And dream the rest-and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

After the slumber of the

year

The woodland violets reappear,
All things revive in field or grove,

And sky and sea, but two, which move,

And form all others, life and love.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I

LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR

ARISE from dreams of Thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright:
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet

Has led me-who knows how?

To thy chamber-window, Sweet!

I

My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
O! press it close to thine again

Where it will break at last.

ΤΟ

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden,
Thou needest not fear mine;

My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burthen thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion,
Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY

THE fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother:
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea-
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

LINES

HEN the lamp is shatter'd

WHE

The light in the dust lies dead

When the cloud is scatter'd,

The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken,

Sweet tones are remember'd not;

When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is muteNo song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruin'd cell, Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,

Love first leaves the well-built nest;

The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possesst. O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high;

Bright reason will mock thee

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave the naked to laughter

When leaves fall and cold winds come.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

TO CONSTANTIA SINGING

HUS to be lost and thus to sink and die,

THU

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 is yet, And from thy touch like fire doth leap.

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 it 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 quick—
The 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 ecstasies.

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.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

ONE

ΤΟ

NE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it.

One feeling too falsely disdain'd
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.

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?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY