _15Of my corporeal nature, through the soulNow knit with these fine fibres? I would giveThe longest and the happiest day that fateHas marked on my existence but to feelONE soul-reviving kiss…O thou most dear, _20’Tis an assurance that this Earth is Heaven,And Heaven the flower of that untainted seedWhich springeth here beneath such love as ours.Harriet! let death all mortal ties dissolve,But ours shall not be mortal! The cold hand _25Of Time may chill the love of earthly mindsHalf frozen now; the frigid intercourseOf common souls lives but a summer’s day;It dies, where it arose, upon this earth.But ours! oh, ’tis the stretch of Fancy’s hope _30To portray its continuance as now,Warm, tranquil, spirit-healing; nor when ageHas tempered these wild ecstasies, and givenA soberer tinge to the luxurious glowWhich blazing on devotion’s pinnacle _35Makes virtuous passion supersede the powerOf reason; nor when life’s aestival sunTo deeper manhood shall have ripened me;Nor when some years have added judgement’s storeTo all thy woman sweetness, all the fire _40Which throbs in thine enthusiast heart; not thenShall holy friendship (for what other nameMay love like ours assume?), not even thenShall Custom so corrupt, or the cold formsOf this desolate world so harden us, _45As when we think of the dear love that bindsOur souls in soft communion, while we knowEach other’s thoughts and feelings, can we sayUnblushingly a heartless compliment,Praise, hate, or love with the unthinking world, _50Or dare to cut the unrelaxing nerveThat knits our love to virtue. Can those eyes,Beaming with mildest radiance on my heartTo purify its purity, e’er bendTo soothe its vice or consecrate its fears? _55Never, thou second Self! Is confidenceSo vain in virtue that I learn to doubtThe mirror even of Truth? Dark flood of Time,Roll as it listeth thee; I measure notBy month or moments thy ambiguous course. _60Another may stand by me on thy brink,,And watch the bubble whirled beyond his ken,Which pauses at my feet. The sense of love,The thirst for action, and the impassioned thoughtProlong my being; if I wake no more, _65My life more actual living will containThan some gray veteran’s of the world’s cold school,Whose listless hours unprofitably rollBy one enthusiast feeling unredeemed,Virtue and Love! unbending Fortitude, _70Freedom, Devotedness and Purity!That life my Spirit consecrates to you.
***
[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August, 1812.]
Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of evenSilently takest thine aethereal way,And with surpassing glory dimm’st each rayTwinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven,—Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou _5Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom,Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glowA watch-light by the patriot’s lonely tomb;A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor;A spark, though gleaming on the hovel’s hearth, _10Which through the tyrant’s gilded domes shall roar;A beacon in the darkness of the Earth;A sun which, o’er the renovated scene,Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been.
***
[Published from the Esdaile manuscript book by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August, 1812.]
Vessels of heavenly medicine! may the breezeAuspicious waft your dark green forms to shore;Safe may ye stem the wide surrounding roarOf the wild whirlwinds and the raging seas;And oh! if Liberty e’er deigned to stoop _5From yonder lowly throne her crownless brow,Sure she will breathe around your emerald groupThe fairest breezes of her West that blow.Yes! she will waft ye to some freeborn soulWhose eye-beam, kindling as it meets your freight, _10Her heaven-born flame in suffering Earth will light,Until its radiance gleams from pole to pole,And tyrant-hearts with powerless envy burstTo see their night of ignorance dispersed.
***
[Published as a broadside by Shelley, 1812.]
1.Once, early in the morning, Beelzebub arose,With care his sweet person adorning,He put on his Sunday clothes.
2.He drew on a boot to hide his hoof, _5He drew on a glove to hide his claw,His horns were concealed by a Bras Chapeau,And the Devil went forth as natty a BeauAs Bond-street ever saw.
3.He sate him down, in London town, _10Before earth’s morning ray;With a favourite imp he began to chat,On religion, and scandal, this and that,Until the dawn of day.
4.And then to St. James’s Court he went, _15And St. Paul’s Church he took on his way;He was mighty thick with every Saint,Though they were formal and he was gay.
