Where Silence says, Mine is the dell; And not a murmur from the plain, BIGOTRY'S VICTIM.1 I. DARES the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind, No! Abandon'd he sinks in a trance of despair, On the sand flows his life-blood away; Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply, II. Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, And demands, like mankind, his brother for food; Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead, 1 From Hogg's Life of Shelley, Vol. I, p. 351. The letter in which it occurs is dated "Lincoln's Inn Fields, April 28, 1811." Shelley appears to have been staying with his cousin, Mr. Grove. The date may be accepted as that of the verses, for at the end of the letter we read-"There it is-a mad effusion of this morning!" III. Though weak, as the lama, that bounds on the mountains, Though more dreadful than death, it scatters despair, And the darkness of deepest dismay Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around, IV. They came to the fountain to draw from its stream, Then perish'd, and perish'd like me. For in vain from the grasp of the Bigot I flee; Are slaves to his hated control. He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly: What remains, but to curse him,-to curse him and die? TO THE MOONBEAM.1 I. MOONBEAM, leave the shadowy vale, 1 From Hogg's Life of Shelley, Vol. I, p. 377, where it appears in a letter dated "Field Place, May 17, 1811," and is commented on by Shelley in the words, "There is a rhapsody!" Where humble wild flowers grow? Is it to mimic me? But that can never be; For thine orb is bright, And the clouds are light, That at intervals shadow the star-studded night. II. Now all is deathy still on earth, And ere the golden morning's birth Flies forth its balmy breath. But mine is the midnight of Death, To my bosom forlorn, Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn. III. Wretch! Suppress the glare of madness Struggling in thine haggard eye, For the keenest throb of sadness, Pale Despair's most sickening sigh, And this must ever be, When the twilight of care, And the night of despair, Seem in my breast but joys to the pangs, that wake there. ON A FÊTE AT CARLTON HOUSE.1 (FRAGMENT). By the mossy brink, With me the Prince shall sit and think; Shall muse in visioned Regency, Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty. ΤΟ O THOU Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path Which mark the bounds of time, and of the space And heaven is earth? 1 This fragment was printed by Mr. Rossetti with the following note: "This is the sole now known fragment from a poem of about fifty lines which Shelley wrote and printed on a fête which had taken place towards the beginning of the summer of 1811. A stream of water had been made to meander down a long table; and the extravagance of the affair generally had excited some murmurs. Shelley, it is said, 'amused himself with throw ing copies of the poem into the carriages of persons going to Carlton House after the fête. Mr. Garnett took these remaining lines down "from the mouth of the Rev. Mr. Grove, a relative of Shelley." These lines were given by Mr. Rossetti from a transcript of Mr. Garnett's, taken from one of the Boscombe MSS. The date affixed by Mr. Rossetti is 1811. TO A STAR.1 SWEET star, which gleaming o'er the darksome scene Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless lake, Sweet star! When wearied Nature sinks to sleep, Sighs in the ear of stillness, art thou aught but LOVE'S ROSE. I. HOPES, that swell in youthful breasts, 1 This and the next effusion are from one of several undated letters in Hogg's Life of Shelley, Vol. I. They would seem to belong to the summer of 1811. These verses are preceded by the words-"I transcribe for you a strange melange of maddened stuff, which I wrote by the midnight moon last night." They are followed by the comment "Ohe jam satis dementia! I hear you exclaim." Mr. Rossetti supplied the titles. |