Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/391

Rh Ruffling the ocean of their self-content;— I sit—and smile or sigh as is my bent. But not for them—Libeccio rushes round With an inconstant and an idle sound, I heed him more than them—the thunder-smoke Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare; The ripe corn under the undulating air Undulates like an ocean;—and the vines Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines— The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill The empty pauses of the blast;—the hill Looks hoary through the white electric rain, And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, The interrupted thunder howls; above One chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love On the unquiet world;—while such things are, How could one worth your friendship heed the war Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise?

You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees, In vacant chairs, your absent images, And points where once you sat, and now should be But are not.—I demand if ever we Shall meet as then we met;—and she replies. Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes; 'I know the past alone—but summon home My sister Hope,—she speaks of all to come.' But I, an old diviner, who knew well Every false verse of that sweet oracle, Turned to the sad enchantress once again, And sought a respite from my gentle pain, In citing every passage o'er and o'er Of our communion—how on the sea-shore We watched the ocean and the sky together, Under the roof of blue Italian weather; How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm, And felt the transverse lightning linger warm Upon my cheek—and how we often made Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed The frugal luxury of our country cheer, As well it might, were it less firm and clear Than ours must ever be;—and how we spun A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun Of this familiar life, which seems to be But is not:—or is but quaint mockery