5.The Devil was an agriculturist,And as bad weeds quickly grow, _20In looking over his farm, I wist,He wouldn’t find cause for woe.
6.He peeped in each hole, to each chamber stole,His promising live-stock to view;Grinning applause, he just showed them his claws, _25And they shrunk with affright from his ugly sight,Whose work they delighted to do.
7.Satan poked his red nose into crannies so smallOne would think that the innocents fair,Poor lambkins! were just doing nothing at all _30But settling some dress or arranging some ball,But the Devil saw deeper there.
8.A Priest, at whose elbow the Devil during prayerSate familiarly, side by side,Declared that, if the Tempter were there, _35His presence he would not abide.Ah! ah! thought Old Nick, that’s a very stale trick,For without the Devil, O favourite of Evil,In your carriage you would not ride.
9.Satan next saw a brainless King, _40Whose house was as hot as his own;Many Imps in attendance were there on the wing,They flapped the pennon and twisted the sting,Close by the very Throne.
10.Ah! ah! thought Satan, the pasture is good, _45My Cattle will here thrive better than others;They dine on news of human blood,They sup on the groans of the dying and dead,And supperless never will go to bed;Which will make them fat as their brothers. _50
11.Fat as the Fiends that feed on blood,Fresh and warm from the fields of Spain,Where Ruin ploughs her gory way,Where the shoots of earth are nipped in the bud,Where Hell is the Victor’s prey, _55Its glory the meed of the slain.
12.Fat—as the Death-birds on Erin’s shore,That glutted themselves in her dearest gore,And flitted round Castlereagh,When they snatched the Patriot’s heart, that HIS grasp _60Had torn from its widow’s maniac clasp,—And fled at the dawn of day.
13.Fat—as the Reptiles of the tomb,That riot in corruption’s spoil,That fret their little hour in gloom, _65And creep, and live the while.
14.Fat as that Prince’s maudlin brain,Which, addled by some gilded toy,Tired, gives his sweetmeat, and againCries for it, like a humoured boy. _70
15.For he is fat,—his waistcoat gay,When strained upon a levee day,Scarce meets across his princely paunch;And pantaloons are like half-moonsUpon each brawny haunch. _75
16.How vast his stock of calf! when plentyHad filled his empty head and heart,Enough to satiate foplings twenty,Could make his pantaloon seams start.
17.The Devil (who sometimes is called Nature), _80For men of power provides thus well,Whilst every change and every feature,Their great original can tell.
18.Satan saw a lawyer a viper slay,That crawled up the leg of his table, _85It reminded him most marvellouslyOf the story of Cain and Abel.
19.The wealthy yeoman, as he wandersHis fertile fields among,And on his thriving cattle ponders, _90Counts his sure gains, and hums a song;Thus did the Devil, through earth walking,Hum low a hellish song.
20.For they thrive well whose garb of goreIs Satan’s choicest livery, _95And they thrive well who from the poorHave snatched the bread of penury,And heap the houseless wanderer’s storeOn the rank pile of luxury.
21.The Bishops thrive, though they are big; _100The Lawyers thrive, though they are thin;For every gown, and every wig,Hides the safe thrift of Hell within.
22.Thus pigs were never counted clean,Although they dine on finest corn; _105And cormorants are sin-like lean,Although they eat from night to morn.
23.Oh! why is the Father of Hell in such glee,As he grins from ear to ear?Why does he doff his clothes joyfully, _110As he skips, and prances, and flaps his wing,As he sidles, leers, and twirls his sting,And dares, as he is, to appear?
24.A statesman passed—alone to him,The Devil dare his whole shape uncover, _115To show each feature, every limb,Secure of an unchanging lover.
25.At this known sign, a welcome sight,The watchful demons sought their King,And every Fiend of the Stygian night, _120Was in an instant on the wing.
26.Pale Loyalty, his guilt-steeled brow,With wreaths of gory laurel crowned:The hell-hounds, Murder, Want and Woe,Forever hungering, flocked around; _125From Spain had Satan sought their food,’Twas human woe and human blood!
27.Hark! the earthquake’s crash I hear,—Kings turn pale, and Conquerors start,Ruffians tremble in their fear, _130For their Satan doth depart.
