And all the dreams which our tormentors are;295
Oh! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there,[1]
With everything belonging to them fair!—
We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;
And ask one week to make another week
As like his father, as I'm unlike mine,[2]300
Which is not his fault, as you may divine.[3]
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,305
And other such lady-like luxuries,—
Feasting on which we will philosophize!
And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,
To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.
And then we'll talk;—what shall we talk about?310
Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout
Of thought-entangled descant;—as to nerves—
With cones and parallelograms and curves
I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare
To bother me—when you are with me there.315
And they shall never more sip laudanum,
From Helicon or Himeros[4];—well, come,[5]
And in despite of God[6] and of the devil.
We'll make our friendly philosophic revel
Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers 320
Warn the obscure inevitable hours,
Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew;—
'To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new.'
THE WITCH OF ATLAS
[Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 14-16, 1820; published in Posthumous Poems, ed. Mrs. Shelley, 1824. The dedication To Mary first appeared in the Poetical Works, 1839, 1st ed. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1824; (2) edd. 1839 (which agree, and, save in two instances, follow ed. 1824); (3) an early and incomplete MS. in Shelley's handwriting (now at the Bodleian, here, as throughout, cited as B.), carefully collated by Mr. C. D. Locock, who printed the results in his Examination of the Shelley MSS., etc., Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903; (4) a later, yet intermediate, transcript by Mrs. Shelley, the variations of which are noted by Mr. H. Buxton Forman. The original text is modified in many places by variants from the MSS., but the readings of ed. 1824 are, in every instance, given in the footnotes.]
- ↑ See notes at end.
- ↑ So 1839, 2nd ed.; wanting in edd. 1824, 1839, 1st.
- ↑ So transcript; wanting in edd. 1824, 1839.
- ↑ Ίμερος, from which the river Himera was named, is, with some slight shade of difference, a synonym of Love.—[Shelley's Note.]
- ↑ well, come 1839, 2nd ed.; we'll come edd. 1824, 1839, 1st.
- ↑ despite of God] transcript; despite of . . . ed. 1824; spite of . . . edd. 1839.
