The past and future were forgot, I sat and saw the vessels glide They sailed for drink to medicine Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, And spear about the low rocks damp 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 30 4C 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. 20 For sacrifice, before his shrine forever Defiance at his throne, girt though it be With Death's omnipotence. Thou hast beheld His empire, o'er the present and the past; 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 |