28.This day Fiends give to revelryTo celebrate their King’s return,And with delight its Sire to seeHell’s adamantine limits burn. _135
29.But were the Devil’s sight as keenAs Reason’s penetrating eye,His sulphurous Majesty I ween,Would find but little cause for joy.
30.For the sons of Reason see _140That, ere fate consume the Pole,The false Tyrant’s cheek shall beBloodless as his coward soul.
NOTE: _55 Where cj. Rossetti; When 1812.
***
[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated August, 1812.]
Where man’s profane and tainting handNature’s primaeval loveliness has marred,And some few souls of the high bliss debarredWhich else obey her powerful command;…mountain piles _5That load in grandeur Cambria’s emerald vales.
***
[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Dowden,“Life of Shelley”, 1887; dated November, 1812.]
Hail to thee, Cambria! for the unfettered windWhich from thy wilds even now methinks I feel,Chasing the clouds that roll in wrath behind,And tightening the soul’s laxest nerves to steel;True mountain Liberty alone may heal _5The pain which Custom’s obduracies bring,And he who dares in fancy even to stealOne draught from Snowdon’s ever sacred springBlots out the unholiest rede of worldly witnessing.
And shall that soul, to selfish peace resigned, _10So soon forget the woe its fellows share?Can Snowdon’s Lethe from the free-born mindSo soon the page of injured penury tear?Does this fine mass of human passion dareTo sleep, unhonouring the patriot’s fall, _15Or life’s sweet load in quietude to bearWhile millions famish even in Luxury’s hall,And Tyranny, high raised, stern lowers on all?
No, Cambria! never may thy matchless valesA heart so false to hope and virtue shield; _20Nor ever may thy spirit-breathing galesWaft freshness to the slaves who dare to yield.For me!…the weapon that I burn to wieldI seek amid thy rocks to ruin hurled,That Reason’s flag may over Freedom’s field, _25Symbol of bloodless victory, wave unfurled,A meteor-sign of love effulgent o’er the world.
…
Do thou, wild Cambria, calm each struggling thought;Cast thy sweet veil of rocks and woods between,That by the soul to indignation wrought _30Mountains and dells be mingled with the scene;Let me forever be what I have been,But not forever at my needy doorLet Misery linger speechless, pale and lean;I am the friend of the unfriended poor,— _35Let me not madly stain their righteous cause in gore.
***
[Published (from the Esdaile manuscript book) by Bertram Dobell, 1887.]
Is it the Eternal Triune, is it HeWho dares arrest the wheels of destinyAnd plunge me in the lowest Hell of Hells?Will not the lightning’s blast destroy my frame?Will not steel drink the blood-life where it swells? _5No—let me hie where dark Destruction dwells,To rouse her from her deeply caverned lair,And, taunting her cursed sluggishness to ire,Light long Oblivion’s death-torch at its flameAnd calmly mount Annihilation’s pyre. _10Tyrant of Earth! pale Misery’s jackal Thou!Are there no stores of vengeful violent fateWithin the magazines of Thy fierce hate?No poison in the clouds to bathe a browThat lowers on Thee with desperate contempt? _15Where is the noonday Pestilence that slewThe myriad sons of Israel’s favoured nation?Where the destroying Minister that flewPouring the fiery tide of desolationUpon the leagued Assyrian’s attempt? _20Where the dark Earthquake-daemon who engorgedAt the dread word Korah’s unconscious crew?Or the Angel’s two-edged sword of fire that urgedOur primal parents from their bower of bliss(Reared by Thine hand) for errors not their own _25By Thine omniscient mind foredoomed, foreknown?Yes! I would court a ruin such as this,Almighty Tyrant! and give thanks to Thee—Drink deeply—drain the cup of hate; remit this—I may die.
***
[Published by Dowden, “Life of Shelley”, 1887. Composed July 31, 1813.]
