They found Ginevra dead! if it be death To lie without motion, or pulse, or breath, With waxen cheeks, and limbs cold, stiff, and white,

And open eyes, whose fixed and glassy light

Mocked at the speculation they had owned;
If it be death, when there is felt around 150
A smell of clay, a pale and icy glare,
And silence, and a sense that lifts the hair
From the scalp to the ankles, as it were
Corruption from the spirit passing forth,
And giving all it shrouded to the earth,
And leaving as swift lightning in its flight
Ashes, and smoke, and darkness: in our
night

Of thought we know thus much of death,

THE BOAT ON THE SERCHIO

Date, 1821. Published in part by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and the remainder by Rossetti, 1870. Medwin furnishes the note: 'I have heard Shelley often speak with rapture of the excursions they [Shelley and Williams] made together. The canal fed by the Serchio, of the clearest water, is so rapid that they were obliged to tow the boat up against the current; but the swift descent, through green banks enamelled with flowers and overhung with trees that mirrored themselves on its glassy surface, gave him a wonderful delight. He has left a record of these trips in a poem entitled The Boat on the Serchio, and calls Williams and himself Melchior and Lionel.'

About yon poplar tops; and see!
The white clouds are driving merrily,
And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.
How it whistles, "Dominic's long black
hair!

List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
Hear how it sings into the air.”

- of us and of our lazy motions,' Impatiently said Melchior,

'If I can guess a boat's emotions;

And how we ought, two hours before, To have been the devil knows where,'

60

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, The living breath is fresh behind,

As with dews and sunrise fed

Comes the laughing morning wind. The sails are full, the boat makes head Against the Serchio's torrent fierce, Then flags with intermitting course,

And hangs upon the wave, and stems
The tempest of the

Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come,
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea;

In morning's smile its eddies coil,
Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil,
Torturing all its quiet light
Into columns fierce and bright.

90

100

or passion, entitled Charles the First. So vanity intoxicates people; but let those few who praise my verses, and in whose approbation I take so much delight, answer for the sin.'

Later, he wrote to Ollier: 'I doubt about Charles the First; but, if I do write it, it shall be the birth of severe and high feelings. You are very welcome to it, on the terms you mention, and, when once I see and feel that I can write it, it is already written. My thoughts aspire to a production of a far higher character; but the execution of it will require some years. I write what I write chiefly to enquire, by the reception which my writings meet with, how far I am fit for so great a task, or not.'

By the summer of 1821 he had done some shaping-out thought on it, and in September wrote again to Ollier: Charles the First is conceived, but not born. Unless I am sure of making something good, the play will not be written. Pride, that ruined Satan, will kill Charles the First, for his midwife would be only less than him whom thunder has made greater. I am full of great plans; and if I should tell you them, I should add to the list of these riddles.'

He

He began seriously upon it about January 1, 1822, and wrote to Ollier it would be ready by spring, saying that it 'promises to be good, as tragedies go, and that it is not colored by the party-spirit of the author;' to Hunt he confided his hope that it would hold a higher rank than The Cenci as a work of art.' apparently soon discontinued the work, and in answer to Hunt wrote, in March: 'So you think I can make nothing of Charles the First. Tanto peggio. Indeed, I have written nothing for this last two months: a slight circumstance gave a new train to my ideas, and shattered the fragile edifice when half built. What motives have I to write? I had motives, and I thank the God of my own heart they were totally different from those of the other apes of humanity who make mouths in the glass of the time. But what are those motives now? The only inspiration of an ordinary kind I could descend to acknowledge would be the earning £100 for you; and that it seems I cannot.' In the same strain he wrote in April to Gisborne : 'I have done some of Charles the First; but although the poetry succeeded very well, I cannot seize on the conception of the subject as a whole, and seldom now touch the canvas;' and again, in June: 'I write little now. It is impossible to compose except under the strong excitement of an assurance of finding sympathy in what you write. Imagine Demosthenes reciting a Philippic to the waves of the Atlantic. Lord Byron is in this respect fortunate. He touched the chord to which a million hearts