No More Learning

Sad was his life who bore thee in his breast, _30
Wild bird for that weak nest.
Till Love even from fierce Desire it bought,
And from the very wound of tender thought
Drew solace, and the pity of sweet eyes
Gave strength to bear those gentle agonies, _35
Surmount the loss, the terror, and the sorrow.
Then Hope approached, she who can borrow
For poor to-day, from rich tomorrow,
And Fear withdrew, as night when day
Descends upon the orient ray, _40
And after long and vain endurance
The poor heart woke to her assurance.
--At one birth these four were born
With the world's forgotten morn,
And from Pleasure still they hold _45
All it circles, as of old.
When, as summer lures the swallow,
Pleasure lures the heart to follow--
O weak heart of little wit!
The fair hand that wounded it, _50
Seeking, like a panting hare,
Refuge in the lynx's lair,
Love, Desire, Hope, and Fear,
Ever will be near.

***


FRAGMENTS WRITTEN FOR HELLAS.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862. ]

1.
Fairest of the Destinies,
Disarray thy dazzling eyes:
Keener far thy lightnings are
Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,
And the smile thou wearest _5
Wraps thee as a star
Is wrapped in light.

2.
Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn
From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,
Or could the morning shafts of purest light _10
Again into the quivers of the Sun
Be gathered--could one thought from its wild flight
Return into the temple of the brain
Without a change, without a stain,--
Could aught that is, ever again _15
Be what it once has ceased to be,
Greece might again be free!

3.
A star has fallen upon the earth
Mid the benighted nations,
A quenchless atom of immortal light, _20
A living spark of Night,
A cresset shaken from the constellations.
Swifter than the thunder fell
To the heart of Earth, the well
Where its pulses flow and beat, _25
And unextinct in that cold source
Burns, and on . . . course
Guides the sphere which is its prison,
Like an angelic spirit pent
In a form of mortal birth, _30
Till, as a spirit half-arisen
Shatters its charnel, it has rent,
In the rapture of its mirth,
The thin and painted garment of the Earth,
Ruining its chaos--a fierce breath _35
Consuming all its forms of living death.

***


FRAGMENT: 'I WOULD NOT BE A KING'.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition. ]

I would not be a king--enough
Of woe it is to love;
The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.
I would not climb the imperial throne; _5
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away _10
Keeping flocks on Himalay!

***


GINEVRA.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824,
and dated 'Pisa, 1821. ']

Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever
Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain _5
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train
Of objects and of persons passed like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;
The vows to which her lips had sworn assent _10
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil,
Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,
And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, _15
And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,--
And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious,--but the weary glare
Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light,
Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight, _20
A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud
Was less heavenly fair--her face was bowed,
And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair
Were mirrored in the polished marble stair
Which led from the cathedral to the street; _25
And ever as she went her light fair feet
Erased these images.