O thou bright Sun! beneath the dark blue lineOf western distance that sublime descendest,And, gleaming lovelier as thy beams decline,Thy million hues to every vapour lendest,And, over cobweb lawn and grove and stream _5Sheddest the liquid magic of thy light,Till calm Earth, with the parting splendour bright,Shows like the vision of a beauteous dream;What gazer now with astronomic eyeCould coldly count the spots within thy sphere? _10Such were thy lover, Harriet, could he flyThe thoughts of all that makes his passion dear,And, turning senseless from thy warm caress,—Pick flaws in our close-woven happiness.
***
[Published by Dowden, “Life of Shelley”, 1887. Composed September, 1813.]
I love thee, Baby! for thine own sweet sake;Those azure eyes, that faintly dimpled cheek,Thy tender frame, so eloquently weak,Love in the sternest heart of hate might wake;But more when o’er thy fitful slumber bending _5Thy mother folds thee to her wakeful heart,Whilst love and pity, in her glances blending,All that thy passive eyes can feel impart:More, when some feeble lineaments of her,Who bore thy weight beneath her spotless bosom, _10As with deep love I read thy face, recur,—More dear art thou, O fair and fragile blossom;Dearest when most thy tender traits expressThe image of thy mother’s loveliness.
***
[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, 1 page 58.]
See yon opening flowerSpreads its fragrance to the blast;It fades within an hour,Its decay is pale—is fast.Paler is yon maiden; _5Faster is her heart’s decay;Deep with sorrow laden,She sinks in death away.
***
[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “Life of Shelley”, 1847, 1 page 56.]
The Elements respect their Maker’s seal!Still Like the scathed pine tree’s height,Braving the tempests of the nightHave I ‘scaped the flickering flame.Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands _5Of faded grandeur, which the brandsOf the tempest-shaken airHave riven on the desolate heath;Yet it stands majestic even in death,And rears its wild form there. _10,
***
[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “The Shelley Papers”, 1833, and by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; afterwards suppressed as of doubtful authenticity.]
1.Shall we roam, my love,To the twilight grove,When the moon is rising bright;Oh, I’ll whisper there,In the cool night-air, _5What I dare not in broad daylight!
2.I’ll tell thee a partOf the thoughts that startTo being when thou art nigh;And thy beauty, more bright _10Than the stars’ soft light,Shall seem as a weft from the sky.
3.When the pale moonbeamOn tower and streamSheds a flood of silver sheen, _15How I love to gazeAs the cold ray straysO’er thy face, my heart’s throned queen!
4.Wilt thou roam with meTo the restless sea, _20And linger upon the steep,And list to the flowOf the waves belowHow they toss and roar and leap?
5.Those boiling waves, _25And the storm that ravesAt night o’er their foaming crest,Resemble the strifeThat, from earliest life,The passions have waged in my breast. _30
6.Oh, come then, and roveTo the sea or the grove,When the moon is rising bright;And I’ll whisper there,In the cool night-air, _35What I dare not in broad daylight.
***
In the case of every poem published during Shelley’s lifetime, the text of this edition is based upon that of the editio princeps or earliest issue. Wherever our text deviates verbally from this exemplar, the word or words of the editio princeps will be found recorded in a footnote. In like manner, wherever the text of the poems first printed by Mrs. Shelley in the “Posthumous Poems” of 1824 or the “Poetical Works” of 1839 is modified by manuscript authority or otherwise, the reading of the earliest printed text has been subjoined in a footnote. Shelley’s punctuation—or what may be presumed to be his—has been retained, save in the case of errors (whether of the transcriber or the printer) overlooked in the revision of the proof-sheets, and of a few places where the pointing, though certainly or seemingly Shelley’s, tends to obscure the sense or grammatical construction. In the following notes the more important textual difficulties are briefly discussed, and the readings embodied in the text of this edition, it is hoped, sufficiently justified. An attempt has also been made to record the original punctuation where it is here departed from.
1. THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD: PART 1.
The following paragraph, relating to this poem, closes Shelley’s “Preface” to “Alastor”, etc., 1816:—‘The Fragment entitled “The Daemon of the World” is a detached part of a poem which the author does not intend for publication. The metre in which it is composed is that of “Samson Agonistes” and the Italian pastoral drama, and may be considered as the natural measure into which poetical conceptions, expressed in harmonious language, necessarily fall.’
