And after many years (for human things
Change even like the ocean and the wind)
Her daughter was restored to Rosalind ;
And in their circle thence some visitings
Of joy mid their new calm would intervene.
A lovely child she was, of looks serene,
And motions which o'er things indifferent shed

The grace and gentleness from whence they came
And Helen's boy grew with her, and they fed

From the same flowers of thought, until each mind
Like springs which mingle in one flood became ;

And in their union soon their parents saw
The shadow of the peace denied to them.

And Rosalind-for, when the living stem

Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall-
Died ere her time. And with deep grief and awe
The pale survivors followed her remains,
Beyond the region of dissolving rains,

Up the cold mountain she was wont to call
Her tomb. And on Chiavenna's precipice
They raised a pyramid of lasting ice;
Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun,
Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,
The last, when it had sunk. And through the night
The charioteers of Arctos wheeled round

Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home;
Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,
With willing steps climbing that rugged height,

And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound With amaranth-flowers, which, in the clime's despite, Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light.

Such flowers as in the wintry memory bloom

Of one friend left adorned that frozen tomb.

Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,

Whose sufferings too were less, Death slowlier led Into the peace of his dominion cold :

She died among her kindred, being old.

And know that, if love die not in the dead

As in the living, none of mortal kind

Are blest as now Helen and Rosalind.

NOTE ON ROSALIND AND HELEN, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside-till I found it ; and, at my request, it was completed. Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind and develop some high or abstruse truth. When he does touch on human life and the human heart, no pictures can be more faithful, more delicate, more subtle, or more pathetic. He never mentioned love but he shed a grace borrowed from his own nature, that scarcely any other poet has bestowed, on that passion. When he spoke of it as the law of life, which inasmuch as we rebel against we err and injure ourselves and others, he promulgated that which he considered an irrefragable truth. In his eyes it was the essence of our being, and all woe and pain arose from the war made against it by selfishness, or insensibility, or mistake. By reverting in his mind to this first principle, he discovered the source of many emotions, and could disclose the secret of all hearts; and his delineations of passion and emotion touch the finest chords of our nature.

Rosalind and Helen was finished during the summer of 1818, while we were at the baths of Lucca.

LINES

WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.

MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery ;
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on-
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;
Whilst, above, the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,-
And, behind, the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail and cord and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep,
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity,-
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as-ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun-
He is ever drifted on

O'er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.

What if there no friends will greet?
What if there no heart will meet
His with love's impatient beat?
Wander wheresoe'er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ?,
Then 'twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no.

Senseless is the breast, and cold,

Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins, and chill,
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow
Is like a sapless leaflet now 1
Frozen upon December's bough.

On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,

One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land.
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews' as they sail
O'er the billows of the gale,
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides.

Those unburied bones around

There is many a mournful sound;

There is no lament for him,

Like a sunless vapour, dim,

Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.

Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony :-
To such a one this morn was led
My bark, by soft winds piloted.
Mid the mountains Euganean,
I stood listening to the paan
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical.

Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mist they soar

Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven

Bursts; and then, as clouds of even
Flecked with fire and azure lie
In the unfathomable sky,

So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes

On the morning's fitful gale

Through the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow, down the dark steep streaming,—
Till all is bright and clear and still
Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair.
Underneath Day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,-
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line

Of the waters crystalline;

And before that chasm of light,

As within a furnace bright,

Column, tower, and dome, and spire,

Shine like obelisks of fire,

Pointing with inconstant motion

From the altar of dark ocean

To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.

Sun-girt City! thou hast been

Ocean's child, and then his queen.