Complete Works of Mary Shelley

by Mary Shelley

  Priests before their altars tremble,

  Courtiers shudder, kings dissemble,

  Pensioners and place-men quake,

  All the sons of rapine shake;

  Guillotines are lordly themes,

  Barricades haunt royal dreams,

  Bigots frighted to their souls,

  Shrink into their narrow holes,

  To den of filth corruption steals,

  Reform fierce-barking at his heels, —

  All expect disastrous doom,

  All the things that love the gloom,

  All that crouch, and skulk, and prowl,

  Wolf and tiger, bat and owl:

  Yet still to thee, their bounteous patroness,

  They lift adoring eyes;

  And none apostatize,

  Nor aught the less

  Thy name they bless,

  Because thy kingdom hath been rudely torn,

  And of a mist or two thy stupid skull been shorn.

  Oh! for thy loyal sons

  Hast thou no guerdon fair, no just reward?

  No new resource,

  No untried force,

  To save them from their foe abhorr’d?

  Come with a host of Huns!

  Unlock once more thy garners of the North:

  Unleash the Goth and send the Vandal forth;

  Exert thy waning might;

  Rally the powers of Night;

  Renew the desp’rate fight!

  That tyrants may rebuild thy mouldering fanes:

  So may’st thou hope,

  Loading thy foes with slavery’s ponderous chains,

  With holy, heavenly light, triumphantly to cope!

  M. W. S.

  January 1834.

  Fame

  “What boots the laurel, if the throbbing brow

  Burn with the agony of thought o’erstrained?

  All thou hadst hoped — nay, more, is won; and now

  Say, dearest Edward! what has ardour gained?

  Pallid thy cheek, and blear the fringeless lids

  That o’er thy faded eyes all sadly droop;

  And ah! what Power Omnipotent thus bids

  Thy shoulders bend in everlasting stoop?

  Pelham it was not that could do this wrong;

  Nor Falkland, Clifford, Aram, the Disowned;

  Or any which, when youth and hope were strong,

  Revealed thy energies, whilst Envy groaned.

  It was, it was th’ old Monthly Magazine,

  By Granny Colborn madly christened ‘New;’

  This lured thy spirit to Contention’s scene.

  And taught thee Mischiefs muddy drink to brew.

  Why, Edward dear! defy that press, whose doom

  Did in thy time of trial favour thee?

  You see they’re far too strong for reckless Brougham,

  And — although great — thou’rt not so great as he!

  Then lay thy pen and paper calmly down

  Beside the long-adored Castalian brink;

  Twine no more wreaths in thine abundant crown,

  But list to me, and learn to eat and drink!”

  The Drawing-Room Scrap-Book. 1835.

  Stanzas: How like a star you rose upon my life

  How like a star you rose upon my life,

  Shedding fair radiance o’er my darkened hour!

  At your uprise swift fled the turbid strife

  Of grief and fear, — so mighty was your power!

  And I must weep that you now disappear,

  Casting eclipse upon my cheerless night —

  My heaven deserting for another sphere,

  Shedding elsewhere your aye-regretted light.

  An Hesperus no more to gild my eve,

  You glad the morning of another heart;

  And my fond soul must mutely learn to grieve,

  While thus from every joy it swells apart

  Yet I may worship still those gentle beams,

  Though not on me they shed their silver rain;

  And thought of you may linger in my dreams,

  And Memory pour balm upon my pain.

  Oh listen while I sing to thee

  Oh listen while I sing to thee,

  My song is meant for thee alone;

  My thought imparts its melody.

  And gives the soft impassioned tone.

  I sing of joy, and see thy smile

  That to the swelling note replies;

  I sing of love, and feel the while

  The gaze of thy love-beaming eyes.

  If thou wert far, my voice would die

  In murmurs faint and sorrowing;

  If thou wert fake in agony

  My heart would break, I could not sing.

  Then listen while I sing to thee,

  My song is meant for thee alone;

  And now that thou art near to me

  I pour a full impassioned tone.

  12 March 1838

  Stanzas: Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!

  Oh, come to me in dreams, my love!

  I will not ask a dearer bliss;

  Come with the starry beams, my love,

  And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

  ‘Twas thus, as ancient fables tell,

  Love visited a Grecian maid,

  Till she disturbed the sacred spell,

  And woke to find her hopes betrayed.

  But gentle sleep shall veil my sight,

  And Psyche’s lamp shall darkling be,

  When, in the visions of the night,

  Thou dost renew thy vows to me.

  Then come to me in dreams, my love,

  I will not ask a dearer bliss;

  Come with the starry beams, my love,

  And press mine eyelids with thy kiss.

  The Choice

  .My choice! My choice - alas was had & gone

  With the red gleam of the last summer’s sun-

  Lost in the deep in which he bathed his head,

  My choice, my life, my hope together fled:-

  A wanderer - here, no more I seek a home

  The sky a vault - & Italy a tomb!

