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.

THE QUESTION.

• • I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way,
  • Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
  • And gentle odours led my steps astray,
  • Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
  • Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
  • Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
  • Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
  • But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
• • There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
  • Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth,
  • The constellated flower that never sets;
  • Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
  • The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
  • Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears,
  • When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
• • And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
  • Green cow-bind and the moonlight-coloured May,
  • And cherry blossoms, and white cups, whose wine
  • Was the bright dew yet drained not by the day;
  • And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
  • With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray;
  • And flowers azure, black and streaked with gold,
  • Fairer than any wakened eyes behold.
• • And nearer to the river’s trembling edge
  • There grew broad flag flowers, purple prankt with white,
  • And starry river buds among the sedge,
  • And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
  • Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
  • With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
  • And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
  • As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
• • Methought that of these visionary flowers
  • I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
  • That the same hues, which in their natural bowers
  • Were mingled or opposed, the like array
  • Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours
  • Within my hand,—and then, elate and gay,
  • I hastened to the spot whence I had come,
  • That I might there present it!—Oh! to whom?