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The past and future were forgot,
As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,
The dæmon reassumed his throne
In my faint heart. I dare not speak
My thoughts, but thus disturbed and
weak

I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide,
Like spirit-wingèd chariots sent
O'er some serenest clement
For ministrations strange and far;
As if to some Elysian star

They sailed for drink to medicine
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
And the wind that winged their flight
From the land came fresh and light,
And the scent of wingèd flowers,
And the coolness of the hours

Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay.
And the fisher with his lamp

And spear about the low rocks damp
Crept, and struck the fish which came
To worship the delusive flame.
Too happy they, whose pleasure sought
Extinguishes all sense and thought
Of the regret that pleasure leaves,
Destroying life alone, not peace!

FRAGMENTS

Under FRAGMENTS are included, with a few exceptions, incomplete poems, sketches and cancelled passages, and those more inchoate passages which have been recovered from Shelley's notebooks. The exceptions are the Prologue to Hellas, which has been put with that drama, A Vision of the Sea, published by Shelley with the poems accompanying Prometheus Unbound, and five pieces,, To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 1814, Death, An Allegory, On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci, and Evening, Pisa, which, though lacking a word or a line, are in effect complete. The order of the FRAGMENTS is not strictly chronological in the first division, and is altogether arbitrary in the second. The

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dates assigned are those generally accepted. but, as a rule, they are conjectural and approximate only, not exact. The text is derived from the editions of Mrs. Shelley, the studies of Dr. Garnett in the Boscombe MSS., published by him mainly in Relics of Shelley, 1862, or by Rossetti, 1870, and Rossetti's own studies both in the same and other MSS. of which the results were given in his edition. A few pieces, originally published elsewhere, were also gath ered by Rossetti and Forman in their editions, and Forman was enabled to add something more from independent MSS. The date and original publication of each piece are briefly indicated under each poem.

entitled The Damon 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.' The poem is part of a revi sion of Queen Mab.

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For sacrifice, before his shrine forever
In adoration bend, or Erebus
With all its banded fiends shall not uprise
To overwhelm in envy and revenge
The dauntless and the good, who dare to
hurl

Defiance at his throne, girt though it be With Death's omnipotence. Thou hast beheld

His empire, o'er the present and the past;
It was a desolate sight-now gaze on mine,
Futurity. Thou hoary giant Time,
Render thou up thy half-devoured babes,
And from the cradles of eternity,
Where millions lie lulled to their portioned

sleep

30

By the deep murmuring stream of passing

things,

Tear thou that gloomy shroud! Spirit, behold

Thy glorious destiny !

The Spirit saw The vast frame of the renovated world Smile in the lap of Chaos, and the sense

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