  Yet as some days a pilgrim I remain

  Linked to my orphan child by duty’s chain;

  And since I have a faith that I must earn

  By suffering & by patience, a return

  Of that companionship & love, which first

  upon my young life’s cloud, like sunlight burst,

  And now has left me dark as when it beams

  Quenched by the might of dreadful ocean stream,

  Leave that one cloud, a gloomy speck on high,

  Beside one star in the else darkened sky;-

  Since I must live, how would I pass the day,

  How meet with fewest tear’s the morning’s ray

  How sleep with calmest dreams, how find delights,

  As fireflies gleam through interlunar nights?

  First let me call on thee, lost as thou art

  Thy name aye fills my sense, the love my heart-

  Oh! Gentle spirit, thou hast often sung

  How fall’n on evil days thy heart was wrung;

  Now fierce remorse and unreplying death

  Wakend a chord within my heart, whose breath,

  Thrilling and keen, in accents audible,

  A tale of unrequited love doth tell.

  It was not anger - while thy earthly dress

  Encompassed still thy soul’s rare loveliness,

  All anger was atoned by many a kind

  Caress or tear that spoke the softened mind:-

  It speaks of cold neglect, averted eyes

  That blindly crushed thy heart’s fond sacrifice:-

  Mine heart was all thy own - but yet a shell

  Closed in it’s core, which seemed impenetrable,

  Till sharp-toothed misery tore the husk in twain

  Which gaping lies nor may unite again-

  Forgive me! let thy love descend in dew

  Of soft repenta
nce and regret most true;-

  In a strange guise dost thou descend - or how

  Could love soothe fell remorse? - as it does now! -

  By this remorse and love - and by the years

  Through which we shared our common hopes & fears,

  By all our best companionship, I dare

  Call on thy sacred name without a fear

  And thus I pray to thee, my Friend, my Heart,

  That in thy new abode thou’lt bear a part

  In soothing the poor Mary’s lonely pain,

  As link by link she wears her heavy chain!

  And thou, strange Star! ascendent at my birth

  Which rained, they said, kind influence on earth,

  So from great parents sprung I dared to boast

  Fortune my friend, till set, thy beams were lost!

  And thou - Inscrutable! by whose decree

  Has burst this hideous storm of misery!

  here let me cling, here to these solitudes,

  These myrtle shaded streams and chestnut woods;

  Tear me not hence - here let me live & die,

  In my adopted land, my country, Italy!

  A happy Mother first I saw its sun-

  Beneath er sky my race of joy was run-

  First my sweet girl - whose face resembled His,

  Slept on bleak Lido, near Venetian seas.-

  Yet still my eldest born, my loveliest, dearest-

  Clung to my side - most joyful when nearest -

  An English home had given this angel birth-

  Near those royal towers - where the grass-clad earth

  Is shadowed o’er my England’s loftiest trees:-

  Then our companion o’er the swift-passed seas

  Had dwelt beside the Alps - or gently slept,

  Rocked by the waves, o’ver which our vessel swept,

  Beside his father - nurst upon my breast,

  While Leman’s waters shook with fierce unrest

  His fairest limbs had bathed in Serchio’s stream;

  His eyes had watched Italian lightnings gleam;

  His childish voice had with it’s loudest call,

  The echoes waked of Este’s Castle wall;

  Had paced Pompeii’s roman market Place

  Had gazed with infant wonder on the grace

  Of stone wrought deities and pictured saints

  In Rome’s high palaces - there were no taints

  Of ruin on his cheek - all shadowless

  Grim death approached - the boy met his caress-

  And while his glowing limbs with life’s warmth shone,

  Around those limbs his icy arms were thrown-

  His spoils were strewed beneath the land of Rome

  Whose flowers now star the dark earth near his tomb-

  Its airs & plants received the mortal part,

  His spirit beats within his Mother’s heart!

  Infant immortal! Chosen of the Sky!

  No grief upon grief upon thy brows young purity

  Entrenched sad lines, or blotted with its might

  The sunshine of the smile’s celestial light -

  The image scattered - thy bright spirit fled,

  Thou shin’st the evening star among the dead.

  And thou his playmate - whose deep lucid eyes,

  Were a reflection of these bluest skies;

  Child of our hearts, divided in ill hour,

  We could not watch the bud’s expanding flower,

  Now thou art gone, one lovely victim more

  To the black death which rules this sunny shore.

  Companion of my griefs! thy sinking frame

  Has often drooped - & then erect again

  With shews of health had mocked forbodings dark;

  Watching the changes of that quivering spark

  I feared and hoped - and dared to trust at length

  Thy very weakness was my tower of strength-

  Methought thou wert a spirit from the sky,

  Which struggled within it’s chains, yet could not die,

  And that destruction had no power to win,

  From out those limbs the soul that burnt within.

