***

FRAGMENT:  MUSIC AND SWEET POETRY.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause—­

***

FRAGMENT:  THE SEPULCHRE OF MEMORY.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]

And where is truth?  On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart—­and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

***

FRAGMENT:  ‘WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST’.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

1. 
When a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest. 
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair—­her epitaph! 5

2. 
When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusty Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day—­
She remains,—­it fades away. 10

***

FRAGMENT:  ‘WAKE THE SERPENT NOT’.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

Wake the serpent not—­lest he
Should not know the way to go,—­
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow! 
Not a bee shall hear him creeping, 5
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he’s sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.

***

FRAGMENT:  RAIN.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

The fitful alternations of the rain,
When the chill wind, languid as with pain
Of its own heavy moisture, here and there
Drives through the gray and beamless atmosphere.

***

FRAGMENT:  A TALE UNTOLD.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

One sung of thee who left the tale untold,
Like the false dawns which perish in the bursting;
Like empty cups of wrought and daedal gold,
Which mock the lips with air, when they are thirsting.

***

FRAGMENT:  TO ITALY.

[Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]

As the sunrise to the night,
As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake’s fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,
Everlasting Italy, 5
Be those hopes and fears on thee.