# Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1876)/Rosalind and Helen

ROSALIND AND HELEN.
Rosalind, Helen and her Child.
Scene, the Shore of the Lake of Como.
HELEN.
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind. 'Tis long since thou and I have met; And yet methinks it were unkind Those moments to forget. Come sit by me. I see thee stand5 By this lone lake, in this far land, Thy loose hair in the light wind flying, Thy sweet voice to each tone of even United, and thine eyes replying To the hues of yon fair heaven.10 Come, gentle friend: wilt sit by me? And be as thou wert wont to be Ere we were disunited? None doth behold us now: the power That led us forth at this lone hour15 Will be but ill requited If thou depart in scorn: oh! come, And talk of our abandoned home. Remember, this is Italy, And we are exiles. Talk with me20 Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
Barren and dark although they be, Were dearer than these chesnut woods: Those heathy paths, that inland stream, And the blue mountains, shapes which seem25 Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream: Which that we have abandoned now, Weighs on the heart like that remorse Which altered friendship leaves. I seek No more our youthful intercourse.30 That cannot be! Rosalind, speak, Speak to me. Leave me not.—When morn did come, When evening fell upon our common home, When for one hour we parted,—do not frown: I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken:35 But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token, Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown, Turn, as 'twere but the memory of me, And not my scorned self who prayed to thee.
ROSALIND.
Is it a dream, or do I see40 And hear frail Helen? I would flee Thy tainting touch; but former years Arise, and bring forbidden tears; And my o'erburthened memory Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.45 I share thy crime. I cannot choose But weep for thee: mine own strange grief But seldom stoops to such relief: Nor ever did I love thee less, Though mourning o'er thy wickedness50 Even with a sister's woe. I knew What to the evil world is due, And therefore sternly did refuse To link me with the infamy
Of one so lost as Helen. Now55 Bewildered by my dire despair, Wondering I blush, and weep that thou Should'st love me still,—thou only!—There, Let us sit on that grey stone, Till our mournful talk be done.60
HELEN.
Alas! not there; I cannot bear The murmur of this lake to hear. A sound from there, Rosalind dear, Which never yet I heard elsewhere But in our native land, recurs,65 Even here where now we meet. It stirs Too much of suffocating sorrow! In the dell of yon dark chesnut wood Is a stone seat, a solitude Less like our own. The ghost of peace70 Will not desert this spot. To-morrow, If thy kind feelings should not cease, We may sit here.
ROSALIND.
Thou lead, my sweet, And I will follow.
HENRY.
'Tis Fenici's seat Where you are going? This is not the way,75 Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow Close to the little river.
HELEN.
Yes: I know: I was bewildered. Kiss me, and be gay, Dear boy: why do you sob?
HENRY.
I do not know: But it might break any one's heart to see80 You and the lady cry so bitterly.
HELEN.
It is a gentle child, my friend. Go home, Henry, and play with Lilla till I come. We only cried with joy to see each other; We are quite merry now: Good night.
The boy85 Lifted a sudden look upon his mother, And in the gleam of forced and hollow joy Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the glee Of light and unsuspecting infancy, And whispered in her ear, "Bring home with you90 That sweet strange lady-friend" Then off he flew, But stopt, and beckoned with a meaning smile, Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while, Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.
In silence then they took the way95 Beneath the forest's solitude. It was a vast and antique wood, Thro' which they took their way; And the grey shades of evening O'er that green wilderness did fling100 Still deeper solitude.
Pursuing still the path that wound The vast and knotted trees around Thro' which slow shades were wandering, To a deep lawny dell they came,105 To a stone seat beside a spring, O'er which the columned wood did frame A roofless temple, like the fane Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain, Man's early race once knelt beneath110 The overhanging deity. O'er this fair fountain hung the sky, Now spangled with rare stars. The snake, The pale snake, that with eager breath Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,115 Is beaming with many a mingled hue, Shed from yon dome's eternal blue, When he floats on that dark and lucid flood In the light of his own loveliness; And the birds that in the fountain dip120 Their plumes, with fearless fellowship Above and round him wheel and hover. The fitful wind is heard to stir One solitary leaf on high; The chirping of the grasshopper125 Fills every pause. There is emotion In all that dwells at noontide here: Then, thro' the intricate wild wood, A maze of life and light and motion Is woven. But there is stillness now:130 Gloom, and the trance of Nature now: The snake is in his cave asleep; The birds are on the branches dreaming: Only the shadows creep: Only the glow-worm is gleaming:135 Only the owls and the nightingales
Wake in this dell when day-light fails, And grey shades gather in the woods: And the owls have all fled far away In a merrier glen to hoot and play,140 For the moon is veiled and sleeping now. The accustomed nightingale still broods On her accustomed bough, But she is mute; for her false mate Has fled and left her desolate.145
This silent spot tradition old Had peopled with the spectral dead. For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told That a hellish shape at midnight led150 The ghost of a youth with hoary hair, And sate on the seat beside him there, Till a naked child came wandering by, When the fiend would change to a lady fair! A fearful tale! The truth was worse:155 For here a sister and a brother Had solemnized a monstrous curse, Meeting in this fair solitude: For beneath yon very sky, Had they resigned to one another160 Body and soul. The multitude, Tracking them to the secret wood, Tore limb from limb their innocent child, And stabbed and trampled on it's mother; But the youth, for God's most holy grace,165 A priest saved to burn in the market-place.
