No More Learning

The Princess sate within the window-seat, _20
And so her face was hid; but on her knee
Her hands were clasped, veined, and pale as snow,
And quivering--young Tasso, too, was there.

MADDALO:
Thou seest on whom from thine own worshipped heaven
Thou drawest down smiles--they did not rain on thee. _25

MALPIGLIO:
Would they were parching lightnings for his sake
On whom they fell!

***


SONG FOR 'TASSO'.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824. ]

1.
I loved--alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.
I thought, but not as now I do,
Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, _5
Of all that men had thought before.
And all that Nature shows, and more.

2.
And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live, _10
And love;. . .
And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.

3.
Sometimes I see before me flee _15
A silver spirit's form, like thee,
O Leonora, and I sit
. . . still watching it,
Till by the grated casement's ledge
It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge _20
Breathes o'er the breezy streamlet's edge.

***


INVOCATION TO MISERY.

[Published by Medwin, "The Athenaeum", September 8, 1832. Reprinted (as
"Misery, a Fragment") by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st
edition. Our text is that of 1839. A pencil copy of this poem is
amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library. See Mr. C. D.
Locock's "Examination", etc.