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Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,

Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.

VII

When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the day beam is gone,

Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;

When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,

She will smile through the tears of revival on thine.

THE RETROSPECT: CWM ELAN,

1812

Published by Dowden, Life of Shelley, 1887. Peacock mentions the place: Cwm Elan House was the seat of Mr. Grove, whom Shelley had visited there before his marriage in 1811. At a subsequent period I stayed a day at Rhayader, for the sake of seeing this spot. It is a scene of singular beauty.'

A SCENE, which wildered fancy viewed
In the soul's coldest solitude,

With that same scene when peaceful love
Flings rapture's color o'er the grove,

When mountain, meadow, wood and stream
With unalloying glory gleam,
And to the spirit's ear and eye
Are unison and harmony.

The moonlight was my dearer day;
Then would I wander far away,

And, lingering on the wild brook's shore
To hear its unremitting roar,
Would lose in the ideal flow

All sense of overwhelming woe;
Or at the noiseless noon of night
Would climb some heathy mountain's height,
And listen to the mystic sound
That stole in fitful gasps around.
I joyed to see the streaks of day
Above the purple peaks decay,
And watch the latest line of light
Just mingling with the shades of night;
For day with me was time of woe
When even tears refused to flow;
Then would I stretch my languid frame
Beneath the wild woods' gloomiest shade,
And try to quench the ceaseless flame
That on my withered vitals preyed;

Would close mine eyes and dream I were
On some remote and friendless plain,
And long to leave existence there,
If with it I might leave the pain
That with a finger cold and lean
Wrote madness on my withering mien.

It was not unrequited love

That bade my 'wildered spirit rove;
'T was not the pride disdaining life,
That with this mortal world at strife
Would yield to the soul's inward sense,
Then groan in human impotence,
And weep because it is not given
To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.
'T was not that in the narrow sphere
Where nature fixed my wayward fate
There was no friend or kindred dear
Formed to become that spirit's mate,
Which, searching on tired pinion, found
Barren and cold repulse around;
Oh, no! yet each one sorrow gave
New graces to the narrow grave.

For broken vows had early quelled
The stainless spirit's vestal flame;
Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled,
Then the envenomed arrow came,
And apathy's unaltering eye
Beamed coldness on the misery;
And early I had learned to scorn
The chains of clay that bound a soul
Panting to seize the wings of morn,
And where its vital fires were born
To soar, and spurn the cold control
Which the vile slaves of earthly night
Would twine around its struggling flight.
Oh, many were the friends whom fame
Had linked with the unmeaning name,
Whose magic marked among mankind
The casket of my unknown mind,
Which hidden from the vulgar glare
Imbibed no fleeting radiance there.
My darksome spirit sought
A friendless solitude around.
For who that might undaunted stand,
The savior of a sinking land,
Would crawl, its ruthless tyrant's slave,
And fatten upon Freedom's grave,
Though doomed with her to perish, where
The captive clasps abhorred despair.

it found

They could not share the bosom's feeling, Which, passion's every throb revealing,

Dared force on the world's notice cold
Thoughts of unprofitable mould,
Who bask in Custom's fickle ray,
Fit sunshine of such wintry day!
They could not in a twilight walk
Weave an impassioned web of talk,
Till mysteries the spirits press
In wild yet tender awfulness,
Then feel within our narrow sphere
How little yet how great we are!
But they might shine in courtly glare,
Attract the rabble's cheapest stare,
And might command where'er they move
A thing that bears the name of love;
They might be learned, witty, gay,
Foremost in fashion's gilt array,
On Fame's emblazoned pages shine,
Be princes' friends, but never mine!

Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,
Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,
Whence I would watch its lustre pale
Steal from the moon o'er yonder vale:

Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast,
Bared to the stream's unceasing flow,
Ever its giant shade doth cast
On the tumultuous surge below:

Woods, to whose depths retires to die
The wounded echo's melody,
And whither this lone spirit bent
The footstep of a wild intent:

Meadows! whose green and spangled breast

These fevered limbs have often pressed,
Until the watchful fiend Despair
Slept in the soothing coolness there!
Have not your varied beauties seen
The sunken eye, the withering mien,
Sad traces of the unuttered pain
That froze my heart and burned my
brain?

How changed since Nature's summer form
Had last the power my grief to charm,
Since last ye soothed my spirit's sadness,
Strange chaos of a mingled madness!
Changed!- not the loathsome worm that
fed

In the dark mansions of the dead
Now soaring through the fields of air,
And gathering purest nectar there,
A butterfly, whose million hues
The dazzled eye of wonder views.

Long lingering on a work so strange, Has undergone so bright a change.

How do I feel my happiness?
I cannot tell, but they may guess
Whose every gloomy feeling gone,
Friendship and passion feel alone;
Who see mortality's dull clouds
Before affection's murmur fly,
Whilst the mild glances of her eye
Pierce the thin veil of flesh that shrouds
The spirit's inmost sanctuary.

O thou! whose virtues latest known,
First in this heart yet claim'st a throne;
Whose downy sceptre still shall share
The gentle sway with virtue there;
Thou fair in form, and pure in mind,
Whose ardent friendship rivets fast
The flowery band our fates that bind,
Which incorruptible shall last
When duty's hard and cold control
Had thawed around the burning soul, -
The gloomiest retrospects that bind
With crowns of thorn the bleeding mind,
The prospects of most doubtful hue
That rise on Fancy's shuddering view,
Are gilt by the reviving ray
Which thou hast flung upon my day.

FRAGMENT OF A SONNET

TO HARRIET

Published by Dowden, Life of Shelley, 1887, and dated August 1, 1812.

EVER as now with Love and Virtue's glow May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,

Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o'erflow

Which force from mine such quick and

warm return.

TO HARRIET

Published in part with Notes to Queen Mab, 1813, and completed by Forman, 1876, and Dowden, Life of Shelley, 1887; dated 1812.

It is not blasphemy to hope that Heaven More perfectly will give those nameless joys

Which throb within the pulses of the blood And sweeten all that bitterness which Earth

Infuses in the heaven-born soul. O thou Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path

Which this lone spirit travelled, drear am! cold,

Yet swiftly leading to those awful limits Which mark the bounds of time and of the

space

When Time shall be no more; wilt thou not turn

Those spirit-beaming eyes and look on me, Until I be assured that Earth is Heaven, And Heaven is Earth? - will not thy glowing cheek,

Glowing with soft suffusion, rest on mine, And breathe magnetic sweetness through the frame

Of my corporeal nature, through the soul Now knit with these fine fibres? I would give

The longest and the happiest day that fate Has marked on my existence but to feel One soul-reviving kiss. . . . O thou most dear,

'Tis an assurance that this Earth is Heaven,

And Heaven the flower of that untainted seed

Which springeth here beneath such love as

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