Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/611

FRAGMENT: MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W, 1839, 2nd ed.]

How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause———.

 

FRAGMENT: THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, P. W, 1839, 1st ed.]

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, P. W, 1839, 2nd ed.]

I
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

II
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, P. W, 1839, 2nd ed.]

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 near 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, P. W, 1839, 2nd ed.]

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, P. W, 1839, 2nd ed.]

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.