***

TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.

[Published as Shelley’s by Medwin, “The Shelley Papers”, 1833, and by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition; afterwards suppressed as of doubtful authenticity.]

1. 
Shall we roam, my love,
To the twilight grove,
When the moon is rising bright;
Oh, I’ll whisper there,
In the cool night-air, 5
What I dare not in broad daylight!

2. 
I’ll tell thee a part
Of the thoughts that start
To being when thou art nigh;
And thy beauty, more bright 10
Than the stars’ soft light,
Shall seem as a weft from the sky.

3. 
When the pale moonbeam
On tower and stream
Sheds a flood of silver sheen, 15
How I love to gaze
As the cold ray strays
O’er thy face, my heart’s throned queen!

4. 
Wilt thou roam with me
To the restless sea, 20
And linger upon the steep,
And list to the flow
Of the waves below
How they toss and roar and leap?

5. 
Those boiling waves, 25
And the storm that raves
At night o’er their foaming crest,
Resemble the strife
That, from earliest life,
The passions have waged in my breast. 30

6. 
Oh, come then, and rove
To the sea or the grove,
When the moon is rising bright;
And I’ll whisper there,
In the cool night-air, 35
What I dare not in broad daylight.

***

NOTES ON THE TEXT AND ITS PUNCTUATION.

In the case of every poem published during Shelley’s lifetime, the text of this edition is based upon that of the editio princeps or earliest issue.  Wherever our text deviates verbally from this exemplar, the word or words of the editio princeps will be found recorded in a footnote.  In like manner, wherever the text of the poems first printed by Mrs. Shelley in the “Posthumous Poems” of 1824 or the “Poetical Works” of 1839 is modified by manuscript authority or otherwise, the reading of the earliest printed text has been subjoined in a footnote.  Shelley’s punctuation—­or what may be presumed to be his—­has been retained, save in the case of errors (whether of the transcriber or the printer) overlooked in the revision of the proof-sheets, and of a few places where the pointing, though certainly or seemingly Shelley’s, tends to obscure the sense or grammatical construction.  In the following notes the more important textual difficulties are briefly discussed, and the readings embodied in the text of this edition, it is hoped, sufficiently justified.  An attempt has also been made to record the original punctuation where it is here departed from.