Duly at evening Helen came; To this lone silent spot, From the wrecks of a tale of wilder sorrow
So much of sympathy to borrow170 As soothed her own dark lot. Duly each evening from her home, With her fair child would Helen come To sit upon that antique seat, While the hues of day were pale;175 And the bright boy beside her feet Now lay, lifting at intervals His broad blue eyes on her; Now, where some sudden impulse calls Following. He was a gentle boy180 And in all gentle sports took joy; Oft in a dry leaf for a boat, With a small feather for a sail, His fancy on that spring would float, If some invisible breeze might stir185 It's marble calm: and Helen smiled Thro' tears of awe on the gay child, To think that a boy as fair as he, In years which never more may be, By that same fount, in that same wood,190 The like sweet fancies had pursued; And that a mother, lost like her, Had mournfully sate watching him. Then all the scene was wont to swim Through the mist of a burning tear.195
For many months had Helen known This scene; and now she thither turned Her footsteps, not alone. The friend whose falsehood she had mourned, Sate with her on that seat of stone.200 Silent they sate; for evening,
And the power it's glimpses bring Had, with one awful shadow, quelled The passion of their grief. They sate With linked hands, for unrepelled205 Had Helen taken Rosalind's. Like the autumn wind, when it unbinds The tangled locks of the nightshade's hair, Which is twined in the sultry summer air Round the walls of an outworn sepulchre,210 Did the voice of Helen, sad and sweet, And the sound of her heart that ever heat, As with sighs and words she breathed on her, Unbind the knots of her friend's despair, Till her thoughts were free to float and flow215 And from her labouring bosom now, Like the bursting of a prisoned flame, The voice of a long pent sorrow came.
ROSALIND.
I saw the dark earth fall upon The coffin; and I saw the stone220 Laid over him whom this cold breast Had pillowed to his nightly rest! Thou knowest not, thou canst not know My agony. Oh! I could not weep: The sources whence such blessings flow225 Were not to be approached by me! But I could smile, and I could sleep, Though with a self-accusing heart. In morning's light, in evening's gloom, I watched,—and would not thence depart—230
My husband's unlamented tomb. My children knew their sire was gone, But when I told them,—'he is dead,'— They laughed aloud in frantic glee, They clapped their hands and leaped about,235 Answering each other's ecstasy With many a prank and merry shout. But I sat silent and alone, Wrapped in the mock of mourning weed.
They laughed, for he was dead: but I240 Sate with a hard and tearless eye, And with a heart which would deny The secret joy it could not quell, Low muttering o'er his loathed name; Till from that self-contention came245 Remorse where sin was none; a hell Which in pure spirits should not dwell.
I'll tell thee truth. He was a man Hard, selfish, loving only gold, Yet full of guile: his pale eyes ran250 With tears, which each some falsehood told, And oft his smooth and bridled tongue Would give the lie to his flushing cheek: He was a coward to the strong: He was a tyrant to the weak,255 On whom his vengeance he would wreak: For scorn, whose arrows search the heart, From many a stranger's eye would dart, And on his memory cling, and follow His soul to it's home so cold and hollow.260
He was a tyrant to the weak, And we were such, alas the day! Oft, when my little ones at play, Were in youth's natural lightness gay, Or if they listened to some tale265 Of travellers, or of fairy land,— When the light from the wood-fire's dying brand Flashed on their faces,—if they heard Or thought they heard upon the stair His footstep, the suspended word270 Died on my lips: we all grew pale: The babe at my bosom was hushed with fear If it thought it heard its father near; And my two wild boys would near my knee Cling, cowed and cowering fearfully.275
I'll tell thee truth: I loved another. His name in my ear was ever ringing, His form to my brain was ever clinging? Yet if some stranger breathed that name, My lips turned white, and my heart beat fast:280 My nights were once haunted by dreams of flame, My days were dim in the shadow cast By the memory of the same! Day and night, day and night, He was my breath and life and light,285 For three short years, which soon were past. On the fourth, my gentle mother Led me to the shrine, to be His sworn bride eternally.
And now we stood on the altar stair,290 When my father came from a distant land, And with a loud and fearful cry Rushed between us suddenly. I saw the stream of his thin grey hair, I saw his lean and lifted hand,295 And heard his words,—and live! Oh God! Wherefore do I live?—'Hold, hold!' He cried,—'I tell thee 'tis her brother! Thy mother, boy, beneath the sod Of yon church-yard rests in her shroud so cold:300 I am now weak, and pale, and old: We were once dear to one another, I and that corpse! Thou art our child!' Then with a laugh both long and wild The youth upon the pavement fell:305 They found him dead! All looked on me, The spasms of my despair to see: But I was calm. I went away: I was clammy-cold like clay! I did not weep: I did not speak:310 But day by day, week after week, I walked about like a corpse alive! Alas! sweet friend, you must believe This heart is stone: it did not break.
My father lived a little while,315 But all might see that he was dying, He smiled with such a woful smile! When he was in the church-yard lying Among the worms, we grew quite poor, So that no one would give us bread:320
My mother looked at me, and said Faint words of cheer, which only meant That she could die and be content; So I went forth from the same church door To another husband's bed.325 And this was he who died at last, When weeks and months and years had past, Through which I firmly did fulfil My duties, a devoted wife, With the stern step of vanquished will,330 Walking beneath the night of life, Whose hours extinguished, like slow rain Falling for ever, pain by pain, The very hope of death's dear rest; Which, since the heart within my breast335 Of natural life was dispossest, It's strange sustainer there had been.
When flowers were dead, and grass was green Upon my mother's grave,—that mother Whom to outlive, and cheer, and make340 My wan eyes glitter for her sake, Was my vowed task, the single care Which once gave life to my despair,— When she was a thing that did not stir And the crawling worms were cradling her345 To a sleep more deep and so more sweet Than a baby's rocked on its nurse's knee, I lived: a living pulse then beat Beneath my heart that awakened me. What was this pulse so warm and free?350 Alas! I knew it could not be My own dull blood: 'twas like a thought Of liquid love, that spread and wrought Under my bosom and in my brain,
And crept with the blood through every vein;255 And hour by hour, day after day, The wonder could not charm away, But laid in sleep, my wakeful pain, Until I knew it was a child, And then I wept. For long, long years260 These frozen eyes had shed no tears: But now—'twas the season fair and mild When April has wept itself to May: I sate through the sweet sunny day By my window bowered round with leaves,265 And down my cheeks the quick tears ran Like twinkling rain-drops from the eaves, When warm spring showers are passing o'er Helen, none can ever tell The joy it was to weep once more!270
I wept to think how hard it were To kill my babe, and take from it The sense of light, and the warm air, And my own fond and tender care, And love and smiles; ere I knew yet275 That these for it might, as for me, Be the masks of a grinning mockery. And haply, I would dream, 'twere sweet To feed it from my faded breast, Or mark my own heart's restless beat280 Rock it to its untroubled rest, And watch the growing soul beneath Dawn in faint smiles; and hear its breath, Half interrupted by calm sighs,
And search the depth of its fair eyes385 For long departed memories! And so I lived till that sweet load Was lightened. Darkly forward flowed The stream of years, and on it bore Two shapes of gladness to my sight;390 Two other babes, delightful more In my lost soul's abandoned night, Than their own country ships may be Sailing towards wrecked mariners, Who cling to the rock of a wintry sea.395 For each, as it came, brought soothing tears, And a loosening warmth, as each one lay Sucking the sullen milk away About my frozen heart, did play, And weaned it, oh how painfully!—400 As they themselves were weaned each one From that sweet food,—even from the thirst Of death, and nothingness, and rest, Strange inmate of a living breast! Which all that I had undergone405 Of grief and shame, since she, who first The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sight, and almost burst The seal of that Lethean spring; But these fair shadows interposed:410
For all delights are shadows now! And from my brain to my dull brow The heavy tears gather and flow: I cannot speak: Oh let me weep!
