I FEAR THY KISSES, GENTLE

MAIDEN

I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burden thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
Thou needest not fear mine;

Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.

1820. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

ΤΟ

ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.

One hope is too like despair

For prudence to smother,

And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

8

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

1821. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

16

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory-

Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone
Love itself shall slumber on.

1821. 1824.

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

"When We Two Parted"

When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming;

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

1816.

16

Lord Byron.

"WHEN WE TWO PARTED"

WHEN We two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow-
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

How Delicious is the Winning
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. 12

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

1815.

A heart whose love is innocent!

18

Lord Byron.

HOW DELICIOUS IS THE WINNING

How delicious is the winning

Of a kiss at Love's beginning,

When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!

Yet remember, 'midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.

Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;

Longest stays, when sorest chidden;

Laughs and flies, when press'd and bidden. 12