Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/669

His heart with words,—but what his judgement bade
Would do, and leave the scorner unrelieved^[1] .
These verses are^[2] too sad
To send to you, but that I know, 55
Happy yourself, you feel another's woe.

 

TO ———

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair 5
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

II
I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not 10
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,—
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar 15
From the sphere of our sorrow?

 

TO ———

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a Boscombe MS.]

I
When passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep! 5

II
It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest—and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been. 10

III
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move
And form^[3] all others, life and love. 15

 

A BRIDAL SONG

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824.]

I
The golden gates of Sleep unbar
 Where Strength and Beauty, met together,
Kindle their image like a star
 In a sea of glassy weather!
Night, with all thy stars look down,— 5
 Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,—
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight;—
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight 10
Oft renew.

II
Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
 Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn,—ere it be long! 15
O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
Come along!

1. 53 unrelieved Trelawny MS., 1839, 2nd ed. unreprieved 1834, 1839, 1st ed.
2. 54 are] were Trelawny MS.
3. To ——— 15 form Boscombe MS.; for edd. 1824, 1839.