More boundless than the depth of night,

And purer1 than the day—

In which the lovely2 forests grew

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue

Than any spreading3 there.

There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.*

Sweet views which in our world above

Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love

Of that fair forest green.

And all was interfused beneath

With an elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest;
Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye

1 So in the later version, but clearer in the earlier.

2 In the earlier version, massy.

3 The word here is waving, in the earlier version, wherein, after this line, comes the passage beginning Like one beloved.

4 In the earlier version we read
There lay far glades and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green crowd
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Under a speckled cloud,

The reading of the text is that of the
collected editions. Mr. Rossetti reads
There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn,

but does not quote the MS. as authority.

5 In both versions as given by Mrs. Shelley we read by here: Mr. Rossetti, again not adducing the authority of the MS., substitutes in, which seems to me anything but an improvement.

6 Within an Elysium air in the earlier version,-the corresponding line being A silence sleeping there.

7 In the earlier version, that clear truth.

8 In the earlier version a wandering; and, in the next line but two, thy bright instead of one dear.

Blots one dear image out. Though thou art ever fair and kind,

The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind, Than calm in waters seen.1

WITH A GUITAR, TO JANE.2

ARIEL to Miranda.-Take

This slave of Music, for the sake

Of him who is the slave of thee,
And teach it all the harmony

In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,

And, too intense, is turned to pain;
For by permisson and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever1 can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who,
From life to life, must still pursue
Your happiness;-for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's inchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples, he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.
When you die, the silent Moon,
In her interlunar swoon,2

Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel.

first collection (1839) of Shelley's poems she seems to have had no knowledge of it, giving only the second part. In the second edition she gave the whole, having, I presume, had her attention called to this outlying half poem.

1 So in all editions known to me; but in the Magazine we read the line thus

Of love, that never can be spoken. This seems to me quite likely to be a reading of Shelley's own, though Mr. Rossetti gives no account of such a variation as shewn by Mr. Trelawny's MS. For an extended account of the circumstances under which the poem

5

10

15

20

25

was composed, and of the style of the first draft, see Mr. Trelawny's Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (London, 1858), pp. 67 to 75.

2 In the Magazine, there is quoted, as a note to this passage, a parallel passage from Milton's Samson Agonistes:

And silent as the moon,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave. Whether this is Shelley's confession of indebtedness, or a note by the Magazine editor, I have no certain knowledge; but I presume the latter, especially as Mrs. Shelley gives no such note.

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35

When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from your nativity.
Many changes have been run,
Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still

Has tracked your steps, and served your will;
Now, in humbler, happier lot,

This is all remembered not;

And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned, for some fault of his,
In a body like a grave;—

From you he only dares to crave,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods1 were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree,-
O that such our death may be!-
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again :

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,

1 In The Shelley Papers and in the but woods in the second edition.

first edition of 1839 we read winds;

30

The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;2
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound,
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way---
All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it; .
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day:
But sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,

In The Shelley Papers and first edition of 1839, that; but this in the second edition.

2 So in the second edition of 1839, and onwards; but its own in the first,

and in The Shelley Papers.

3 In The Shelley Papers and the first edition of 1839, in; but on in the second edition.