Page:The complete poetical works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, including materials never before printed in any edition of the poems.djvu/726

696 Shot forth the light of a soft starlight smile,

And boasting said, that she, secure the while,

Could bring at will to the assembled Gods

The mortal tenants of earth's dark abodes,

And mortal offspring from a deathless stem

She could produce in scorn and spite of them.

Therefore he poured desire into her breast

Of young Anchises,

Feeding his herds among the mossy fountains

Of the wide Ida's many-folded mountains,—

Whom Venus saw, and loved, and the love clung

Like wasting fire her senses wild among. 

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824; dated 1819. Amongst the Shelley MSS. at the Bodleian there is a copy, 'practically complete,' which has been collated by Mr. C. D. Locock. See Examination, &c, 1903, pp. 64–70. 'Though legible throughout, and comparatively free from corrections, it has the appearance of being a first draft' (Locock).]

O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now

And ere these limbs were overworn with age,

Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled'st

The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar

By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;

Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,

When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,

No unpropitious fellow-combatant,

And, driving through his shield my wingèd spear,

Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,

Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?

By Jove, it is not, for you have the trophies!

And now I suffer more than all before.

For when I heard that Juno had devised

A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea

With all my children quaint in search of you,

And I myself stood on the beakèd prow

And fixed the naked mast; and all my boys

Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain

Made white with foam the green and purple sea,—

And so we sought you, king. We were sailing

Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,

And drove us to this waste Aetnean rock;

 23 waste B.; wild 1824; '''cf. 26, where waste is cancelled for'' wild' (Locock). 