No More Learning

[Published with "Alastor", 1816. ]

I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood even now: thou didst prefer _5
A frail and bloody pomp which Time has swept
In fragments towards Oblivion. Massacre,
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know _10
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
That Virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than Force or Fraud: old Custom, legal Crime,
And bloody Faith the foulest birth of Time.

***


LINES.

[Published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1823, where it is headed
"November, 1815". Reprinted in the "Posthumous Poems", 1824. See
Editor's Note. ]

1.
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around, with a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow _5
Beneath the sinking moon.

2.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track, _10
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.

3.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream _15
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,
That shook in the wind of night.

4.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved--
The wind made thy bosom chill-- _20
The night did shed on thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.

NOTE:
_17 raven 1823; tangled 1824.

***


NOTE ON THE EARLY POEMS, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

The remainder of Shelley's Poems will be arranged in the order in which
they were written. Of course, mistakes will occur in placing some of
the shorter ones; for, as I have said, many of these were thrown aside,
and I never saw them till I had the misery of looking over his writings
after the hand that traced them was dust; and some were in the hands of
others, and I never saw them till now. The subjects of the poems are
often to me an unerring guide; but on other occasions I can only guess,
by finding them in the pages of the same manuscript book that contains
poems with the date of whose composition I am fully conversant. In the
present arrangement all his poetical translations will be placed
together at the end.

The loss of his early papers prevents my being able to give any of the
poetry of his boyhood. Of the few I give as "Early Poems", the greater
part were published with "Alastor"; some of them were written
previously, some at the same period. The poem beginning 'Oh, there are
spirits in the air' was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never
knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through
his writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well.
He regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than
conviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by
what Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth.
The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the
churchyard of Lechlade occurred during his voyage up the Thames in
1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in
the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in
tracing the Thames to its source.