The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Julian and Maddalo; a Conversation.
• The Witch of Atlas.
• Letter to —
• The Triumph of Life.
• Fragments From an Unfinished Drama.
• Prince Athanase: a Fragment.
• Ode to Naples. *
• Marianne’s Dream.
• Mont Blanc. Lines Written In the Vale of Chamouni.
• Miscellaneous Poems.
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci, In the Florentine Gallery.
• Song.
• To Constantia, Singing.
• The Fugitives.
• A Lament.
• The Pine Forest of the Cascine, Near Pisa.
• To Night.
• Evening. Ponte a Mare, Pisa.
• Arethusa.
• The Question.
• Lines to an Indian Air.
• Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples.
• Autumn: a Dirge.
• Hymn of Apollo.
• Hymn of Pan.
• The Boat On the Serchio.
• The Zucca. *
• The Two Spirits. an Allegory.
• A Fragment.
• A Bridal Song.
• The Sunset.
• Song, On a Faded Violet.
• Lines to a Critic.
• Good Night.
• To-morrow.
• Death.
• A Lament.
• Love’s Philosophy.
• To E*** V***
• To —
• Lines.
• To William Shelley.
• An Allegory.
• Mutability.
• From the Arabic. an Imitation.
• To —
• Music.
• Lines.
• Death.
• To —
• Passage of the Apennines.
• To Mary —
• The Past.
• Song of a Spirit.
• Liberty.
• To —
• The Isle.
• To —
• Time.
• Lines.
• A Song.
• The World’s Wanderers.
• A Dirge.
• Lines.
• Dirge For the Year.
• Sonnet I.
• Sonnet II. Political Greatness.
• Sonnet III.
• Sonnet IV.
• Fragments.
• Ginevra. *
• Charles the First. Fragments.
• Prince Athanase. Part II.
• Mazenghi. *
• The Woodman and the Nightingale.
• To the Moon.
• Song For Tasso.
• The Waning Moon.
• Epitaph.
• Alastor; Or the Spirit of Solitude.
• Translations.
• Hymn to Mercury. Translated From the Greek of Homer
• The Cyclops; a Satyric Drama.
• Translation From Moschus.
• Scenes From the “magico Prodigioso” of Calderon.
• Scenes From the Faust of GoËthe.

TO CONSTANTIA,

SINGING.

• • Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die,
  • Perchance were death indeed!—Constantia, turn!
  • In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie,
  • Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which burn
  • Between thy lips, are laid to sleep;
  • Within thy breath, and on thy hair, like odour it is yet,
  • And from thy touch like fire doth leap.
  • Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet,
  • Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget!
• • A breathless awe, like the swift change
  • Unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers,
  • Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange,
  • Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers.
  • The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
  • By the inchantment of thy strain,
  • And on my shoulders wings are woven,
  • To follow its sublime career,
  • Beyond the mighty moons that wane
  • Upon the verge of nature’s utmost sphere,
  • ’Till the world’s shadowy walls are past and disappear.
• • Her voice is hovering o’er my soul—it lingers
  • O’ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings,
  • The blood and life within those snowy fingers
  • Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
  • My brain is wild, my breath comes quick—
  • The blood is listening in my frame,
  • And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
  • Fall on my overflowing eyes;
  • My heart is quivering like a flame;
  • As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
  • I am dissolved in these consuming extacies.
• • I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee,
  • Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
  • Flows on, and fills all things with melody.—
  • Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong,
  • On which, like one is trance upborne,
  • Secure o’er rocks and waves I sweep,
  • Rejoicing like a cloud of morn.
  • Now ’tis the breath of summer night,
  • Which when the starry waters sleep,
  • Round western isles, with incense-blossoms bright,
  • Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.