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So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faery,
Earning bright spoils for her inchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,

Its doubtful promise thus I would unite

With thy belovèd name, thou Child of love and light.

2.

The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,

Is ended, and the fruit is at thy feet!

No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,

Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
Water-falls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen:
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.

1 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. I leave the blanks as Shelley left them,

presuming we are meant to read simply "To Mary."

3.

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst

My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
From the near school-room,2 voices, that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes-
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

4.

And then I clasped my hands and looked around—
-But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground-
So without shame, I spake :-"I will be wise,

And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power, for I grow weary to behold

The selfish and the strong still tyrannise

Without reproach or check." I then controuled My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.

5.

And from that hour did I with earnest thought
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore,

1 In Shelley's edition we read spirits' instead of spirit's; but it is almost inconceivable that he can have meant the sleep of his spirits and not the sleep of his spirit.

Lady Shelley connects this passage with Shelley's experience at Eton (Memorials, p. 7); but according to Medwin (Shelley Papers, pp. 3 and 4), the reference is to school-life of an earlier date, at Sion House, Brentford. I am disposed to think, with Mr. Rossetti, that Medwin, not always trustworthy, is veracious on this point; and Shelley's version of his school-life, as given

in the text, agrees with certain expressions in Sir John Rennie's Autobio graphy. Referring to his own experience at Sion House, he relates how Shelley behaved "when irritated by other boys, which they, knowing his infirmity, frequently did by way of teasing him"; and he adds that Shelley's "imagination was always roving upon something romantic and extraordinary, such as spirits, fairies, fighting, volcanoes, &c." This is certainly like the "knowledge from forbidden mines of lore" referred to in stanza 5. See also note 3, p. 374.

Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
I cared to learn, but from that secret store
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind;

Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more
Within me, till there came upon my mind

A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.

6.

Alas, that love should be a blight and snare
To those who seek all sympathies in one!-
Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone :—

Yet never found I one not false to me,

Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone1 Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee.

7.

Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart
Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,
And walked as free as light the clouds among,

1 Mr. Garnett tells me that lines 6 and 7 of stanza 6 stand, in Sir Percy Shelley's MS. of the dedication, thus: One whom I found was dear, but false to me, The other's heart was like a heart of stone.

"One" refers to Shelley's first love, his Cousin Harriet Grove, "the other" to his first wife, Harriett Westbrook. No doubt he did well to cancel at the time so explicit a reference; but it is now of the greatest value.

2 So in all authoritative editions ; but Mr. Rossetti substitutes clod,-a doubtful emendation, as Shelley may well have used clog in its sense of weight, encumbrance.

3 I take walked to stand for walkedst, a word which would naturally seem to Shelley more heinous than a breach of grammatic rule. Mr. Rossetti reads walk,-a liberty which only slightly improves the grammar. He reconstructs the whole passage so as to

Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain
From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung

To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long.

8.

No more alone through the world's wilderness,
Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went.-
There is the wisdom of a stern content
When Poverty can blight the just and good,
When Infamy dares mock the innocent,

And cherished friends turn with the multitude
To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

9.

Now has descended a serener hour,

And with inconstant fortune, friends return;
Tho' suffering leaves the knowledge and the power
Which says:-Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.
And from thy side two gentle babes are born
To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we
Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn;
And these delights, and thou, have been to me
The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.

10.

Is it, that now my inexperienced fingers
But strike the prelude of a loftier strain?

make the dungeon that of Custom

And walk (as free as light the clouds among Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain)

From his dim dungeon;

but it seems to me that the clouds are the dense atmosphere breathed by many an envious slave from his dim dungeon. Mr. Rossetti's construction is very tortuous for Shelley.

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