Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower: 45 Like a glowworm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view: 50 Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves. 55 Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass. 60 Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 65 Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain? 75 With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. 80 Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 85 We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Yet if we could scorn 91 Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 95 Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground! 100 Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 105 _Percy Bysshe Shelley._ CCXXIV _‘ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH YEAR.’_