The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Lines to a Reviewer
LINES TO A REVIEWER
[Published by Leigh Hunt, The Literary Pocket-Book, 1823. These lines, and the Sonnet immediately preceding, are signed Σ in the Literary Pocket-Book.]
Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where[1] all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where[1] all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.
- ↑ Lines to a Reviewer.—3 where edd. 1824, 1839; when 1823.