SONG. RARELY, rarely, comest thou, Wherefore hast thou left me now How shall ever one like me All but those who need thee not. As a lizard with the shade Of a trembling leaf, Thou with sorrow art dismayed; Even the sighs of grief Reproach thee, that thou art not neas, And reproach thou wilt not hear. Let me set my mournful ditty To a merry measure; Thou wilt never come for pity, Thou wilt come for pleasure; Pity then will cut away Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. I love tranquil solitude, As is quiet, wise, and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess I love Love-though he has wings, But, above all other things, Thou art love and life! O come, Make once more my heart thy home. EVENING. PONTE A MARE, PISA. THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep; There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, And in the inconstant motion of the breeze Within the surface of the fleeting river The wrinkled image of the city lay, Immovably unquiet, and for ever It trembles, but it never fades away; Go to the [ You, being changed, will find it then as now. The chasm in which the sun has sunk, is shut Which the keen evening star is shining through. LINES WRITTEN ON HEARING THE NEWS OF THE DEATH OF NAPOLEON. WHAT! alive and so bold, O Earth? Art thou not over-bold? What leapest thou forth as of old In the light of thy morning mirth, The last of the flock of the starry fold? Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, And canst thou more, Napoleon being dead? How! is not thy quick heart cold? What spark is alive on thy hearth? Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled- "Who has known me of old," replied Earth, "Or who has my story told? It is thou who art over bold." And the lightning of scorn laughed forth As she sung, "To my bosom I fold All my sons when their knell is knolled, And so with living motion all are fed, And the quick spring like weeds out of the dead. "Still alive and still bold," shouted Earth, "I grow bolder, and still more bold. The dead fill me ten thousand fold Fuller of speed, and splendour, and mirth; I was cloudy, and sullen, and cold, Like a frozen chaos uprolled, Till by the spirit of the mighty dead I feed on whom I fed. "6 'Ay, alive and still bold," muttered Earth, Napoleon's fierce spirit rolled, In terror, and blood, and gold, A torrent of ruin to death from his birth. Leave the millions who follow to mould The metal before it be cold, And weave into his shaine, which like the dead MUTABILITY. THE flower that smiles to-day All that we wish to stay, Tempts and then flies; Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship too rare! Love, how it sells poor blise But we, though soon they fall, Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst eyes that change ere night Whilst yet the calm hours creep, SONNET. POLITICAL GREATNESS. NOR happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, GINEVRA.⭑ WILD, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain Of objects and of persons passed like things The vows to which her lips had sworn assent And so she moved under the bridal veil, The bride-maidens who round her thronging came Envying the unenviable; and others Making the joy which should have been another's Their own by gentle sympathy; and some Sighing to think of an unhappy home; Some few admiring what can ever lure Maidens to leave the heaven serene and pure Of parents' smiles for life's great cheat; a thing But they are all dispersed-and lo! she stands * This fragment is part of a poem which Shelley intended to write, founded on a story to be found in the first volume of a book entitled "L'Osservatore Fiorentino.' |