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.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES.

• • The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
  • The waves are dancing fast and bright,
  • Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
  • The purple noon’s transparent light
  • Around its unexpanded buds;
  • Like many a voice of one delight,
  • The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
  • The City’s voice itself is soft, like Solitude’s.
• • I see the Deep’s untrampled floor
  • With green and purple seaweeds strown;
  • I see the waves upon the shore,
  • Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
  • I sit upon the sands alone,
  • The lightning of the noon-tide ocean
  • Is flashing round me, and a tone
  • Arises from its measured motion,
  • How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.
• • Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
  • Nor peace within nor calm around,
  • Nor that content surpassing wealth
  • The sage in meditation found,
  • And walked with inward glory crowned—
  • Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
  • Others I see whom these surround—
  • Smiling they live and call life pleasure;—
  • To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.
• • Yet now despair itself is mild,
  • Even as the winds and waters are;
  • I could lie down like a tired child,
  • And weep away the life of care
  • Which I have borne and yet must bear,
  • Till death like sleep might steal on me,
  • And I might feel in the warm air
  • My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
  • Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
• • Some might lament that I were cold,
  • As I, when this sweet day is gone,
  • Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
  • Insults with this untimely moan;
  • They might lament—for I am one
  • Whom men love not,—and yet regret,
  • Unlike this day, which, when the sun
  • Shall on its stainless glory set,
  • Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

December, 1818.