My child and me, might well befall.1
But let me think not of the scorn,
Which from the meanest I have borne,
When, for my child's beloved sake,
I mixed with slaves, to vindicate
The very laws themselves do make:
Let me not say scorn is my fate,
Lest I be proud, suffering the same

With those who live in deathless fame.

1235

1239

She ceased." Lo, where red morning thro' the woods? Is burning o'er the dew;" said Rosalind.

1245

And with these words they rose, and towards the flood
Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves now wind
With equal steps and fingers intertwined:
Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore
Is shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses
Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies,
And with their shadows the clear depths below,
And where a little terrace from its bowers,
Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon-flowers,
Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er
The liquid marble of the windless lake;
And where the agèd forest's limbs look hoar,

1250

Under the leaves which their green garments make, They come 'tis Helen's home, and clean and white, 1255 Like one which tyrants spare on our own land

1 As this passage is punctuated in Shelley's and Mrs. Shelley's editions, namely with the comma at bereft instead of me, bereft is intransitive and befall transitive, so that the sense would stand-"it might well befall my child and me that the ready lies of law bereft of all"; but the sense is doubtless-"it might well befall that the ready lies of law bereft my child and me of all."

2 So in Shelley's and all authorita

tive editions; but Mr. Rossetti reads wood for woods, which, I have little doubt, is a safe emendation. As however the mere absence of a rhyme does not condemn a passage according to the standard of this poem, and woods is intrinsically as good as wood, I leave it as I find it.

3 Mrs. Shelley omits steep, no doubt accidentally, though, by accenting the ed of shadowed, the line still reads as a full line, without the word steep.

In some such solitude, its casements bright

Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,

And even within 'twas scarce like Italy.

And when she saw how all things there were planned, 1200
As in an English home, dim memory

Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one
Whose mind is where his body cannot be,
Till Helen led her where her child yet slept,
And said, "Observe, that brow was Lionel's,
Those lips were his, and so he ever kept
One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.
You cannot see his eyes, they are two wells
Of liquid love: let us not wake him yet."
But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept
A shower of burning tears, which fell upon
His face, and so his opening lashes shone
With tears unlike his own, as he did leap
In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.

1265

1270

So Rosalind and Helen lived together

Thenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again,
Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather
They wandered in their youth, through sun and rain.
And after many years, for human things
Change even like the ocean and the wind,

Her daughter was restored to Rosalind,
And in their circle thence some visitings

Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene :
A lovely child she was, of looks serene,
And motions which o'er things indifferent shed
The grace and gentleness from whence they came.
And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed
From the same flowers of thought, until each mind
Like springs which mingle in one flood became,
And in their union soon their parents saw

1275

1280

1285

1290

The shadow of the peace denied to them.

And Rosalind, for when the living stem

Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall,

Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe
The pale survivors followed her remains.

Beyond the region of dissolving rains,

Up the cold mountain she was wont to call
Her tomb; and on Chiavenna's precipice
They raised a pyramid of lasting ice,

Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun,
Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,
The last, when it had sunk; and thro' the night
The charioteers of Arctos wheeled round
Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home,
Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,
With willing steps climbing that rugged height,
And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound
With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime's despite,
Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light:
Such flowers, as in the wintry memory bloom
Of one friend left, adorned that frozen tomb.

Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,
Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led
Into the peace of his dominion cold:

She died among her kindred, being old.

And know, that if love die not in the dead

As in the living, none of mortal kind

Are blest, as now Helen and Rosalind.

1295

1300

1305

1310

1315

LINES

WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS,

OCTOBER, 1818.

MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on

Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;
Whilst above the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep;

And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be

Weltering through eternity;

And the dim low line before

5

10

15

Of a dark and distant shore

20

Still recedes, as ever still

Longing with divided will,

But no power to seek or shun,

He is ever drifted on

O'er the unreposing wave

To the haven of the grave.

What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet

His with love's impatient beat;
Wander wheresoe'er he may,

Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress

In friendship's smile, in love's caress?
Then 'twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve

That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now 1
Frozen upon December's bough.

others by his substituted reading. Shelley has indulged in a loose and obsolete construction which may or may not be defensible; I should not at the present day permit it to myself, or condone it in another; and had the editor been engaged in the revision of a schoolboy's theme, he would certainly have done right to correct such a phrase, and as certainly would not have done wrong to add such further correction as he might deem desirable; but the task here undertaken is not exactly comparable to the revision of a schoolboy's theme."