Date, 1820. Published in part by Mrs. Shelley, 1824, and the remainder by Garnett, 1862, who adds a note: Fiordispina and the piece which I have ventured to entitle To His Genius (using the latter word in the sense of Saluwv) may be regarded as preliminary, though unconscious studies, for this crowning work [Epipsychidion]. This is indicated by the general similarity among the three, as well as by the fact that very many lines now found in Epipsychidion have been transferred to it from the others. Most of these have been omitted from the poem as now published; but some instances will be observed in the second, which was probably the earlier in point of date. Fiordispina seems to have been written during the first days of Shelley's acquaintance with Emilia Viviani, who is also the Ginevra of the poem thus entitled.' THE season was the childhood of sweet June, Whose sunny hours from morning until noon As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they When, once of mortal [venture] disarrayed, love, The naked soul goes wandering here and which did reprove 40 The childish pity that she felt for them, And a remorse that from their stem She had divided such fair shapes made A feeling in the which was a shade Of gentle beauty on the flowers; there lay All gems that make the earth's dark bosom gay. rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms, And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes The livery of unremembered snow Violets whose eyes have drunk 50 there Through the wide deserts of Elysian air? The violet dies not till it' THE BIRTH OF PLEASURE Date, 1819. Published by Garnett, 1862. AT the creation of the Earth Of an ever-lengthening line 80 AND many there were hurt by that strong boy; His name, they said, was Pleasure. And near him stood, glorious beyond mea sure, Four Ladies who possess all empery Nothing that lives from their award is free. Their names will I declare to thee, - Of the four elements that frame the heart, — And each diversely exercised her art 10 Desire presented her [false] glass, and then Within that magic mirror; And, dazed by that bright error, |