These woodland paths, and streams, and knelling waves 135 Fast to each sad pulsation of my breast, And made their melancholy arms the haven of my rest. Here will I live, within a little dell, Which but a month ago1 I saw full well: A dream then pictured forth the solitude A voice then whispered a strange prophecy, My dearest, widowed friend,2 that thou and I As we before have done in Spezia's bay, 140 145 As through long hours we watched the sails that neared O'er the far sea, their3 vessel ne'er appeared; One pang of agony, one dying gleam Of hope led us along, beside the ocean stream, 1 This would seem to indicate that 150 155 3 That originally, but altered to their in Mrs. Shelley's writing. 4 Williams, who was drowned with Shelley. 5 Leigh Hunt suggests as an emendation, thou too! thou too! ... for thy voice was hushed; but, as the pen has not been drawn through either of the readings, I leave Mrs. Shelley's in the text. With aspiration heaves no more—a part Of heaven-resumèd past thou art become, our far home.2 Thy spirit waits with his in 1 The word the is inserted after Of in Hunt's writing: it does not seem to me an improvement. 2 I cannot find a more appropriate place than the present in which to give the little poem by Mrs. Shelley, originally published in The Keepsake for 1831, and entitled A DIRGE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "FRANKENSTEIN." This morn, thy gallant bark, love, Ah, woe! ah, woe! ah, woe! Thou liest upon the shore, love, Beside the swelling surge; But sea-nymphs ever more, love, O come! O come! O come O list! O list! O list! Loud sounds their wail of sorrow, In her first collected edition of Shelley's Poetical Works (1839), Mrs. Shelley headed the Notes to the Poems of 1822 with a revised version of this Dirge; varying sufficiently from the original to make it quite worth while to rescue the earlier version. With aspiration heaves no more-a part Of heaven-resumèd past thou art become, our far home.2 Thy spirit waits with his in 1 The word the is inserted after Of in Hunt's writing: it does not seem to me an improvement. I cannot find a more appropriate place than the present in which to give the little poem by Mrs. Shelley, originally published in The Keepsake for 1831, and entitled A DIRGE. BY THE AUTHOR OF "FRANKENSTEIN." This morn, thy gallant bark, love, Ah, woe! ah, woe! ah, woe! Thou liest upon the shore, love, Beside the swelling surge; But sea-nymphs ever more, love, O come! O come! O come Loud sounds their wail of sorrow, In her first collected edition of Shelley's Poetical Works (1839), Mrs. Shelley headed the Notes to the Poems of 1822 with a revised version of this Dirge; varying sufficiently from the original to make it quite worth while to rescue the earlier version. |