The tears which fell from her wan eyes415 Glimmered among the moonlight dew: Her deep hard sobs and heavy sighs Their echoes in the darkness threw. When she grew calm, she thus did keep The tenor of her tale:
He died:420 I know not how: he was not old, If age be numbered by its years: But he was bowed and bent with fears, Pale with the quenchless thirst of gold, Which, like fierce fever, left him weak;425 And his strait lip and bloated cheek Were warped in spasms by hollow sneers; And selfish cares with barren plough, Not age, had lined his narrow brow, And foul and cruel thoughts, which feed430 Upon the withering life within, Like vipers on some poisonous weed. Whether his ill were death or sin None knew, until he died indeed,
And then men owned they were the same.435 Seven days within my chamber lay That corse, and my babes made holiday: At last, I told them what is death: The eldest, with a kind of shame, Came to my knees with silent breath,440 And sate awe-stricken at my feet; And soon the others left their play, And sate there too. It is unmeet To shed on the brief flower of youth The withering knowledge of the grave;445 From me remorse then wrung that truth. I could not bear the joy which gave Too just a response to mine own. In vain. I dared not feign a groan; And in their artless looks I saw,450 Between the mists of fear and awe, That my own thought was theirs; and they Expressed it not in words, but said, Each in its heart, how every day Will pass in happy work and play,455 Now he is dead and gone away.
After the funeral all our kin Assembled, and the will was read. My friend, I tell thee, even the dead Have strength, their putrid shrouds within,460 To blast and torture. Those who live Still fear the living, but a corse Is merciless, and Power doth give To such pale tyrants half the spoil He rends from those who groan and toil,465 Because they blush not with remorse
Among their crawling worms. Behold, I have no child! my tale grows old With grief, and staggers: let it reach The limits of my feeble speech,470 And languidly at length recline On the brink of its own grave and mine.
Thou knowest what a thing is Poverty Among the fallen on evil days: 'Tis Crime, and Fear, and Infamy,475 And houseless Want in frozen ways Wandering ungarmented, and Pain, And, worse than all, that inward stain Foul Self-contempt, which drowns in sneers Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears480 First like hot gall, then dry for ever! And well thou knowest a mother never Could doom her children to this ill, And well he knew the same. The will Imported, that if e'er again485 I sought my children to behold, Or in my birth-place did remain Beyond three days, whose hours were told, They should inherit nought: and he, To whom next came their patrimony,490 A sallow lawyer, cruel and cold, Aye watched me, as the will was read, With eyes askance, which sought to see The secrets of my agony; And with close lips and anxious brow495 Stood canvassing still to and fro The chance of my resolve, and all The dead man's caution just did call; For in that killing lie 'twas said— "She is adulterous, and doth hold500
In secret that the Christian creed Is false, and therefore is much need That I should have a care to save My children from eternal ﬁre." Friend, he was sheltered by the grave,505 And therefore dared to be a liar! In truth, the Indian on the pyre Of her dead husband, half consumed, As well might there be false, as I To those abhorred embraces doomed,510 Far worse than fire's brief agony. As to the Christian creed, if true Or false, I never questioned it: I took it as the vulgar do: Nor my vext soul had leisure yet515 To doubt the things men say, or deem That they are other than they seem.
All present who those crimes did hear, In feigned or actual scorn and fear, Men, women, children, slunk away,520 Whispering with self-contented pride, Which half suspects its own base lie. I spoke to none, nor did abide, But silently I went my way, Nor noticed I where joyously525 Sate my two younger babes at play, In the court-yard through which I past; But went with footsteps firm and fast Till I came to the brink of the ocean green, And there, a woman with grey hairs,530 Who had my mother's servant been, Kneeling, with many tears and prayers, Made me accept a purse of gold, Half of the earnings she had kept
To refuge her when weak and old.535 With woe, which never sleeps or slept, I wander now. 'Tis a vain thought— But on yon alp, whose snowy head 'Mid the azure air is islanded, (We see it o'er the flood of cloud,540 Which sunrise from its eastern caves Drives, wrinkling into golden waves, Hung with its precipices proud, From that grey stone where first we met) There, now who knows the dead feel nought?545 Should be my grave; for he who yet Is my soul's soul, once said: "'Twere sweet 'Mid stars and lightnings to abide, And winds and lulling snows, that beat With their soft flakes the mountain wide,550 When weary meteor lamps repose, And languid storms their pinions close: And all things strong and bright and pure, And ever during, aye endure: Who knows, if one were buried there,555 But these things might our spirits make, Amid the all-surrounding air, Their own eternity partake?" Then 'twas a wild and playful saying At which I laughed, or seemed to laugh:560 They were his words: now heed my praying, And let them be my epitaph. Thy memory for a term may be My monument. Wilt remember me? I know thou wilt, and canst forgive565 Whilst in this erring world to live My soul disdained not, that I thought
Its lying forms were worthy aught And much less thee.
HELEN.
O speak not so, But come to me and pour thy woe570 Into this heart, full though it be, Aye overflowing with its own: I thought that grief had severed me From all beside who weep and groan; Its likeness upon earth to be,575 Its express image; but thou art More wretched. Sweet! we will not part Henceforth, if death be not division; If so, the dead feel no contrition. But wilt thou hear, since last we parted580 All that has left me broken hearted?
