So that no change, nor any evil chance
Should mar our joyous voyage, but it might be
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community;
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,

Companions of our wandering, and would grace
With passionate talk wherever we might rove
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.

III

THE FIRST CANZONE OF THE CONVITO

YE who intelligent the Third Heaven move,
Hear the discourse which is within my heart,

Which cannot be declared, it seems so new.
The Heaven whose course follows your power and art,
O gentle creatures that ye are! me drew,
And therefore may I dare to speak to you,
Even of the life which now I live, and yet
I pray that ye will hear me when I cry,
And tell of mine own Heart this novelty;
How the lamenting Spirit moans in it,
And how a voice there murmurs against her
Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.

5 So, Mrs. Shelley, 1824 || And, Shelley, 1816.

10 my thy, Forman conj.

The First Canzone of the Convito. Published by Garnett, 1862, and dated 1820.

II

A sweet Thought, which was once the life within This heavy Heart, many a time and oft

Went up before our Father's feet, and there
It saw a glorious Lady throned aloft;
And its sweet talk of her my soul did win,

So that I said, "Thither I too will fare."
That Thought is fled, and one doth now

appear

Which tyrannizes me with such fierce stress

That my heart trembles - ye may see it leap-
And on another Lady bids me keep

Mine eyes, and says: "Who would have blessedness
Let him but look upon that Lady's eyes;
Let him not fear the agony of sighs."

III

This lowly Thought, which once would talk with me Of a bright Seraph sitting crowned on high,

Found such a cruel foe it died; and so

My Spirit wept the grief is hot even now-And said, "Alas for me! how swift could flee. That piteous Thought which did my life console !" And the afflicted one questioning Mine eyes, if such a Lady saw they never,

And why they would

I said: "Beneath those eyes might stand for

ever

He whom

regards must kill with . . .

To have known their power stood me in little

stead ;

Those eyes have looked on me, and I am dead.”

IV

"Thou art not dead, but thou hast wandered, Thou Soul of ours, who thyself dost fret," A Spirit of gentle Love beside me said:

"For that fair Lady, whom thou dost regret, Hath so transformed the life which thou hast

led,

Thou scornest it, so worthless art thou made.

And see how meek, how pitiful, how staid,

Yet courteous, in her majesty she is.

And still call thou her 'Woman' in thy thought; Her whom, if thou thyself deceivest not,

Thou wilt behold decked with such loveliness, That thou wilt cry: [Love] only Lord, lo

here

Thy handmaiden, do what thou wilt with her.""

My song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,

Of such hard matter dost thou entertain. Whence, if by misadventure chance should bring Thee to base company, as chance may do,

Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, I prithee comfort thy sweet self again, My last delight; tell them that they are dull, And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

v. Published with Epipsychidion, 1821.

IV

MATILDA GATHERING FLOWERS

PURGATORIO xxviii. 1-51

AND earnest to explore within around
That divine wood whose thick green living

woof

Tempered the young day to the sight, I wound

Up the green slope, beneath the forest's roof, With slow soft steps leaving the mountain's

steep;

And sought those inmost labyrinths, motion-proof

Against the air, that, in that stillness deep
And solemn, struck upon my forehead bare
The slow, soft stroke of a continuous.

In which the

leaves tremblingly were

All bent towards that part where earliest
The sacred hill obscures the morning air.

Matilda Gathering Flowers. Published 1-8, 22-51, by Medwin, The Angler in Wales, 1834, Life of Shelley, 1847, and entire by Garnett, 1862.

2 That Medwin, 1834 || The, Garnett.
4, 5 Garnett ||

Up a green slope, beneath the starry roof,
With slow, slow steps

6 inmost, Garnett, 1862 || leafy, Medwin, 1834. 12 continuous sleep, Rossetti.

Medwin, 1834.

Yet were they not so shaken from the rest,
But that the birds, perched on the utmost spray,
Incessantly renewing their blithe quest,

With perfect joy received the early day,
Singing within the glancing leaves, whose sound
Kept a low burden to their roundelay,

Such as from bough to bough gathers around
The pine forest on bleak Chiassi's shore,
When Eolus Sirocco has unbound.

My slow steps had already borne me o'er
Such space within the antique wood that I
Perceived not where I entered any more,

When, lo! a stream whose little waves went by, Bending towards the left through grass that grew Upon its bank, impeded suddenly

My going on. Water of purest hue

On earth would appear turbid and impure
Compared with this, whose unconcealing dew,

13 their, Rossetti.

9-28 Garnett ||

Like the sweet breathing of a child in sleep:

Already had I lost myself so far

Amid that tangled wilderness that I

Perceived not where I entered, but no fear

Of wandering from my way disturbed, when nigh

A little stream appeared; the grass that grew
Thick on its banks impeded suddenly

My going on,

26 through || the, Rossetti conj.

28 hue, Garnett, 1862 || dew, Medwin, 1834. 30 dew, Garnett, 1862 || hue, Medwin, 1834.

Medwin, 1834.