A table near of polished porphyry. _35 They seemed to wear a beauty from the eye That looked on them--a fragrance from the touch Whose warmth ... checked their life; a light such As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice they love, which did reprove _40 The childish pity that she felt for them, And a ... remorse that from their stem She had divided such fair shapes ... made A feeling in the ... which was a shade Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay _45 All gems that make the earth's dark bosom gay. ... rods of myrtle-buds and lemon-blooms, And that leaf tinted lightly which assumes The livery of unremembered snow-- Violets whose eyes have drunk-- _50 ... Fiordispina and her nurse are now Upon the steps of the high portico, Under the withered arm of Media She flings her glowing arm ... ... step by step and stair by stair, _55 That withered woman, gray and white and brown-- More like a trunk by lichens overgrown Than anything which once could have been human. And ever as she goes the palsied woman ... 'How slow and painfully you seem to walk, _60 Poor Media! you tire yourself with talk.' 'And well it may, Fiordispina, dearest--well-a-day! You are hastening to a marriage-bed; I to the grave!'--'And if my love were dead, _65 Unless my heart deceives me, I would lie Beside him in my shroud as willingly As now in the gay night-dress Lilla wrought.' 'Fie, child! Let that unseasonable thought Not be remembered till it snows in June; _70 Such fancies are a music out of tune With the sweet dance your heart must keep to-night. What! would you take all beauty and delight Back to the Paradise from which you sprung, And leave to grosser mortals?-- _75 And say, sweet lamb, would you not learn the sweet And subtle mystery by which spirits meet? Who knows whether the loving game is played, When, once of mortal [vesture] disarrayed, The naked soul goes wandering here and there _80 Through the wide deserts of Elysian air? The violet dies not till it'-- NOTES: _11 to 1824; two editions 1839. _20 e'er 1862; ever editions 1824, 1839. _25 sea edition 1862; sense editions 1824, 1839. *** TIME LONG PAST. [Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870. This is one of three poems (cf. "Love's Philosophy" and "Good-Night") transcribed by Shelley in a copy of Leigh Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book" for 1819 presented by him to Miss Sophia Stacey, December 29, 1820.] 1. Like the ghost of a dear friend dead Is Time long past. A tone which is now forever fled, A hope which is now forever past, A love so sweet it could not last, _5 Was Time long past.