LOVE

WHY is it said thou canst not live
In a youthful breast and fair,
Since thou eternal life canst give,
Canst bloom forever there?

Since withering pain no power possessed,
Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,
Nor time's dread victor, death, confessed,
Though bathed with his poison dew?
Still thou retainest unchanging bloom,
Fixed, tranquil, even in the tomb.
And oh when on the blest, reviving,
The day-star dawns of love,
Each energy of soul surviving

More vivid soars above,

Hast thou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill,

Like June's warm breath, athwart thee fly,

O'er each idea then to steal,

When other passions die?

Felt it in some wild noonday dream,
When sitting by the lonely stream,
Where Silence says, Mine is the dell;
And not a murmur from the plain,
And not an echo from the fell,

Disputes her silent reign.

Love. Rossetti || Published without title by Hogg, Life of Shelley, 1858, dated 1811.

ON A FÊTE AT CARLTON HOUSE

FRAGMENT

.. By the mossy brink,

With me the Prince shall sit and think;

Shall muse in visioned Regency,

Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty.

TO A STAR

SWEET star, which gleaming o'er the darksome

scene

Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance flyest,
Spanglet of light on evening's shadowy veil,

Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless

lake,

Lighting the hour of sacred love; more sweet
Than the expiring morn-star's paly fires.

Sweet star! When wearied Nature sinks to

sleep,

And all is hushed,- all, save the voice of Love,
Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy blast
Of soft Favonius, which at intervals

Sighs in the ear of stillness, art thou aught but
Lulling the slaves of interest to repose
With that mild, pitying gaze! Oh, I would look

On a Fête at Carlton House. Published by Rossetti, 1870, dated 1811.

To a Star. Rossetti || Published, without title, by Hogg, Life of Shelley, 1858, dated 1811.

MAIDEN, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye;
Firmness dare to borrow

From the wreck of destiny;
For the ray morn's bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue

As that which mocks concealing,
And sheds its loveliest light on you.

II

Yet is the tie departed
Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss?
Has it left thee broken hearted

In a world so cold as this!

Yet, though, fainting fair one,

Sorrow's self thy cup has given,

Dream thou'lt meet thy dear one,
Never more to part, in heaven.

III

Existence would I barter

For a dream so dear as thine,

And smile to die a martyr

On affection's bloodless shrine.

To Mary, who died in this Opinion. Published by Rossetti, 1870, dated 1810-1311.

Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,

If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.

A TALE OF SOCIETY AS IT IS

FROM FACTS, 1811

I

SHE was an aged woman; and the years Which she had numbered on her toilsome

way

Had bowed her natural powers to decay.

She was an aged woman; yet the ray Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,

Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul's imperishable energy.

She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury;
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise again.

II

One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,
When fate has spared to rend some mental tie,
Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.

A Tale of Society as it is from Facts, 1811, Esdaile MS. || Mother and Son, Rossetti. Published by Rossetti, 1870.

But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child

For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield Bend to another's will become a thing More senseless than the sword of battle-fieldThen did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting; And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.

III

For seven years did this poor woman live
In unparticipated solitude.

Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude
Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.
If human, thou mightst then have learned to
grieve.

The gleanings of precarious charity

Her scantiness of food did scarce supply.
The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt
Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:

Each arrow of the season's change she felt. Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were

run,

One only hope it was

once more to see her son.

IV

It was an eve of June, when every star
Spoke peace from heaven to those on earth

that live.

She rested on the moor. 'Twas such an eve When first her soul began indeed to grieve; Then he was there; now he is very far.

iii. 5 grieve, Esdaile MS., Hitchener MS. || feel, Rossetti.
iv. 2 to those on earth that live, Esdaile MS. || omit, Rossetti.