No More Learning

]

And where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart--and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

***


FRAGMENT: 'WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST'.

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

1.
When a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair--her epitaph! _5

2.
When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusty Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day--
She remains,--it fades away. _10

***


FRAGMENT: 'WAKE THE SERPENT NOT'.

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

Wake the serpent not--lest he
Should not know the way to go,--
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping, _5
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he's sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.

***


FRAGMENT: RAIN.

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

The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.

***


FRAGMENT: A TALE UNTOLD.

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

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

***


FRAGMENT: TO ITALY.

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

As the sunrise to the night,
As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake's fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,
Everlasting Italy, _5
Be those hopes and fears on thee.

***


FRAGMENT: WINE OF THE FAIRIES.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition.