[Published by Hunt in “The Liberal”, No. 3, 1823.  Reprinted in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824, where it is dated December, 1817.]

1. 
Honey from silkworms who can gather,
Or silk from the yellow bee? 
The grass may grow in winter weather
As soon as hate in me.

2. 
Hate men who cant, and men who pray, 5
And men who rail like thee;
An equal passion to repay
They are not coy like me.

3. 
Or seek some slave of power and gold
To be thy dear heart’s mate; 10
Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me, thy hate.

4. 
A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;
I hate thy want of truth and love—­ 15
How should I then hate thee?

***

OZYMANDIAS.

[Published by Hunt in “The Examiner”, January, 1818.  Reprinted with “Rosalind and Helen”, 1819.  There is a copy amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian Library.  See Mr. C.D.  Locock’s “Examination”, etc., 1903, page 46.]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:  Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: 
And on the pedestal these words appear: 
’My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  10
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains.  Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

NOTE: 
9 these words appear]this legend clear B.

***

NOTE ON POEMS OF 1817, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appear to have kindled to yet keener life the Spirit of Poetry in his heart.  The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse.  Much was composed during this year.  The “Revolt of Islam”, written and printed, was a great effort—­“Rosalind and Helen” was begun—­and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours.

In addition to such poems as have an intelligible aim and shape, many a stray idea and transitory emotion found imperfect and abrupt expression, and then again lost themselves in silence.  As he never wandered without a book and without implements of writing, I find many such, in his manuscript books, that scarcely bear record; while some of them, broken and vague as they are, will appear valuable to those who love Shelley’s mind, and desire to trace its workings.