FRAGMENT: THE DESARTS OF SLEEP1

I WENT into the desarts of dim sleep

That world which, like an unknown wilderness, Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep.

FRAGMENT: CONSEQUENCE.

THE viewless and invisible Consequence
Watches thy goings-out and comings-in,
And.. hovers o'er thy guilty sleep,
Unveiling every new-born deed, and thoughts
More ghastly than those deeds.

FRAGMENT: MILTON'S SPIRIT.

I DREAMED that Milton's spirit rose, and took
From life's green tree his Uranian lute;

And from his touch sweet thunder flowed, and shook
All human things built in contempt of man,-

And sanguine thrones and impious altars quaked,
Prisons and citadels. . .

FRAGMENT: A FACE.2

HIS face was like a snake's-wrinkled and loose
And withered.

1 This and the next two fragments are from the Boscombe MSS.,-transcribed by Mr. Garnett and published in Mr. Rossetti's edition.

2 This fragment also was first published by Mr. Rossetti, who found it in the note-book containing Charles the First.

FRAGMENT.1

My head is heavy, my limbs are weary,
And it is not life that makes me move.

HOPE, FEAR, AND DOUBT.2

SUCH hope, as is the sick despair of good,
Such fear, as is the certainty of ill,

Such doubt, as is pale Expectation's food
Turned while she tastes to poison, when the will
Is powerless, and the spirit. . . .

...

Alas! this is not what I thought life was.

I knew that there were crimes and evil men,
Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass
Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.
In mine own heart I saw as in a glass
The hearts of others

And when

I went among my kind, with triple brass
Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed,
To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!

1 This fragment is from the Relics of Shelley.

2 The first five lines of this fragment are from Relics of Shelley: the last nine were first given by Mrs. Shelley in her note on the Poems of 1820, in

VOL. IV.

F

the first edition of 1839. I have ventured to connect them because they seem to me to be very clearly related. They form together an irregular sonnet with two lines unfinished.

FRAGMENT :

UNRISEN SPLENDOUR.1

UNRISEN splendour of the brightest sun,
To rise upon our darkness, if the star
Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne
Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war
With thy young brightness!

1 From Relics of Shelley.

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821.

[The year 1821 was a very fertile one with Shelley: the presence of friends at Pisa and the Baths of San Giuliano, recorded by Mrs. Shelley in her note on the Poems of 1821, would seem to have operated most favourably on the creative energy of the poet. The minor poems belonging to this year, wherein we first find traces of the companionship of Edward Williams and "Jane," are most remarkable for variety, beauty, and mass; and it is to be remembered that Epipsychidion, Adonais, and Hellas, all belong to this year. Thus, although what is commonly called "human interest" found no development in Shelley's poetry after The Cenci, the poems of this later period abound in a very genuine human interest,—that of the persons associated with the several compositions; for behind these aëry fabrics of Platonism and almost mystic contemplation, the attentive reader discerns clearly enough such substantial beings as the unfortunate Viviani and the hapless Keats, and the delightful couple whose greatest misfortune and perhaps also highest privilege was their acquaintance with Shelley.-H. B. F.]