Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/412

382 And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done Only in fancy—till the tenth moon shone;

And then the Witch would let them take no ill: Of many thousand schemes which lovers find. The Witch found one,—and so they took their fill Of happiness in marriage warm and kind. Friends who, by practice of some envious skill, Were torn apart—a wide wound, mind from mind!— She did unite again with visions clear Of deep affection and of truth sincere.

These were the pranks she played among the cities Of mortal men, and what she did to Sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties To do her will, and show their subtle sleights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nights Than for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see.

We spent the summer of 1820 at the Baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa. These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his nervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood. The country around is fertile, and diversified and rendered picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The peasantry are a handsome intelligent race; and there was a gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we visited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of August, Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte San Pellegrino—a mountain of some height, on the top of which there is a chapel, the object, during certain days of the year, of many pilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted; though he exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lassitude and weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the idea, and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his return, the Witch of Atlas. This poem is peculiarly characteristic of his tastes—wildly fanciful, full of brilliant imagery, and discarding human interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas that his imagination suggested. The surpassing excellence of The Cenci had made me greatly desire that Shelley should