MARY ΤΟ 1. So now my summer-task is ended, Mary, With thy belovèd name, thou Child of love and light. 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 Or where with sound like many voices sweet, 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 woesThe harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 4. And then I clasped my hands and looked around— And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies 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 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. 2 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. |