3. Her voice is hovering o'er my soul--it lingers O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings, The blood and life within those snowy fingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quick-- _25 The blood is listening in my frame, And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes; My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, _30 I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. 4. I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee, Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song Flows on, and fills all things with melody.-- Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, _35 On which, like one in trance upborne, Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep, Rejoicing like a cloud of morn. Now 'tis the breath of summer night, Which when the starry waters sleep, Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright, _40 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight. STANZAS 1 AND 2. As restored by Mr. C.D. Locock. 1. Cease, cease--for such wild lessons madmen learn Thus to be lost, and thus to sink and die Perchance were death indeed!--Constantia turn In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie Even though the sounds its voice that were _5 Between [thy] lips are laid to sleep: Within thy breath, and on thy hair Like odour, it is [lingering] yet And from thy touch like fire doth leap-- Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet-- _10 Alas, that the torn heart can bleed but not forget. 2. [A deep and] breathless awe like the swift change Of dreams unseen but felt in youthful slumbers Wild sweet yet incommunicably strange Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers... _15 *** TO CONSTANTIA. [Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and printed by her in the "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. A copy exists amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. See Mr. C.D. Locock's "Examination", etc., 1903, page 46.] 1. The rose that drinks the fountain dew In the pleasant air of noon, Grows pale and blue with altered hue-- In the gaze of the nightly moon; For the planet of frost, so cold and bright, _5 Makes it wan with her borrowed light. 2. Such is my heart--roses are fair, And that at best a withered blossom; But thy false care did idly wear Its withered leaves in a faithless bosom; _10 And fed with love, like air and dew, Its growth-- NOTES: _1 The rose]The red Rose B. _2 pleasant]fragrant B. _6 her omitted B. *** FRAGMENT: TO ONE SINGING. [Dated 1817 by Mrs. Shelley, and published in the "Poetical Works", 1839, 1st edition. The manuscript original, by which Mr. Locock has revised and (by one line) enlarged the text, is amongst the Shelley manuscripts at the Bodleian. The metre, as Mr. Locock ("Examination", etc., 1903, page 63) points out, is terza rima.]