2. Lines 56, 112, 184, 288. The editor has added a comma at the end of these lines, and a period (for the comma of 1816) after by, line 279.
3. Lines 167, 168. The editio princeps has a comma after And, line 167, and heaven, line 168.
1. THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD: PART 2.
Printed by Mr. Forman from a copy in his possession of “Queen Mab”, corrected by Shelley’s hand. See “The Shelley Library”, pages 36-44, for a detailed history and description of this copy.
2.Lines 436-438. Mr. Forman prints:—Which from the exhaustless lore of human wealDraws on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that riseIn time-destroying infiniteness, gift, etc.Our text exhibits both variants—lore for ‘store,’ and Dawns for‘Draws’—found in Shelley’s note on the corresponding passage of “QueenMab” (8 204-206). See editor’s note on this passage. Shelley’s commaafter infiniteness, line 438, is omitted as tending to obscure theconstruction.
1. ALASTOR; OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.
“Preface”. For the concluding paragraph see editor’s note on “The Daemon of the World”: Part 1.
2. Conducts, O Sleep, to thy, etc. (line 219.) The Shelley texts, 1816, 1824, 1839, have Conduct here, which Forman and Dowden retain. The suggestion that Shelley may have written ‘death’s blue vaults’ (line 216) need not, in the face of ‘the dark gate of death’ (line 211), be seriously considered; Conduct must, therefore, be regarded as a fault in grammar. That Shelley actually wrote Conduct is not impossible, for his grammar is not seldom faulty (see, for instance, “Revolt of Islam, Dedication”, line 60); but it is most improbable that he would have committed a solecism so striking both to eye and ear. Rossetti and Woodberry print Conducts, etc. The final s is often a vanishing quantity in Shelley’s manuscripts. Or perhaps the compositor’s hand was misled by his eye, which may have dropped on the words, Conduct to thy, etc., seven lines above.
3. Of wave ruining on wave, etc. (line 327.) For ruining the text of “Poetical Works”, 1839, both editions, has running—an overlooked misprint, surely, rather than a conjectural emendation. For an example of ruining as an intransitive (= ‘falling in ruins,’ or, simply, ‘falling in streams’) see “Paradise Lost”, 6 867-869:— Hell heard th’ insufferable noise, Hell saw Heav’n ruining from Heav’n, and would have fled Affrighted, etc. Ruining, in the sense of ‘streaming,’ ‘trailing,’ occurs in Coleridge’s “Melancholy: a Fragment” (Sibylline Leaves, 1817, page 262):— Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steep— “Melancholy” first appeared in “The Morning Post”, December 7, 1797, where, through an error identical with that here assumed in the text of 1839, running appears in place of ruining—the word intended, and doubtless written, by Coleridge.
4. Line 349. With Mr. Stopford Brooke, the editor substitutes here a colon for the full stop which, in editions 1816, 1824, and 1839, follows ocean. Forman and Dowden retain the full stop; Rossetti and Woodberry substitute a semicolon.
5.And nought but gnarled roots of ancient pinesBranchless and blasted, clenched with grasping rootsThe unwilling soil. (lines 530-532.)Editions 1816, 1824, and 1839 have roots (line 530)—a palpablemisprint, the probable origin of which may be seen in the line whichfollows. Rossetti conjectures trunks, but stumps or stems may have beenShelley’s word.
6. Lines 543-548. This somewhat involved passage is here reprinted exactly as it stands in the editio princeps, save for the comma after and, line 546, first introduced by Dowden, 1890. The construction and meaning are fully discussed by Forman (“Poetical Works” of Shelley, edition 1876, volume 1 pages 39, 40), Stopford Brooke (“Poems of Shelley”, G. T. S., 1880, page 323), Dobell (“Alastor”, etc., Facsimile Reprint, 2nd edition 1887, pages 22-27), and Woodberry (“Complete P. W. of Shelley”, 1893, volume 1 page 413).
1. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM.
The revised text (1818) of this poem is given here, as being that which Shelley actually published. In order to reconvert the text of “The Revolt of Islam” into that of “Laon and Cythna”, the reader must make the following alterations in the text. At the end of the “Preface” add:—