  Tell me, ye ancient walls, and weed-grown towers,

  Ye Roman aires, and brightly painted flowers,

  Does not this spirit visit that recess

  Which built by love, enshrined his earthly dress?

  No more! No more! What tho’ that form be fled

  My trembling hands shall never write thee - dead -

  Thou liv’st in Nature - love - my Memory,

  With frathless faith for aye adoring thee-

  The wife of time no more - I wed Eternity

  ‘Tis thus the past on which my spirit leans,

  Makes dearest to my soul Italian scenes.-

  In Tuscan fields, the winds in odours steeped

  From flowers and cypresses - when skies have wept,

  Shall like the notes of music - once most dear,

  Which brings the unstrung voice upon my ear

  Of one beloved, to memory display

  Past scenes - past joys - past hopes, in long array.

  The Serchio’s stream upon which whose banks he stood-

  The pools reflecting Pisa’s old pine wood,

  The fire-flies beam - the aziolo’s cry-

  All breath his spirit, which shall never die.-

  Such memories have linked these hills and caves,

  These woodland paths, & streams - & knelling waves

  Fast to each sad pulsation of my breast

  And made their melancholy arms the haven of my rest

  Here will I live within a little dell,

  Which but a month ago I saw full well;

  A dream then pictured forth the solitude

  Deep in the shelter of a lovely wood;

  A voice then whispered a strange prophecy,

  My dearest widowed friend, that thou and I

  Should there together pass the livelong day,

  As we have done before in Spezia’s bay,

  As through long hours we watched the sails that neared

  O’er the far sea, their vessel ne’er appeared;

  One pang of agony, one dying gleam

  Of hope led us along, beside the ocean stream,

  But keen-eyes fear, the while all hope departs,

  Stabbed with a million sting our heart of hearts.

  The sad revolving year has not allayed

  The poison of these bleeding wounds, or made

  The anguish less of that corroding thought

  Which had with grief each single moment fraught,

  Edward, thy voice was hushed - thy noble heart

  With aspiration heaves no more - a part

  Of heaven resumèd past thou art become,

  The spirit waits with this in our far home.

  On Reading Wordsworth’s Lines on Peele Castle

  It is with me, as erst with you,

  Oh poet, nature’s chronicler,

  The summer seas have lost their hue

  And storm sits brooding everywhere.

  The gentlest rustling of the deep

  Is but the dirge of him I lost,

  And when waves raise their furrows steep,

  And bring foam in which is tossed

  A voice I hear upon the wind

  Which bids me haste to join him there,

  And woo the tempest’s breath unkind

  Which gives to me a kindred bier.

  And when all smooth are ocean’s plains

  And sails afar are glittering,

  The fairest skiff his form contains

  To my poor heart’s fond picturing.

  Then wildly to the beach I rush,

  And fain would seize the frailest boat,

  And from dull earth the slight hull push,

  On dancing waves towards him to float.

  Nor may I e’er again behold

  The sea, and be as I have been;

  My bitter grief wil
l ne’er grow old,

  Nor say I this with mind serene.

  For oft I weep in solitude

  And shed so many bitter tears,

  While on past joys I vainly brood

  And shrink in fear from coming years.

  1822.

  Tribute for thee dear solace of my life

  Tribute for thee dear solace of my life

  Reject not thou thy Mary’s offering,

  A tale of woe, with many sorrows rife,

  Tribute unmeet, with cypress bound, I bring —

  It is the echo, sweet

  Sadly borne across the waves

  Tempo e’ piu di Morire

  Io ho tardato piu ch’ i’ non vorrei

  Sadly borne across the waves

  Hark! a voice from many graves,

  Whispers — Come!

  We for thee too long have waited,

  Haste, before thou art belated,

  To our home!

  And the voice of my life’s Lord,

  Voice heard soon & aye adored,

  Cries still — Come!

  Canst thou stay, my gentle Bride,

  I no longer at thy side, In our home?

  Dark was this wild world to thee,

  Till I, in youthful extasy,

  Cried — Come! Come!

  Gladly we together fled

  And across the sea we sped

  To our home. Tender love & constancy

  Formed our nuptial revelry

  And welcome.

  Ah! those days too quickly flew,

  Till, enforced, I bade adieu

  To our home.

  Storm & Ocean bore me here,

  Thou remainest, Mary dear,

  Yet. Ah! Come!

  Life is but a sickly dream,

  Swiftly cross the turbid stream

  To my home.

  Never more will human love

  Woes requite which thou must prove,

  Why not come?

  Never more in forest sweet

  Will be built a fair retreat

  For thy home.

  La Vida es sueno

  The tide of Time was at my feet

  Flowing with calm & equal motion;

  With gladdened heart my eyes might greet