THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION.1 I. BROTHERS! between you and me On thy wild and winding shore See them drenched in sacred gore,- II. Shout aloud! Let every slave, Crouching at Corruption's throne, Racks and chains without a groan; Fade like gaudy flowers that blow- 1 This poem and the next were sent to Miss Hitchener from Dublin, in a letter from which Mr. Rossetti extracts as follows:-"Have you heard a new republic is set up in Mexico? I have just written the following short tribute to its success... These are merely sent as lineaments in the pic ture of my mind on these two topics [the other topic being Ireland]. I find that I sometimes can write poetry when I feel, such as it is." As Mr. Rossetti dates this poem 14 February, 1812, I presume that is the date of the letter. III. Cotopaxi! bid the sound Through thy sister mountains ring, At the blissful welcoming! IV. Ere the daystar dawn of love, Where the flag of war unfurled The fabric of a ruined world- TO IRELAND.1 BEAR witness, Erin! when thine injured isle 1 Mr. Rossetti affixes the date " February, 1812," to this fragment. Thou tree whose shadow o'er the Atlantic gave EYES.1 How eloquent are eyes! Love, look thus again, That your look may lighten a waste of years, Through the cold shower of tears. 1 First given by Mr. Rossetti with the following note: "This poem is extracted by Mr. Garnett from a MS. book, and had never yet been publish ed. He notes its date as not later than 1813 I have put 1812 conjecturally." TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.1 I. 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, What I dare not in broad day-light! I'll tell thee a part II. Of the thoughts that start To being when thou art nigh; And thy beauty, more bright Than the stars' soft light, Shall seem as a weft from the sky. III. When the pale moonbeam On tower and stream Sheds a flood of silver sheen, 1 Medwin published this poem as Shelley's in The Shelley Papers; and Mrs. Shelley received it into her first edition of 1839; but in the second she withdrew it with the following remarks" It was suggested that the Poem 'To the Queen of my Heart,' was falsely attributed to Shelley. I certainly find no trace of it among his papers, and as those of his intimate friends whom I have consulted never heard of it, I omit it." I do not feel justified in excluding it, finding this negative evidence quite insufficient for so judicial an occasion. It is to VOL. IV. BB How I love to gaze As the cold ray strays O'er thy face, my heart's throned queen! IV. Wilt thou roam with me To the restless sea, And linger upon the steep, And list to the flow Of the waves below How they toss and roar and leap? Those boiling waves V. And the storm that raves At night o'er their foaming crest, Resemble the strife That, from earliest life, The passions have waged in my breast. VI. Oh, come then and rove To the sea or the grove When the moon is rising bright, In the cool night-air What I dare not in broad day-light. 1 In Mrs. Shelley's first edition of 1839 the word shining is here substituted for rising; but the change must have been a mere accident, seeing she had nothing but Medwin's version to go by. |