22. 
And their lips moved; one seemed to speak,
When suddenly the mountains cracked, 135
And through the chasm the flood did break
With an earth-uplifting cataract: 
The statues gave a joyous scream,
And on its wings the pale thin Dream
Lifted the Lady from the stream. 140

23. 
The dizzy flight of that phantom pale
Waked the fair Lady from her sleep,
And she arose, while from the veil
Of her dark eyes the Dream did creep,
And she walked about as one who knew 145
That sleep has sights as clear and true
As any waking eyes can view.

NOTES:  18 golden 1819; gold 1824, 1839. 28 or 1824; nor 1839. 62 or]a cj.  Rossetti. 63 its]their cj.  Rossetti. 92 flames cj.  Rossetti; waves 1819, 1824, 1839. 101 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839. 106 flood]flames cj.  James Thomson (’B.V.’). 120 that 1819, 1824; who 1839. 135 mountains 1819; mountain 1824, 1839.

***

TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley in “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.  Amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian is a chaotic first draft, from which Mr. Locock ["Examination”, etc., 1903, pages 60-62] has, with patient ingenuity, disengaged a first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4.  The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley.  It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock’s restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley’s obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light of a final recension.]

1. 
Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
Perchance were death indeed!—­Constantia, turn! 
In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
Between thy lips, are laid to sleep; 5
Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour, it is yet,
And from thy touch like fire doth leap. 
Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet. 
Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!

2. 
A breathless awe, like the swift change 10
Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. 
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain, 15
And on my shoulders wings are woven,
To follow its sublime career
Beyond the mighty moons that wane
Upon the verge of Nature’s utmost sphere,
Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear. 20