STANZAS FOR MUSIC.

There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me,

When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming;

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep :

So the spirit bows before thee,

To listen and adore thee,

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

DESCRIPTION OF HAIDEE FROM “DON JUAN.”

Her brow was overhung with coins of gold,

That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair, Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were roll'd In braids behind; and though her stature were Even of the highest for a female mould,

They nearly reached her heel; and in her air There was a something which bespoke command, As one who was a lady in the land.

Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes

Were black as death, their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies,

Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew : 'Tis as the snake late coil'd, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and his strength.

Her brow was white and low, her cheek's pure dye
Like twilight, rosy still with the set sun;
Short upper lip-sweet lips that make us sigh
Ever to have seen such for she was one
Fit for the model of a statuary

(A race of mere impostors, when all's done I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).

FROM "STANZAS."

Could Love for ever

Run like a river,

And Time's endeavour

Be tried in vain

His business so augmented of late years,
That he was forced, against his will no doubt
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers),

For some resource to turn himself about,
And claim the help of his celestial peers,

To aid him ere he should be quite worn out, By the increased demand for his remarks:

Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks.

This was a handsome board-at least for heaven;
And yet they had even then enough to do,
So many conquerors' cars were daily driven,
So many kingdoms fitted up anew;
Each day, too, slew its thousands six or seven,
Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo,
They threw their pens down in divine disgust,
The page was so besmear'd with blood and dust.

ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR.

MISSOLONGHI, January 22, 1824,

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move :

Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love!

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone:

The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.

The fire that on my bosom preys
Is lone as some volcanic isle ;
No torch is kindled at its blaze-
A funeral pile.

The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.

But 'tis not thus-and 'tis not here-

Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now,

Where glory decks the hero's bier,

Or binds his brow.

The sword, the banner, and the field,
Glory and Greece, around me see!
The Spartan, borne upon his shield,
Was not more free.

Awake! (not Greece-she is awake!)
Awake, my spirit! Think through whom
Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake,
And then strike home!

Tread those reviving passions down
Unworthy manhood!-unto thee
Indifferent should the smile or frown

Of beauty be.

If thou regrett'st thy youth, why live?

The land of honourable death
Is here:-up to the field, and give
Away thy breath.

Seek out-less often sought than found

A soldier's grave, for thee the best ;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest.

Shelley The experiment which Byron made was repeated with a more exquisite sincerity by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, who resembled him in belonging to the aristocratic class, and in having a strong instinctive passion for liberty

and toleration. The younger poet, however, showed still less caution than the elder, and while yet a boy gained a dangerous reputation for violent radical prejudices and anti-social convictions. Partly on this account, and partly because the transcendental imagination of Shelley was less easy than Byron's piratical romance for common minds to appreciate, the poetry of the former was almost completely unrecognised until many years after his death, and Byron's deference to Shelley was looked upon as a fantastic whim of friendship. The younger poet was erratic at Eton and Oxford, being expelled from the university for a puerile outburst of atheism. The productions

of Shelley were already numerous when, in his Alastor, he first showed any definite disposition for the higher parts of poetry. This majestic study in blank verse was superior in melody and in imaginative beauty to anything that had been written in English, other than by Wordsworth and Coleridge in their youth, since the romantic age began. The scholarship of Milton and Wordsworth was obvious, but Alastor contains passages

descriptive of the transport of the soul in the presence of natural loveliness in which a return to the Hellenic genius for style is revealed.

Shelley lived only six years longer, but these were years of feverish composition, sustained, in spite of almost complete want of public sympathy, at a fiery height of intensity. He left England, and in that exile was brought immediately into contact with Byron, with whom he formed an intimacy which no eccentricity on either side sufficed to dissolve. That he was serviceable to Byron no one will deny; that Byron depressed him he did not attempt to conceal from himself; yet the esteem of the more popular poet was valuable to the

greater one. The terror caused by the vague rumour of Shelley's rebellious convictions was not allayed by the publication of Laon and Cythna, a wild narrative of an enthusiastic brother and sister, martyrs to liberty. In 1818 was composed, but not printed, the singularly perfect realistic poem of Julian and Maddalo. Shelley was now saturating himself with the finest Greek and Italian classic verse-weaving out of his thoughts and intellectual experiences a pure and noble system of æsthetics. This he illustrated by his majestic, if diffuse and sometimes overstrained lyrical drama of Prometheus Unbound, with which he published a few independent

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

The

lyrics which scarcely have their peer in the literature of the world; among these the matchless Ode to the West Wind must be named. same year saw the publication of the Cenci, the most dramatic poetic play written in English since the tragedy of Venice Preserved. Even here, where Shelley might expect to achieve popularity, something odious in the essence of the plot warned off the public.

He continued to publish, but without an audience; nor did his Epipsychidion, a melodious rhapsody of Platonic love, nor his Adonais, an elegy of high dignity and splendour, in the manner of Moschus and in commemoration of Keats, nor the crystalline lyrics with which he eked out