No More Learning

_283 thine Bodleian manuscript; thy editions 1824, 1839.
_285 Investeth Bodleian manuscript; Investest editions 1824, 1839.
_289 light Bodleian manuscript; bright editions 1824, 1839.

***


ROSALIND AND HELEN.

A MODERN ECLOGUE.

[Begun at Marlow, 1817 (summer); already in the press, March, 1818;
finished at the Baths of Lucca, August, 1818; published with other
poems, as the title-piece of a slender volume, by C. & J. Ollier,
London, 1819 (spring). See "Biographical List". Sources of the text
are (1) editio princeps, 1819; (2) "Poetical Works", edition Mrs.
Shelley, 1839, editions 1st and 2nd. A fragment of the text is amongst
the Boscombe manuscripts. The poem is reprinted here from the editio
princeps; verbal alterations are recorded in the footnotes, punctual
in the Editor's Notes at the end of Volume 3. ]

ADVERTISEMENT.

The story of "Rosalind and Helen" is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in
the highest style of poetry.
It is in no degree calculated to excite
profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing
the imagination, it awakens a certain ideal melancholy favourable to
the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the
reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned
myself, as I wrote, to the impulses of the feelings which moulded the
conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a
measure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds
with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which
inspired it.

I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will
be selected by my bookseller to add to this collection. One ("Lines
written among the Euganean Hills". --Editor. ), which I sent from Italy,
was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which
surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of
Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the
introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of
deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst
of an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak of those
delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were
not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of
intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would
have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been
able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.

Naples, December 20, 1818.


ROSALIND, HELEN, AND HER CHILD.

SCENE. THE SHORE OF THE LAKE OF COMO.

HELEN:
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
'Tis long since thou and I have met;
And yet methinks it were unkind
Those moments to forget.
Come, sit by me. I see thee stand _5
By this lone lake, in this far land,
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven. _10
Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me?