My child and me, might well befall.1 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 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 Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one 1265 1270 So Rosalind and Helen lived together Thenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again, Her daughter was restored to Rosalind, Of joy 'mid their new calm would intervene : 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 Beyond the region of dissolving rains, Up the cold mountain she was wont to call Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun, Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould, 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 Day and night, and night and day, And sinks down, down, like that sleep 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; His with love's impatient beat; Can he dream before that day In friendship's smile, in love's caress? That from bitter words did swerve 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." |