624
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820
Which drop their berries as they follow fast,
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race 110
Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,
And weeping willow trees;[1] all swift or slow,
As their huge[2] boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth 115
Of starlike[3] flowers and herbs of odour[3] sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy
Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,
And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.
Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. 120
The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,
Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;
Not even the nightingale intrudes a note
In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.
And blackthorn bushes with their infant race 110
Of blushing rose-blooms; beeches, to lovers dear,
And weeping willow trees;[1] all swift or slow,
As their huge[2] boughs or lighter dress permit,
Have circled in his throne, and Earth herself
Has sent from her maternal breast a growth 115
Of starlike[3] flowers and herbs of odour[3] sweet,
To pave the temple that his poesy
Has framed, while near his feet grim lions couch,
And kids, fearless from love, creep near his lair.
Even the blind worms seem to feel the sound. 120
The birds are silent, hanging down their heads,
Perched on the lowest branches of the trees;
Not even the nightingale intrudes a note
In rivalry, but all entranced she listens.
FIORDISPINA
[Published in part (ll. 11-30) by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824; in full (from the Boscombe MS.) by Dr. Garnett, Relics of Shelley, 1862.]
The season was the childhood of sweet June,
Whose sunny hours from morning until noon
Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity 5
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,
For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,
Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers— 10
·······
They were two cousins, almost like to[4] twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had rased their love—which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together like two flowers 15
Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather—the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love—and who e'er[5] loved like thee, 20
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture.
He faints, dissolved into a sea[6] of love; 25
Whose sunny hours from morning until noon
Went creeping through the day with silent feet,
Each with its load of pleasure; slow yet sweet;
Like the long years of blest Eternity 5
Never to be developed. Joy to thee,
Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,
For thou the wonders of the depth canst know
Of this unfathomable flood of hours,
Sparkling beneath the heaven which embowers— 10
·······
They were two cousins, almost like to[4] twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had rased their love—which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.
And so they grew together like two flowers 15
Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers
Lull or awaken in their purple prime,
Which the same hand will gather—the same clime
Shake with decay. This fair day smiles to see
All those who love—and who e'er[5] loved like thee, 20
Fiordispina? Scarcely Cosimo,
Within whose bosom and whose brain now glow
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture.
He faints, dissolved into a sea[6] of love; 25
