1. 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 _5 That finds no object worth its constancy? 2. Thou chosen sister of the Spirit, That grazes on thee till in thee it pities... *** DEATH. [Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.] 1. Death is here and death is there, Death is busy everywhere, All around, within, beneath, Above is death--and we are death. 2. Death has set his mark and seal _5 On all we are and all we feel, On all we know and all we fear, ... 3. First our pleasures die--and then Our hopes, and then our fears--and when These are dead, the debt is due, _10 Dust claims dust--and we die too. 4. All things that we love and cherish, Like ourselves must fade and perish; Such is our rude mortal lot-- Love itself would, did they not. _15 *** LIBERTY. [Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Posthumous Poems", 1824.] 1. The fiery mountains answer each other; Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; The tempestuous oceans awake one another, And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne, When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. _5 2. From a single cloud the lightening flashes, Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around, Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound Is bellowing underground. _10 3. But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp. _15 4. From billow and mountain and exhalation The sunlight is darted through vapour and blast; From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, From city to hamlet thy dawning is cast,-- And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night _20 In the van of the morning light. NOTE: _4 zone editions 1824, 1839; throne later editions. *** SUMMER AND WINTER. [Published by Mrs. Shelley in "The Keepsake", 1829. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in Mrs. Shelley's handwriting.] It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, Towards the end of the sunny month of June, When the north wind congregates in crowds The floating mountains of the silver clouds From the horizon--and the stainless sky _5 Opens beyond them like eternity. All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds, The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds; The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze, And the firm foliage of the larger trees. _10