No More Learning

The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of Love's rare Universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire-- _590
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!

. . .

Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet,
And say:--'We are the masters of thy slave;
What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine? '
Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave, _595
All singing loud: 'Love's very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave. '
So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste
Over the hearts of men, until ye meet _600
Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest,
And bid them love each other and be blessed:
And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves,
And come and be my guest,--for I am Love's.

NOTES:
_100 morning]morn may Rossetti cj.
_118 of]on edition 1839.
_405 it]he edition 1839.
_501 many-twining]many twining editio prin. 1821.
_504 winter-woof]inter-woof Rossetti cj.


FRAGMENTS CONNECTED WITH EPIPSYCHIDION.
[Of the fragments of verse that follow, lines 1-37, 62-92 were printed
by Mrs. Shelley in "Posthumous Works", 1839, 2nd edition; lines 1-174
were printed or reprinted by Dr. Garnett in "Relics of Shelley", 1862;
and lines 175-186 were printed by Mr. C. D. Locock from the first draft
of "Epipsychidion" amongst the Shelley manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library. See "Examination, etc. ", 1903, pages 12, 13. The three early
drafts of the "Preface (Advertisement)" were printed by Mr. Locock in
the same volume, pages 4, 5. ]


THREE EARLY DRAFTS OF THE PREFACE.

(ADVERTISEMENT. )

PREFACE 1.

The following Poem was found amongst other papers in the Portfolio of
a young Englishman with whom the Editor had contracted an intimacy at
Florence, brief indeed, but sufficiently long to render the
Catastrophe by which it terminated one of the most painful events of
his life. --

The literary merit of the Poem in question may not be considerable;
but worse verses are printed every day, &

He was an accomplished & amiable person but his error was, thuntos on
un thunta phronein,--his fate is an additional proof that 'The tree of
Knowledge is not that of Life. '--He had framed to himself certain
opinions, founded no doubt upon the truth of things, but built up to a
Babel height; they fell by their own weight, & the thoughts that were
his architects, became unintelligible one to the other, as men upon
whom confusion of tongues has fallen.