ROSALIND.
Yes, speak. The faintest stars are scarcely shorn Of their thin beams by that delusive morn Which sinks again in darkness, like the light Of early love, soon lost in total night.585
HELEN.
Alas! Italian winds are mild, But my bosom is cold—wintry cold— When the warm air weaves, among the fresh leaves, Soft music, my poor brain is wild, And I am weak like a nursling child,590 Though my soul with grief is grey and old.
ROSALIND.
Weep not at thine own words, though they must make Me weep. What is thy tale?
HELEN.
I fear 'twill shake Thy gentle heart with tears. Thou well Rememberest when we met no more,595 And, though I dwelt with Lionel, That friendless caution pierced me sore With grief; a wound my spirit bore. Indignantly, but when he died With him lay dead both hope and pride.600
Alas! all hope is buried now. But then men dreamed the aged earth Was labouring in that mighty birth, Which many a poet and a sage Has aye foreseen—the happy age605 When truth and love shall dwell below Among the works and ways of men; Which on this world not power but will Even now is wanting to fulfil.
Among mankind what thence befell610 Of strife, how vain, is known too well; When liberty's dear paean fell 'Mid murderous howls. To Lionel, Though of great wealth and lineage high, Yet through those dungeon walls there came615 Thy thrilling light, O liberty! And as the meteor's midnight flame Startles the dreamer, sun-like truth Flashed on his visionary youth, And filled him, not with love, but faith,620 And hope, and courage mute in death; For love and life in him were twins, Born at one birth: in every other First life then love its course begins,
Though they be children of one mother;625 And so through this dark world they fleet Divided, till in death they meet: But he loved all things ever. Then He past amid the strife of men, And stood at the throne of armed power630 Pleading for a world of woe: Secure as one on a rock-built tower O'er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro, 'Mid the passions wild of human kind He stood, like a spirit calming them;635 For, it was said, his words could bind Like music the lulled crowd, and stem That torrent of unquiet dream, Which mortals truth and reason deem, But is revenge and fear and pride.640 Joyous he was; and hope and peace On all who heard him did abide, Raining like dew from his sweet talk, As where the evening star may walk Along the brink of the gloomy seas,645 Liquid mists of splendour quiver. His very gestures touched to tears The unpersuaded tyrant, never So moved before: his presence stung The torturers with their victim's pain,650 And none knew how; and through their ears, The subtle witchcraft of his tongue Unlocked the hearts of those who keep Gold, the world's bond of slavery.
Men wondered, and some sneered to see655 One sow what he could never reap: For he is rich, they said, and young, And might drink from the depths of luxury. If he seeks fame, fame never crowned The champion of a trampled creed:660 If he seeks power, power is enthroned 'Mid antient rights and wrongs, to feed Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil, Those who would sit near power must toil; And such, there sitting, all may see.665 What seeks he? All that others seek He casts away, like a vile weed Which the sea casts unreturningly. That poor and hungry men should break The laws which wreak them toil and scorn,670 We understand; but Lionel We know is rich and nobly born. So wondered they: yet all men loved Young Lionel, though few approved; All but the priests, whose hatred fell675 Like the unseen blight of a smiling day, The withering honey dew, which clings Under the bright green buds of May, Whilst they unfold their emerald wings: For he made verses wild and queer680 On the strange creeds priests hold so dear, Because they bring them land and gold. Of devils and saints and all such gear, He made tales which whoso heard or read Would laugh till he were almost dead.685 So this grew a proverb: "don't get old Till Lionel's 'banquet in hell' you hear, And then you will laugh yourself young again." So the priests hated him, and he
Repaid their hate with cheerful glee.690
Ah, smiles and joyance quickly died, For public hope grew pale and dim In an altered time and tide, And in its wasting withered him, As a summer flower that blows too soon695 Droops in the smile of the waning moon, When it scatters through an April night The frozen dews of wrinkling blight. None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated Safely on her ancestral throne;700 And Faith, the Python, undefeated, Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on Her foul and wounded train, and men Were trampled and deceived again, And words and shews again could bind705 The wailing tribes of human kind In scorn and famine. Fire and blood Raged round the raging multitude, To fields remote by tyrants sent To be the scorned instrument710 With which they drag from mines of gore The chains their slaves yet ever wore: And in the streets men met each other, And by old altars and in halls, And smiled again at festivals.715 But each man found in his heart's brother Cold cheer; for all, though half deceived, The outworn creeds again believed, And the same round anew began, Which the weary world yet ever ran.720
Many then wept, not tears, but gall Within their hearts, like drops which fall
Wasting the fountain-stone away. And in that dark and evil day Did all desires and thoughts, that claim725 Men's care—ambition, friendship, fame, Love, hope, though hope was now despair— Indue the colours of this change, As from the all-surrounding air The earth takes hues obscure and strange,730 When storm and earthquake linger there.
And so, my friend, it then befell To many, most to Lionel, Whose hope was like the life of youth Within him, and when dead, became735 A spirit of unresting flame, Which goaded him in his distress Over the world's vast wilderness. Three years he left his native land, And on the fourth, when he returned,740 None knew him: he was stricken deep With some disease of mind, and turned Into aught unlike Lionel. On him, on whom, did he pause in sleep, Serenest smiles were wont to keep,745 And, did he wake, a winged band Of bright persuasions, which had fed On his sweet lips and liquid eyes, Kept their swift pinions half outspread, To do on men his least command;750
On him, whom once 'twas paradise Even to behold, now misery lay: In his own heart 'twas merciless, To all things else none may express Its innocence and tenderness.755
'Twas said that he had refuge sought In love from his unquiet thought In distant lands, and been deceived By some strange shew; for there were found, Blotted with tears as those relieved760 By their own words are wont to do, These mournful verses on the ground, By all who read them blotted too.
"How am I changed! my hopes were once like fire: I loved, and I believed that life was love.765 How am I lost! on wings of swift desire Among Heaven's winds my spirit once did move. I slept, and silver dreams did aye inspire My liquid sleep: I woke, and did approve All nature to my heart, and thought to make770 A paradise of earth for one sweet sake.
