The Student's Treasury of English Song ...

"THE DAY BECOMES MORE SOLEMN AND SERENE WHEN NOON IS PAST.

THERE IS A HARMONY-(SHELLEY)

404

MEMORIES THAT MAKE THE HEART A TOMB,-(PERCY B. SHELLEY)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,

It was felt like an odour within the sense;

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare;

And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Maenad,* its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,

Gazed through the clear dew on the tender sky;

And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.

And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,

Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,

And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.

And the sinuous paths of lawn and moss,
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,

* A nymph attendant upon Bacchus.

"And we, poor maid, most goddess-like prankt up."

SHAKESPEARE.

REGRETS WHICH GLIDE THROUGH THE SPIRIT'S GLOOM."-shelley.

IN AUTUMN, AND A LUSTRE IN ITS SKY, WHICH THROUGH THE SUMMER IS NOT HEARD NOR SEEN."-SHELLEY.

"POESY'S UNFAILING RIVER, WHICH THROUGH ALBION WINDS FOR EVER, (SHELLEY)

"MANY A GREEN ISLE NEEDS MUST BE (SHELLEY)

A GARDEN.

LASHING WITH MELODIOUS WAVE MANY A SACRED POET'S GRAVE."-PERCY B. SHELLEY.

["Broad water-lilies lay tremulously."]

Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells,
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,

And flowerets, which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.

And from this undefiled paradise

The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),

When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun.

[From "The Sensitive Plant," Part i., written in 1820.]

IN THE DEEP WIDE SEA OF MISERY."-SHELLEY.

405

SEE, THE MOUNTAINS KISS HIGH HEAVEN,-(SHELLEY)

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THE PAST.

ILT thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers,

Heaping over their corpses bold
Blossoms and leaves instead of mould?

Blossoms, which were the joys that fell,
And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

Forget the dead, the past? Oh yet

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it;
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell

That joy, once lost, is pain.

[From Shelley's "Miscellaneous Poems."]

"AND THE SUNLIGHT CLASPS THE EARTH, AND THE MOONBEAMS KISS THE SEA."-SHELLEY.

"ALL THINGS, BY A LAW DIVINE, IN ONE ANOTHER'S BEING MINGLE."-PERCY B. SHELLEY.

LOVE'S DEVOTION.

NF word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdained
For me 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?

AND THE WAVES CLASP ONE ANOTHER."-SHELLEY.

"MAN, WHO MAN WOULD BE, MUST RULE THE EMPIRE OF HIMSELF,-(PERCY B. SHELLEY)