Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls;
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to nature's varied works,
Had life and place in the corrupt belief

Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave
Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain;
Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene,
Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride:

Their everlasting and unchanging laws

Reproached thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest
Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know;
The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign,
The budding of the heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sun-rise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease,
And all their causes, to an abstract point
Converging thou didst give it name, and form,
Intelligence, and unity, and power.

SONNET.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.

Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti.1

GUIDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly

With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend, And that no change, nor any evil chance

1 Among the MSS. of Leigh Hunt, several times referred to in this edition, is a translation by Shelley of Guido Cavalcanti's Sonnet to Dante,

"Io vegno il giorno a te infinite volte." It will be found in a later volume.

2 Mrs. Shelley's editions read so for and.

Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance

Between our hearts their strict community:
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,

Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk wherever we might rove
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
Ταν άλα ταν γλαυκαν όταν ὧνεμος ατρεμα βαλλῃ, κ.τ.λ.

WHEN winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind.-But when the roar
Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea,
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen.-But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.

1 Shelley can hardly have forgotten that Bice was the beloved of Dante, and I suspect the word my is a misprint for thy. The translation would still be incorrect; but the poet might easily have got confused about the less important ladies of Lapo and Guido. I cannot bring myself to think Shelley could have written

Vanna and Bice and his gentle love as a translation of the lines

E Monna Vanna, e Monna Bice poi, Con quella su il numer delle trenta, meaning literally "and Lady Vanna, and then Lady Bice, with her on num ber thirty" (of Dante's list of the sixty fairest ladies of Florence: sec Vita Nuova).

THE DEMON OF THE WORLD.

A FRAGMENT.

Nec tantum prodere vati,

Quantum scire licet. Venit ætas omnis in unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot sæcula pectus.
Lucan Phars. L. v. 1. 176.

THE DEMON OF THE WORLD.

A FRAGMENT. 1

How wonderful is Death,

Death and his brother Sleep!

One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,

With lips of lurid blue,

The other glowing like the vital morn,

When throned on ocean's wave

It breathes over the world :

Yet both so passing strange and wonderful!

Hath then the iron-sceptred Skeleton,
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,

5

10

To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
Cast that fair prey? Must that divinest form,
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
Steal like dark streams along a field of snow,

Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
In light of some sublimest mind, decay?
Nor putrefaction's breath
Leave aught of this pure spectacle

1 A revised fragment of Queen Mab, -of which Poem Shelley's edition

15

will be found in its place among the youthful poems.