"I love, but I believe in love no more. I feel desire, but hope not. O, from sleep Most vainly must my weary brain implore Its long lost flattery now: I wake to weep,775 And sit through the long day gnawing the core Of my bitter heart, and, like a miser, keep, Since none in what I feel take pain or pleasure, To my own soul its self-consuming treasure."
He dwelt beside me near the sea:780 And oft in evening did we meet,
When the waves, beneath the starlight, flee O'er the yellow sands with silver feet, And talked: our talk was sad and sweet, Till slowly from his mien there passed785 The desolation which it spoke; And smiles,—as when the lightning's blast Has parched some heaven-delighting oak, The next spring shews leaves pale and rare, But like flowers delicate and fair,790 On its rent boughs,—again arrayed His countenance in tender light: His words grew subtile fire, which made The air his hearers breathed delight: His motions, like the winds, were free,795 Which bend the bright grass gracefully, Then fade away in circlets faint: And winged hope, on which upborne His soul seemed hovering in his eyes, Like some bright spirit newly born800 Floating amid the sunny skies, Sprang forth from his rent heart anew. Yet o'er his talk, and looks, and mien, Tempering their loveliness too keen, Past woe its shadow backward threw,805 Till like an exhalation, spread From flowers half drunk with evening dew, They did become infectious: sweet And subtile mists of sense and thought: Which wrapt us soon, when we might meet,810 Almost from our own looks and aught The wide world holds. And so, his mind Was healed, while mine grew sick with fear: For ever now his health declined, Like some frail bark which cannot bear815 The impulse of an altered wind,
Though prosperous: and my heart grew full 'Mid its new joy of a new care: For his cheek became, not pale, but fair, As rose-o'ershadowed lilies are;820 And soon his deep and sunny hair, In this alone less beautiful, Like grass in tombs grew wild and rare. The blood in his translucent veins Beat, not like animal life, but love825 Seemed now its sullen springs to move, When life had failed, and all its pains: And sudden sleep would seize him oft Like death, so calm, but that a tear, His pointed eye-lashes between,830 Would gather in the light serene Of smiles, whose lustre bright and soft Beneath lay undulating there. His breath was like inconstant flame, As eagerly it went and came;835 And I hung o'er him in his sleep, Till, like an image in the lake Which rains disturb, my tears would break The shadow of that slumber deep: Then he would bid me not to weep,840 And say with flattery false, yet sweet, That death and he could never meet, If I would never part with him. And so we loved, and did unite All that in us was yet divided:845 For when he said, that many a rite, By men to bind but once provided, Could not be shared by him and me, Or they would kill him in their glee, I shuddered, and then laughing said—850 "We will have rites our faith to bind,
But our church shall be the starry night, Our altar the grassy earth outspread, And our priest the muttering wind."
'Twas sunset as I spoke: one star855 Had scarce burst forth, when from afar The ministers of misrule sent, Seized upon Lionel, and bore His chained limbs to a dreary tower, In the midst of a city vast and wide.860 For he, they said, from his mind had bent Against their gods keen blasphemy, For which, though his soul must roasted be In hell's red lakes immortally, Yet even on earth must he abide865 The vengeance of their slaves: a trial, I think, men call it. What avail Are prayers and tears, which chase denial From the fierce savage, nursed in hate? What the knit soul that pleading and pale870 Makes wan the quivering cheek, which late It painted with its own delight? We were divided. As I could, I stilled the tingling of my blood, And followed him in their despite,875 As a widow follows, pale and wild, The murderers and corse of her only child; And when we came to the prison door And I prayed to share his dungeon floor With prayers which rarely have been spurned.880 And when men drove me forth and I Stared with blank frenzy on the sky, A farewell look of love he turned, Half calming me; then gazed awhile, As if thro' that black and massy pile,885
And thro' the crowd around him there, And thro' the dense and murky air, And the thronged streets, he did espy What poets know and prophesy; And said, with voice that made them shiver890 And clung like music in my brain, And which the mute walls spoke again Prolonging it with deepened strain: "Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever, Or the priests of the bloody faith;895 They stand on the brink of that mighty river, Whose waves they have tainted with death: It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells, Around them it foams, and rages, and swells, And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,900 Like wrecks in the surge of eternity."
I dwelt beside the prison gate, And the strange crowd that out and in Passed, some, no doubt, with mine own fate, Might have fretted me with its ceaseless din,905 But the fever of care was louder within. Soon, but too late, in penitence Or fear, his foes released him thence: I saw his thin and languid form, As leaning on the jailor's arm,910 Whose hardened eyes grew moist the while, To meet his mute and faded smile, And hear his words of kind farewell, He tottered forth from his damp cell.
Many had never wept before,915 From whom fast tears then gushed and fell: Many will relent no more, Who sobbed like infants then: aye, all Who thronged the prison's stony hall, The rulers or the slaves of law,920 Felt with a new surprise and awe That they were human, till strong shame Made them again become the same. The prison blood-hounds, huge and grim, From human looks the infection caught,925 And fondly crouched and fawned on him; And men have heard the prisoners say, Who in their rotting dungeons lay, That from that hour, throughout one day, The fierce despair and hate which kept930 Their trampled bosoms almost slept: When, like twin vultures, they hung feeding On each heart's wound, wide torn and bleeding, Because their jailors' rule, they thought, Grew merciful, like a parent's sway.935
I know not how, but we were free: And Lionel sate alone with me, As the carriage drove thro' the streets apace; And we looked upon each other's face; And the blood in our fingers intertwined940 Ran like the thoughts of a single mind, As the swift emotions went and came Thro' the veins of each united frame. So thro' the long long streets we past Of the million-peopled City vast;945 Which is that desart, where each one
Seeks his mate yet is alone, Beloved and sought and mourned of none; Until the clear blue sky was seen, And the grassy meadows bright and green,950 And then I sunk in his embrace, Enclosing there a mighty space Of love: and so we travelled on By woods, and fields of yellow flowers, And towns, and villages, and towers,955 Day after day of happy hours. It was the azure time of June, When the skies are deep in the stainless noon, And the warm and fitful breezes shake The fresh green leaves of the hedge-row briar.960 And there were odours then to make The very breath we did respire A liquid element, whereon Our spirits, like delighted things That walk the air on subtle wings,965 Floated and mingled far away, 'Mid the warm winds of the sunny day. And when the evening star came forth Above the curve of the new bent moon, And light and sound ebbed from the earth,970 Like the tide of the full and weary sea To the depths of its tranquillity, Our natures to its own repose Did the earth's breathless sleep attune: Like flowers, which on each other close975 Their languid leaves when day-light's gone, We lay, till new emotions came, Which seemed to make each mortal frame One soul of interwoven flame, A life in life, a second birth980 In worlds diviner far than earth, Which, like two strains of harmony
That mingle in the silent sky Then slowly disunite, past by And left the tenderness of tears,985 A soft oblivion of all fears, A sweet sleep: so we travelled on Till we came to the home of Lionel, Among the mountains wild and lone, Beside the hoary western sea,990 Which near the verge of the echoing shore The massy forest shadowed o'er.
