There was a little lawny islet By anemone and violet, Like mosaic, paven: And its roof was flowers and leaves Which the summer’s breath enweaves, Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze Pierce the pines and tallest trees, Each a gem engraven;– Girt by many an azure wave With which the clouds and mountains pave […]

1. We meet not as we parted, We feel more than all may see; My bosom is heavy-hearted, And thine full of doubt for me:– One moment has bound the free. 2. That moment is gone for ever, Like lightning that flashed and died– Like a snowflake upon the river– Like a sunbeam upon the […]

For me, my friend, if not that tears did tremble In my faint eyes, and that my heart beat fast With feelings which make rapture pain resemble, Yet, from thy voice that falsehood starts aghast, I thank thee–let the tyrant keep His chains and tears, yea, let him weep With rage to see thee freshly […]

A golden-winged Angel stood Before the Eternal Judgement-seat: His looks were wild, and Devils’ blood Stained his dainty hands and feet. The Father and the Son Knew that strife was now begun. They knew that Satan had broken his chain, And with millions of daemons in his train, Was ranging over the world again. Before […]

My thoughts arise and fade in solitude, The verse that would invest them melts away Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day: How beautiful they were, how firm they stood, Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!

Wealth and dominion fade into the mass Of the great sea of human right and wrong, When once from our possession they must pass; But love, though misdirected, is among The things which are immortal, and surpass All that frail stuff which will be–or which was.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. This fragment is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 63.] To thirst and find no fill–to wail and wander With short unsteady steps–to pause and ponder– To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle Where […]

A hater he came and sat by a ditch, And he took an old cracked lute; And he sang a song which was more of a screech ‘Gainst a woman that was a brute.

1. Honey from silkworms who can gather, Or silk from the yellow bee? The grass may grow in winter weather As soon as hate in me. 2. Hate men who cant, and men who pray, And men who rail like thee; An equal passion to repay They are not coy like me. 3. Or seek […]

Listen, listen, Mary mine, To the whisper of the Apennine, It bursts on the roof like the thunder’s roar, Or like the sea on a northern shore, Heard in its raging ebb and flow By the captives pent in the cave below. The Apennine in the light of day Is a mighty mountain dim and […]

1. Wilt thou forget the happy hours Which we buried in Love’s sweet bowers, Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. 2. Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet There are ghosts that may take revenge for […]

Month after month the gathered rains descend Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells, And from the desert’s ice-girt pinnacles Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend. Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells By Nile’s aereal urn, with rapid spells Urging those waters to their mighty […]

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these […]

O Mary dear, that you were here With your brown eyes bright and clear. And your sweet voice, like a bird Singing love to its lone mate In the ivy bower disconsolate; Voice the sweetest ever heard! And your brow more… Than the … sky Of this azure Italy. Mary dear, come to me soon, […]

1. The odour from the flower is gone Which like thy kisses breathed on me; The colour from the flower is flown Which glowed of thee and only thee! 2. A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, It lies on my abandoned breast, And mocks the heart which yet is warm, With cold and silent rest. 3. […]

MADDALO, A COURTIER. MALPIGLIO, A POET. PIGNA, A MINISTER. ALBANO, AN USHER. MADDALO: No access to the Duke! You have not said That the Count Maddalo would speak with him? PIGNA: Did you inform his Grace that Signor Pigna Waits with state papers for his signature? MALPIGLIO: The Lady Leonora cannot know That I have […]

OCTOBER, 1818. Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on– Day and night, and night and day, 5 Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel’s track: Whilst above the sunless sky, […]

1. Come, be happy!–sit near me, Shadow-vested Misery: Coy, unwilling, silent bride, Mourning in thy robe of pride, Desolation–deified! 5 2. Come, be happy!–sit near me: Sad as I may seem to thee, I am happier far than thou, Lady, whose imperial brow Is endiademed with woe. 10 3. Misery! we have known each other, […]

1. I loved–alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, Of all that men had thought before. And all that Nature shows, and more. 2. And still I love […]

1. The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon’s transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, 5 Around its unexpanded buds; Like many a voice of one delight, The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The […]