Violets for a maiden dead

Pansies let my flowers be:1

On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear-
Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.2

3

TO EDWARD WILLIAMS. S

I.

THE serpent is shut out from paradise.

The wounded deer must seek the herb no more

In which its heart-cure lies:

The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower
Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs
Fled in the April hour.

I too must seldom seek again
Near happy friends a mitigated pain.

1 In Mr. Trelawny's MS. there is a wholly different line in place of this, namely,

Sadder flowers find for me: another proof, I think, that it was a less mature version than Lord Houghton's, the line being over alliterative and faulty in point of rhyme.

2 In Mr. Rossetti's edition

Waste a hope, a fear, for me.

3 Mrs. Shelley first gave these lines, addressed to Edward Williams, in the first edition of 1839, headed simply STANZAS. Where they originally appeared, I have not yet succeeded in finding out; but I have little doubt that they were published in some periodical or Annual before the issue of Ascham's edition of 1834,-a piratical collected edition of Shelley's poetry which contains these stanzas to Williams, as well as the three pieces from The Keepsake for 1829. It seems

most improbable that this pirated edition should include anything not already in print; and this poem, then headed STANZAS TO ****, will probably be found sooner or later in some such place as I have indicated. A MS. of the poem, in Shelley's writing, is in the possession of Mr. Trelawny : it is, Mr. Rossetti says, headed simply ; but it is accompanied by

If

ΤΟ
a letter from Shelley, thus: "My
dear Williams, Looking over the port-
folio in which my friend used to keep
his verses and in which those I sent
you the other day were found, I have
lit upon these; which, as they are too
dismal for me to keep, I send you.
any of the stanzas should please you,
you may read them to Jane, but to
no one else. And yet, on second
thoughts, I had rather you would not.
Yours ever affectionately, P. B. S."
In this case, again, I suspect Mrs.
Shelley worked from a different MS.

II.

Of hatred I am proud,-with scorn content;
Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown1
Itself indifferent.

But, not to speak of love, pity alone
Can break a spirit already more than bent.
The miserable one

Turus the mind's poison into food,— Its medicine is tears, its evil good.

III.

Therefore, if now I see you seldomer,

Dear friends, dear friend !2 know that I only fly
Your looks, because they stir

Griefs that should sleep, and hopes that cannot die: The very comfort that they minister

I scarce can bear, yet I,

So deeply is the arrow gone,
Should quickly perish if it were withdrawn.

IV.

When I return to my cold home, you ask
Why I am not as I have ever been.

You spoil me for the task

Of acting a forced part in life's dull scene,Of wearing on my brow the idle mask

Of author, great or mean,

In the world's carnival. I sought Peace thus, and but in you I found it not.

1 In Mr. Rossetti's edition, Indifference, which once hurt me, is now grown...

2 So in the second edition of 1839 and Mr. Rossetti's; but in Ascham's and in the first edition of 1839, we

read, instead,

Dear, gentle friend!

3 So in Mrs. Shelley's editions; but lately in Mr. Rossetti's.

So in Mr. Trelawny's MS., but on in Mrs. Shelley's editions.

V.

Full half an hour, to-day, I tried my lot
With various flowers, and every one still said,

She loves me1-loves me not."

And if this meant a vision long since fledIf it meant fortune, fame, or peace of thought— If it meant, but I dread

To speak what you may know too well: Still there was truth in the sad oracle.

VI.

The crane o'er seas and forests seeks her home;
No bird so wild but has its quiet nest,
When it no more would roam;

The sleepless billows on the ocean's breast
Break like a bursting heart, and die in foam,3
And thus at length find rest.

Doubtless there is a place of peace

Where my weak heart and all its throbs will1 cease.

VII.

I asked her, yesterday, if she believed

That I had resolution. One who had

Would ne'er have thus relieved

His heart with words, but what his judgment bade Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved. 5

These verses are too sad

To send to you, but that I know, Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

1 The note, "See Faust," reproduced here by Mrs. Shelley from Ascham's edition, is highly suggestive of the origin in periodical literature which I suspect. It is like a magazine editor's

note.

2 Whence in Ascham's edition and the first of 1839; but When in the second and Mr. Rossetti's.

3 In the first edition of 1839, Burst like a bursting heart, and die in peace,

but the line appears as in the text in the second edition and Mr. Rossetti's. 4 In the first edition of 1839 shall, -in the second will.

5 So in the second edition of 1839 and Mr. Rossetti's; but unreprieved in the two earlier editions.

6 So in Mrs. Shelley's editions, and in Ascham's; but were in Mr. Rossetti's.

TO-MORROW.1

I.

WHERE art thou, beloved To-morrow?

When young and old and strong and weak,

Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow,

Thy sweet smiles we ever seek,—

In thy place-ah! well-a-day!
We find the thing we fled-To-day.

II.

If I walk in Autumn's even
While the dead leaves pass,
If I look on Spring's soft heaven,—
Something is not there which was.
Winter's wondrous frost and snow,
Summer's clouds, where are they now?

One feeling too falsely disdained

For thee to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear

Than that from another.

II.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,

The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

ΤΟ

I.

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

II.

It were enough to feel, to see,

Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,

And dream the rest-and burn and be

The secret food of fires unseen,

Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.