The ancient steward, with hair all hoar, As we alighted, wept to see His master changed so fearfully;995 And the old man's sobs did waken me From my dream of unremaining gladness; The truth flashed o'er me like quick madness When I looked, and saw that there was death On Lionel: yet day by day1000 He lived, till fear grew hope and faith, And in my soul I dared to say, Nothing so bright can pass away: Death is dark, and foul, and dull, But he is—O how beautiful!1005 Yet day by day he grew more weak, And his sweet voice, when he might speak, Which ne'er was loud, became more low; And the light which flashed through his waxen cheek Grew faint, as the rose-like hues which flow1010 From sunset o'er the Alpine snow: And death seemed not like death in him, For the spirit of life o'er every limb Lingered, a mist of sense and thought. When the summer wind faint odours brought1015 From mountain flowers, even as it passed
His cheek would change, as the noon-day sea Which the dying breeze sweeps fitfully. If but a cloud the sky o'ercast, You might see his colour come and go,1020 And the softest strain of music made Sweet smiles, yet sad, arise and fade Amid the dew of his tender eyes; And the breath, with intermitting flow, Made his pale lips quiver and part.1025 You might hear the beatings of his heart, Quick, but not strong; and with my tresses When oft he playfully would bind In the bowers of mossy lonelinesses His neck, and win me so to mingle1030 In the sweet depth of woven caresses, And our faint limbs were intertwined, Alas! the unquiet life did tingle From mine own heart through every vein, Like a captive in dreams of liberty,1035 Who beats the walls of his stony cell. But his, it seemed already free, Like the shadow of fire surrounding me! On my faint eyes and limbs did dwell That spirit as it passed, till soon,1040 As a frail cloud wandering o'er the moon, Beneath its light invisible, Is seen when it folds its grey wings again To alight on midnight's dusky plain, I lived and saw, and the gathering soul1045 Passed from beneath that strong controul, And I fell on a life which was sick with fear Of all the woe that now I bear.
Amid a bloomless myrtle wood, On a green and sea-girt promontory,1050
Not far from where we dwelt, there stood In record of a sweet sad story, An altar and a temple bright Circled by steps, and o'er the gate Was sculptured, "To Fidelity;"1055 And in the shrine an image sate, All veiled: but there was seen the light Of smiles, which faintly could express A mingled pain and tenderness Through that ethereal drapery.1060 The left hand held the head, the right— Beyond the veil, beneath the skin, You might see the nerves quivering within— Was forcing the point of a barbed dart Into its side-convulsing heart.1065 An unskilled hand, yet one informed With genius, had the marble warmed With that pathetic life. This tale It told: A dog had from the sea, When the tide was raging fearfully,1070 Dragged Lionel's mother, weak and pale, Then died beside her on the sand, And she that temple thence had planned; But it was Lionel's own hand Had wrought the image. Each new moon1075 That lady did, in this lone fane, The rites of a religion sweet, Whose god was in her heart and brain: The seasons' loveliest flowers were strewn On the marble floor beneath her feet,1080 And she brought crowns of sea-buds white, Whose odour is so sweet and faint, And weeds, like branching chrysolite, Woven in devices fine and quaint,
And tears from her brown eyes did stain1085 The altar: need but look upon That dying statue, fair and wan, If tears should cease, to weep again: And rare Arabian odours came, Though the myrtle copses steaming thence1090 From the hissing frankincense, Whose smoke, wool-white as ocean foam, Hung in dense flocks beneath the dome, That ivory dome, whose azure night With golden stars, like heaven, was bright1095 O'er the split cedar's pointed flame; And the lady's harp would kindle there The melody of an old air, Softer than sleep; the villagers Mixt their religion up with her's,1100 And as they listened round, shed tears.
One eve he led me to this fane: Daylight on its last purple cloud Was lingering grey, and soon her strain The nightingale began; now loud,1105 Climbing in circles the windless sky, Now dying music; suddenly 'Tis scattered in a thousand notes, And now to the hushed ear it floats Like field smells known in infancy,1110 Then failing, soothes the air again. We sate within that temple lone, Pavilioned round with Parian stone: His mother's harp stood near, and oft I had awakened music soft1115 Amid its wires: the nightingale Was pausing in her heaven-taught tale:
"Now drain the cup," said Lionel, "Which the poet-bird has crowned so well With the wine of her bright and liquid song!1120 Heardst thou not sweet words among That heaven-resounding minstrelsy? Heardst thou not, that those who die Awake in a world of ecstasy? That love, when limbs are interwoven,1125 And sleep, when the night of life is cloven, And thought, to the world's dim boundaries clinging, And music, when one beloved is singing, Is death? Let us drain right joyously The cup which the sweet bird fills for me."1130 He paused, and to my lips he bent His own: like spirit his words went Through all my limbs with the speed of fire; And his keen eyes, glittering through mine, Filled me with the flame divine,1135 Which in their orbs was burning far, Like the light of an unmeasured star, In the sky of midnight dark and deep: Yes, 'twas his soul that did inspire Sounds, which my skill could ne'er awaken;1140 And first, I felt my fingers sweep The harp, and a long quivering cry Burst from my lips in symphony: The dusk and solid air was shaken, As swift and swifter the notes came1145 From my touch, that wandered like quick flame, And from my bosom, labouring With some unutterable thing: The awful sound of my own voice made My faint lips tremble, in some mood1150 Of wordless thought Lionel stood
So pale, that even beside his cheek The snowy column from its shade Caught whiteness: yet his countenance Raised upward, burned with radiance1155 Of spirit-piercing joy, whose light, Like the moon struggling through the night Of whirlwind-rifted clouds, did break With beams that might not be confined. I paused, but soon his gestures kindled1160 New power, as by the moving wind The waves are lifted, and my song To low soft notes now changed and dwindled, And from the twinkling wires among, My languid fingers drew and flung1165 Circles of life-dissolving sound, Yet faint: in aery rings they bound My Lionel, who, as every strain Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien Sunk with the sound relaxedly;1170 And slowly now he turned to me, As slowly faded from his face That awful joy: with looks serene He was soon drawn to my embrace, And my wild song then died away1175 In murmurs: words I dare not say We mixed, and on his lips mine fed Till they methought felt still and cold: "What is it with thee, love?" I said:
No word, no look, no motion! yes,1180 There was a change, but spare to guess, Nor let that moment's hope be told. I looked, and knew that he was dead, And fell, as the eagle on the plain Falls when life deserts her brain,1185 And the mortal lightning is veiled again.
