XIX. For it was filled with sculptures rarest, Of winged shapes, whose legions range XX. And as she looked, still lovelier grew Of his own mind did there endure After the touch, whose power had braided XXI. She looked, the flames were dim, the flood Winding through hills in solitude; Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their fair limbs to float in motion, Like weeds unfolding in the ocean. XXII. And their lips moved; one seemed to speak, The statues gave a joyous scream, 1 In Mrs. Shelley's collected editions, ho; but that in the Pocket-Book and the Posthumous Poems. 2 So in the Pocket-Book, but moun tain elsewhere. 3 In the collected editions, for. but flood in the Pocket-Book and th Posthumous Poems. XXIII. The dizzy flight of that phantom pale Of her dark eyes the dream did creep, TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING.1 I. 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; 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, 1 Mrs. Shelley first gave this poem, without date, in the volume of Posthumous Poems; but in the collected editions she placed it among the poems of 1817. It is not, I believe, known to whom it refers; but Mr. Rossetti thinks the name "is most probably a fancy name given to the lady in question by Shelley in consequence of his enthusiasm for the heroine, Constantia Dudley, of a novel by Brockden Brown entitled Ormond." It is right to state that identity with the Constantia of this and the next poem was claimed by the late Miss Clairmont ("Claire"). who, by the bye, figures in a legal document of late date as Clara Mary Constantia Jane, although in Shelley's will she is described simply as Mary Jane Clairmont. II. A breathless awe, like the swift change Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. 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. III. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul-it lingers My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, IV. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, In the Posthumous Poems, extacies: in the collected editions, ecstacies. On which, like one in trance upborne, Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, TO CONSTANTIA.1 I. THE rose that drinks the fountain dew Grows pale and blue with altered hue- For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, II. Such is my heart-roses are fair, And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom ; 1 This fragment was first given by Mrs. Shelley in the first edition of 1839, among Poems of 1817. See note to the preceding poem. FRAGMENT: TO ONE SINGING.1 My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim Of rapture-as a boat, with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river. TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR,2 I. THY country's curse is on thee, darkest crest II. Thy country's curse is on thee! Justice sold, Truth trampled, Nature's landmarks overthrown, 1 This and the five fragments at pp. 404-6, given by Mrs. Shelley (without any titles) in her note on Poems of 1817, in the first edition of 1839, are all, I presume, assignable to the year 1817. This and the first four of the others seem to be from the note-book containing the MS. of the poem To Constantia, Singing; and this particular one associates itself naturally in the mind with the lady addressed as Constantia. See note, p. 391 of this Vol. It is to be observed that Shelley subsequently made use of these lines in an altered form in the song of Asia ending Act II of Prometheus Unbound. See Vol. II of this edition, p. 214. 2 Mr. Rossetti assigns this poem and the next to August or September, 1817, on the reasonable ground that Lord Chancellor Eldon's decree, de priving Shelley of the custody of his children, Charles and Ianthe, was pronounced in August. Mrs. Shelley printed seven of the stanzas To the Lord Chancellor in her note on the poems of 1819, in the first edition of 1839: in the second, she gave the whole poem, still, however, in the note. The text has been collated with two transcripts in Mrs. Shelley's writing, -one formerly in Leigh Hunt's pos session, but now in the hands of Mr. Edward Spender, whom I have to thank for the loan of it, and the other in the possession of Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke. This, Mrs. Clarke kindly copied for me it varies slightly from the other. I have adopted, in minutio, whatever readings from these sources seem most likely to be accurate. 3 The Star Chamber, Mrs. Shelley explains. |