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TORPOR

My head is heavy, my limbs are weary,
And it is not life that makes me move.

"WAKE THE SERPENT NOT"

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WAKE the serpent not- lest he
Should not know the way to go;

Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,
Not a May-fly shall awaken,
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he's sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.

"IS NOT TO-DAY ENOUGH?"

Is not to-day enough? Why do I peer
Into the darkness of the day to come?
Is not to-morrow even as yesterday?

And will the day that follows change thy doom?

Few flowers grow upon thy wintry way;

Torpor Weariness, Dowden. Published by Garnett, 1862, dated 1820.

"Wake the Serpent not " || The Serpent, Forman. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18392, dated 1819.

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Forebodings, Dowden. Published

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to wail and wander

With short uneasy steps to pause and ponderTo feel the blood run through the veins and

tingle

Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle; To nurse the image of unfelt caresses

Till dim imagination just possesses

The half-created shadow.

LOVE

WEALTH and dominion fade into the mass

Of the great sea of human right and wrong, When once from our possession they must pass ; But love, though misdirected, is among The things which are immortal, and surpass All that frail stuff which will be

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or which

was.

To thirst and find no Fill" || Unsatisfied Desires, Forman. Unsatisfied Desire, Dowden. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391,

dated 1817.

7 half-created self-created, Rossetti conj.

Love Wealth and Love, Forman; Love Immortal, Dowden. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391, dated 1817.

MUSIC

I PANT for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

II

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, oh, more, I am thirsting yet;
It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it;

The dissolving strain through every vein
Passes into my heart and brain.

III

As the scent of a violet withered up,

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake, When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,

And mist there was none its thirst to slake And the violet lay dead while the odor flew On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue —

IV

As one who drinks from a charmed cup

Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine,

Music. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. dated 1821.

Whom, a mighty enchantress filling up,
Invites to love with her kiss divine

TO ONE SINGING

My spirit like a charmèd bark doth swim
Upon the liquid waves of thy sweet singing,
Far away into the regions dim

Of rapture as a boat, with swift sails winging Its way adown some many-winding river.

TO MUSIC

SILVER key of the fountain of tears,

Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild; Softest grave of a thousand fears,

Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child, Is laid asleep in flowers.

TO MUSIC

No, Music, thou art not the "food of Love,"
Unless Love feeds upon its own sweet self,
Till it becomes all Music murmurs of.

To One singing, Forman. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391, dated 1817.

To Music, Forman. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391, dated 1817.

To Music, Forman. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 18391, dated 1817.

1 food, Forman || God, Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

"I FAINT, I PERISH WITH MY LOVE!"

I FAINT, I perish with my love! I grow
Frail as a cloud whose [splendors] pale
Under the evening's ever-changing glow;
I die like mist upon the gale,

And like a wave under the calm I fail.

TO SILENCE

SILENCE! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou

Three brethren named, the guardians gloomywinged

Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy

Are swallowed up yet spare me, Spirit, pity

me,

Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air

This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some

“I faint, I perish with my love." Published by Rossetti, 1870,

dated 1821.

To Silence, Forman || Appeal to Silence, Dowden. Published by Garnett, 1862, dated 1818.

4 0 Spirit, Mrs. Shelley, Clarke transcript.

8 These wandering melodies. . . Mrs. Shelley, Clarke transcript.

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