O that I were now dead! but such (Did they not, love, demand too much Those dying murmurs?) he forbade. O that I once again were mad!1190 And yet, dear Rosalind, not so, For I would live to share thy woe. Sweet boy, did I forget thee too? Alas, we know not what we do When we speak words.
No memory more1195 Is in my mind of that sea shore. Madness came on me, and a troop Of misty shapes did seem to sit Beside me, on a vessel's poop. And the clear north wind was driving it.1200 Then I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers, And the stars methought grew unlike ours, And the azure sky and the stormless sea Made me believe that I had died, And waked in a world, which was to me1205 Drear hell, though heaven to all beside: Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,
Whilst animal life many long years Had rescued from a chasm of tears; And when I woke, I wept to find1210 That the same lady, bright and wise, With silver locks and quick brown eyes, The mother of my Lionel, Had tended me in my distress, And died some months before. Nor less1215 Wonder, but far more peace and joy Brought in that hour my lovely boy; For through that trance my soul had well The impress of thy being kept; And if I waked, or if I slept,1220 No doubt, though memory faithless be, Thy image ever dwelt on me; And thus, O Lionel, like thee Is our sweet child. 'Tis sure most strange I knew not of so great a change,1225 As that which gave him birth, who now Is all the solace of my woe.
That Lionel great wealth had left By will to me, and that of all The ready lies of law bereft,1230
My child and me, might well befall. But let me think not of the scorn, Which from the meanest I have borne, When, for my child's beloved sake, I mixed with slaves, to vindicate1235 The very laws themselves do make: Let me not say scorn is my fate, Lest I be proud, suffering the same With those who live in deathless fame.1239
She ceased.—"Lo, where red morning thro' the woods Is burning o'er the dew;" said Rosalind. And with these words they rose, and towards the flood Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves now wind With equal steps and fingers intertwined: Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore1245 Is shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses Cleave with their dark green cones the. silent skies, And with their shadows the clear depths below, And where a little terrace from its bowers, Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon-flowers,1250 Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o'er The liquid marble of the windless lake; And where the aged forest's limbs look hoar, Under the leaves which their green garments make, They come: 'tis Helen's home, and clean and white,1255 Like one which tyrants spare on our own land
In some such solitude, its casements bright Shone thro' their vine-leaves in the morning sun, And even within 'twas scarce like Italy. And when she saw how all things there were planned,1260 As in an English home, dim memory Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one Whose mind is where his body cannot be, Till Helen led her where her child yet slept, And said," Observe, that brow was Lionel's,1265 Those lips were his, and so he ever kept One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it. You cannot see his eyes, they are two wells Of liquid love: let us not wake him yet." But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept1270 A shower of burning tears, which fell upon His face, and so his opening lashes shone With tears unlike his own, as he did leap In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.
So Rosalind and Helen lived together1275 Thenceforth, changed in all else, yet friends again, Such as they were, when o'er the mountain heather They wandered in their youth, through sun and rain. And after many years, for human things Change even like the ocean and the wind,1280 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 shed1285 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 saw1290
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 remains1295 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,1300 Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun, The last, when it had sunk; and thro' the night The charioteers of Arctos wheeled round Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home, Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,1305 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 bloom1310 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.1315 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.
* ↑ Mr. Rossetti is doubtless right in thinking thee a misprint for there; and I adopt this fearlessly as one of the corrections Shelley would have made for a "second edition." The sound so painful to Helen is of course "the murmur of the lake," reminding her of the wash of the waves round the fane where Lionel had died: see line 1049, p. 44, et seq.
* ↑ This word is printed followed by Mr. Rosetti, though he does not make any profession of supposing that Shelley wrote it so.
* ↑ In Shelley’s edition, can'st.
* ↑ The consistency of this with other statements is not a matter of much importance; but Rosalind does not keep her promise (line 248, p. 19) of telling the truth; for further on she says she went straight away on hearing the will (line 523 et seq., p. 28),—an inaccuracy probably incidental to the interruption of the work. See note 1, p. 5.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition, ecstacy.
* ↑ So in all authoritative editions from Shelley's onwards; but whether sat was used here, and sate throughout the poem elsewhere, advisedly, it is bootless to guess. It certainly sounds better in this particular place; but I think it often would, where sate is used.
* ↑ In Shelley's and Mrs. Shelley's editions, there is a comma at cast.
* ↑ Mr. Rossetti reads In, and suggests "printer's error" as the explanation of On. I think on is the preposition of Shelley's choice, and that he meant to make use of an elliptical construction,—"On the dawn or coming of the fourth." In would be very vague; and I do not see that it has any but a pedagogic advantage over on, if even it has that.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition there are unmeaning inverted commas before this word, and none elsewhere to correspond with them,—possibly the printer's interpretation of some mark meant to indicate a new paragraph.
* ↑ Mr. Rossetti prints fell for ran, so as to get a rhyme for tell. It is certainly more correct to say tears run down the cheeks than fall down the cheeks; and the alteration is very insecure. It should be noted that the ensuing simile is somewhat loose, inasmuch as rain-drops from the eaves do not either fall down anything or run down anything, but through the air.
