Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall, And his wan visage and his withered mien, Yet calm and gentle and majestical.

And Athanase, her child, who must have been Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed In patient silence.

FRAGMENT II.

SUCH was Zonoras; and as daylight finds
One amaranth glittering on the path of frost,
When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds,

Thus through his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost,
Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled
From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child,
With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore
And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

And sweet and subtle talk now evermore,
The pupil and the master shared; until,
Sharing that undiminishable store,

The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill
Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran
His teacher, and did teach with native skill

Strange truths and new to that experienced man. Still they were friends, as few have ever been Who mark the extremes of life's discordant span.

So in the caverns of the forest green,
Or by the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,
Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen

By summer woodmen; and when winter's roar Sounded o'er earth and sea its blast of war, The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,

Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,
Then saw their lamp from Laian's turret gleam,
Piercing the stormy darkness, like a star

Which pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,
Whilst all the constellations of the sky
Seemed reeling through the storm; they did but

seem

For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,
And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing,
And far o'er southern waves, immoveably

Belted Orion hangs-warm light is flowing From the young moon into the sunset's chasm."O summer eve! with power divine, bestowing

"On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness, Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm

"Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madWere lulled by thee, delightful nightingale! [ness, And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,

"And the far sighings of yon piny dale Made vocal by some wind, we feel not here.I bear alone what nothing may avail

"To lighten a strange load!"-No human ear Heard this lament; but o'er the visage wan Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere

Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran,
Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
Glassy and dark.—And that divine old man

Beheld his mystic friend's whole being shake,
Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest—
And with a calm and measured voice he spake,
And, with a soft and equal pressure, prest
That cold lean hand:-" Dost thou remember yet
When the curved moon then lingering in the west

"Paused, in yon waves her mighty horns to wet, How in those beams we walked,half resting on the sea? 'Tis just one year-sure thou dost not forget

"Then Plato's words of light in thee and me
Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east,
For we had just then read-thy memory

"Is faithful now-the story of the feast;
And Agathon and Diotima seemed
From death and dark.forgetfulness released.”

FRAGMENT III.

"Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings From slumber, as a sphered angel's child, Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,

Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems—
So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled

To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,
The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove
Waxed green-and flowers burst forth like starry
beams;-

The grass in the warm sun did start and move, And sea-buds burst beneath the waves serene:How many a one, though none be near to love,

Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen In any mirror-or the spring's young minions, The winged leaves amid the copses green;—

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps-and over wide dominions

Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast, More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks When winter and despondency are past. [below,

'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase Pass'd the white Alps-those eagle-baffling mountains

Slept in their shrouds of snow;-beside the ways

And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
When suddenly the mountain crackt,
And through the chasm the floor did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract :
The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin dream
Lifted the Lady from the stream.

The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Waked the fair Lady from her sleep, And she arose, while from the veil

Of her dark eyes the dream did creep; And she walked about as one who knew That sleep has sights as clear and true As any waking eyes can view.

TO CONSTANTIA SINGING.

THUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed!-Constantia, turn!
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice,
which burn

Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;

Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it And from thy touch like fire doth leap. [is yet,

Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet,
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

A breathless awe, like the swift change
Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career,

Beyond the mighty moons that wane

Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere, Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disappear.

Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers O'ershadowing with soft and lulling wings, The blood and life within those snowy fingers

Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quickThe blood is listening in my frame, And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes;

My heart is quivering like a flame;

As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstacies.

I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on,
and fills all things with melody.-
Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
On which, like one in trance upborne,
Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep,
Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.

Now 'tis the breath of summer night,

Which, when the starry waters sleep,

Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.

I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

LINES.

THAT time is dead for ever, child, Drowned, frozen, dead for ever! We look on the past,

And stare aghast

At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast,
Of hopes which thou and I beguiled
To death on life's dark river.

THE very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appears to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. "Revolt of Islam," written and printed, was a great effort" Rosalind and Helen" was begunand the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period, show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.

The

In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence. As he never wandered without a book, and without implements of writing, I find many such in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley's mind, and desire to trace its workings. Thus in the same book that addresses "Constantia, Singing," I find these lines :

My spirit like a charmed bark doth swim

Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,

Far away into the regions dim

Of rapture-as a boat with swift sails winging
Its way adown some many-winding river.

And this apostrophe to Music:

No, Music, thou art not the God of Love, Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self, Till it becomes all music murmurs of.

In another fragment he calls it—

The silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,

Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

And then again this melancholy trace of the sad thronging thoughts, which were the well whence he drew the idea of Athanase, and express the restless, passion-fraught emotions of one whose sensibility, kindled to too intense a life, perpetually preyed upon itself:

To thirst and find no fill-to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps-to pause and ponder-
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half created shadow.

fitted to sustain one whose whole being was love: In the next page I find a calmer sentiment, better

Wealth and dominion fade into the mass
Of the great sea of human right and wrong,
When once from our possession they must pass;
But love, though misdirected, is among
The things which are immortal, and surpass
All that frail stuff which will be or which was.

In another book, which contains some passionate outbreaks with regard to the great injustice that he endured this year, the poet writes:

My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,

The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!

He had this year also projected a poem on the subject of Otho, inspired by the pages of Tacitus. I find one or two stanzas only, which were to open the subject:

отно

Thou wert not, Cassius, and thou couldst not be,
Last of the Romans, though thy memory claim
From Brutus his own glory-and on thee
Rests the full splendour of his sacred fame;