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Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth exprest;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought
Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

-Though Thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind

Than calm in waters seen!

TO THE MOON

ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever-changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

A WIDOW BIRD

A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love
Upon a wintry bough;

The frozen wind crept on above

The freezing stream below.

There was no leaf upon the forest bare,
No flower upon the ground,

'And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound.

TO A LADY, WITH A GUITAR
ARIEL to Miranda :-Take
This slave of music, for the sake
Of him, who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,

Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again
And, too intense, is turn'd to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own;
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he
Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.

When you die, the silent Moon
In her interlunar swoon

Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel;

When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen Star of birth
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from your nativity:
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still

Has track'd your steps and served your will.

Now in humbler, happier lot,

This is all remember'd not;

And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprison'd for some fault of his
In a body like a grave-
From you he only dares to crave
For his service and his sorrow
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought,

Fell'd a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rock'd in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of autumn past,
And some of spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love: And so this tree,-
Oh that such our death may be !-
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,

To live in happier form again:

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,

The artist wrought this loved Guitar;
And taught it justly to reply
To all who question skilfully
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamour'd tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
-For it had learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voicéd fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way:
-All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before

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By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day.
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest holiest tone
For our beloved Friend alone.

ONE WORD IS TOO OFTEN PROFANED

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,

One feeling too falsely disdain'd
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

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OZYMANDIAS OF EGYPT

I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:

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'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

THE FLIGHT OF LOVE

WHEN the lamp is shatter'd
The light in the dust lies dead—
When the cloud is scatter'd,
The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the lute is broken,

Sweet tones are remember'd not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.

As music and splendour

Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render

No song when the spirit is mute-
No song but sad dirges,

Like the wind through a ruin'd cell,
Or the mournful surges

That ring the dead seaman's knell.

When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled

To endure what it once possesst.

O Love! who bewailest

The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest

For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee

As the storms rock the ravens on high;

Bright reason will mock thee

Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter

Will rot, and thine eagle home

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