Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/688

instantly exerted himself to have the plan executed. He did not intend himself joining in the work: partly from pride, not wishing to have the air of acquiring readers for his poetry by associating it with the compositions of more popular writers; and also because he might feel shackled in the free expression of his opinions, if any friends were to be compromised. By those opinions, carried even to their utmost extent, he wished to live and die, as being in his conviction not only true, but such as alone would conduce to the moral improvement and happiness of mankind. The sale of the work might meanwhile, either really or supposedly, be injured by the free expression of his thoughts; and this evil he resolved to avoid.

 

POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822

THE ZUCCA

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824, and dated 'January, 1822.' There is a copy amongst the Boscombe MSS.]

I
Summer was dead and Autumn was expiring,
And infant Winter laughed upon the land
All cloudlessly and cold;—when I, desiring
More in this world than any understand,
Wept o'er the beauty, which, like sea retiring, 5
Had left the earth bare as the wave-worn sand
Of my lorn^[1] heart, and o'er the grass and flowers
Pale for the falsehood of the flattering Hours.

II
Summer was dead, but I yet lived to weep
The instability of all but weeping; 10
And on the Earth lulled in her winter sleep
I woke, and envied her as she was sleeping.
Too happy Earth! over thy face shall creep
The wakening vernal airs, until thou, leaping
From unremembered dreams, shalt see 15
No death divide thy immortality.

III
I loved—oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or any earthly one, though ye are dear
As human heart to human heart may be; —
I loved, I know not what— but this low sphere 20
And all that it contains, contains not thee,
Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere.
From Heaven and Earth, and all that in them are,^[2]
Veiled art thou, like astar.^[3]

IV
By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest, 25
Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden;
Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,

1. 7 lorn Boscombe MS.; poor ed. 1824.
2. 23 So Boscombe MS.; Dim object of my soul's idolatry ed. 1824.
3. 24 star Boscombe MS.; wanting ed. 1824.