* ↑ There is probably either corruption in the line "which all that I had undergone," or a hiatus after "The seal of that Lethean spring." If the latter, then the incompleted sense is that each child, as it came, weaned Rosalind from the thirst of death,—that the ﬁrst child not only closed the gate through which the mother looked towards "that dark refuge," but also almost burst the seal of the fountain of forgetfulness,—that then came fresh grief and shame, reimposing (but this is where the sense is incomplete) the thirst of death, to slake which "these fair shadows" (the remembered other children) interposed. It is conceivable, however, that there is neither corruption nor hiatus, but just that simple measure of laxity which Shelley allowed himself in this, perhaps the laxest of his mature poems in regard to diction and metre. If that be so, then he uses the word interposed in a strained and transitive sense; and the meaning would be "all that I had undergone since the birth of my ﬁrst child only admitted an interchange of places between the thirst of death and these fair shadows,"—but being then used in the sense of only, alone. It is, however, likely enough that this is one of the passages in which we are to look for those "errors in the sense" referred to in the letter to Mr. Ollier (see page 2). If it be so, I should suspect the word which in line 405, and the word and in line 408: among the commonest printer's errors are which for while, and and for had; and, assuming those in this case, we get clear sense enough: While all that I had undergone Of grief and shame, since she, who ﬁrst The gates of that dark refuge closed, Came to my sight, had almost burst, &c. Each new child, that is to say, weaned her from the thirst of death, while her sufferings, since the birth of the ﬁrst, had almost burst the seal which that ﬁrst had put upon the "Lethean spring" of death.
* ↑ Mis-spelt awe-striken in the original edition.
* ↑ Power is spelt with a small p in Shelley's edition.
* ↑ This question is of course parenthetic, the main position being "There [that is to say, "on yon alp"] should be my grave."
* ↑ In Shelley's edition gray in this instance, though elsewhere grey.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition, befel, as at p. 35.
* ↑ It has been suggested, in order to get a kind of rhyme where none exists, that this line should be printed With their victims' pain the torturers. It would be very hazardous to print it so without manuscript authority; and it is quite open to question whether Shelley would have preferred inversion and a bad rhyme to directness and no rhyme, if he had had to make deliberate choice, in this or any other particular case.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition we have again befel instead of befell, as at p. 31.
* ↑ The whole construction of this sentence, from Three years, is very loose; but I do not think there is any corruption. It is of course meant, not that he went away three times in as many years, but for three years. "On the fourth, when he returned," I take to be elliptical for "On his return at the dawn or beginning of the fourth." Mr. Rossetti substitutes in for on. See note 2, p. 20.
* ↑ In Shelley’s edition, striken, as at p. 26.
* ↑ Mr. Rossetti suggests the substitution of weighed for lay.
* ↑ In Shelley’s edition prophecy.
* ↑ This stanza occurs with some slight variations in the poem to William Shelley, written when Shelley feared the Lord Chancellor might seek to deprive him of that child also, after having taken away Charles and Ianthe. The variations are will for shall in line 894, evil for bloody in line 895, raging for mighty in line 896, depth for depths in line 898; and line 899 has no commas in it in that version. In Shelley's edition there is a comma after Fear not, which Mrs. Shelley rightly omits both from Rosalind and Helen and from the poem to William.
* ↑ There is a colon at slept in Shelley's edition, which is clearly wrong; and I doubt whether we should not read Where for When in line 932.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition, chrysolyte.
* ↑ In Shelley's edition, cedars.
* ↑ Spelt extacy in Shelley's edition.
* ↑ No hyphen in Shelley's edition.
* ↑ Mr. Rossetti omits who, puts a full point after Lionel, commences a fresh sentence with As, and accuses Shelley of using bad English, in terms which I prefer not to quote. Mr. Swinburne rebuts the charge on the ground that the construction, though licentious, is used by elder classical writers. But it is open to question whether mien, is nominative or accusative. Shelley may have meant to express that Lionel "sunk his mien," though it is more probable that the construction intended is that "Lionel's mien sunk."
* ↑ In the original the sense is subverted by the comma being at words instead of say.
* ↑ In these three lines I have adopted Mr. Rossetti's punctuation, which rescues from ruin a passage where there is unmistakeable "error in the sense." In Shelley's edition the lines stand thus:— O that I were now dead! but such Did they not, love, demand too much Those dying murmurs? He forbade.
* ↑ This is certainly another instance of misprinting involving an "error in the sense"; but there are so many possible ways of reconstructing the two faulty lines on an equally Shelley-like pattern, that I do not venture to disturb the text at all. I have no doubt that Whilst in line 1208 and Had in line 1209 are both wrong, and that the sense intended by Shelley would be conveyed by Then a dead sleep fell on my mind, Which animal life many long years Rescued from a chasm of tears; the rescue of the "animal life" being evidently subsequent to the time of hallucination, and contemporary with the "dead sleep",—because if, admitting had to be right, we make the rescue from the "chasm of tears" contemporary with the hallucination, we are met by the statement that the imaginary land of Helen's madness was "drear hell" to her, which is very much like not being rescued from a "chasm of tears." I ﬁnd the whole line, Whilst animal life many long years, bafflingly unlike Shelley; and it does not strike me as much more characteristic when we reduce it to sense by substituting Which for Whilst.
* ↑ As this passage is punctuated in Shelley's and Mrs. Shelley's editions, namely with the comma at bereft instead of me, bereft is intransitive and befall transitive, so that the sense would stand—"it might well befall my child and me that the ready lies of law bereft of all"; but the sense is doubtless—"it might well befall that the ready lies of law bereft my child and me of all."
* ↑ So in Shelley's and all authoritative editions; but Mr. Rossetti reads wood for woods, which, I have little doubt, is a safe emendation. As however the mere absence of a rhyme does not condemn a passage according to the standard of this poem, and woods is intrinsically as good as wood, I leave it as I ﬁnd it.
* ↑ Mrs. Shelley omits steep, no doubt accidentally, though, by accenting the ed of shadowed, the line still reads as a full line, without the word steep.