STANZAS

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824, where it is dated 'December, 1818.' A draft of stanza i is amongst the Boscombe MSS. (Garnett).]

I.

⁠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 might,
⁠The breath of the moist earth is light,        ⁠    5
⁠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.

II.

⁠I see the Deep's untrampled floor ⁠                 10
⁠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 noontide ocean ⁠              15
⁠Is flashing round me, and a tone
⁠Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

III.

⁠Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
⁠Nor peace within nor calm around, ⁠                 20
⁠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 —               25
⁠Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; —
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

IV.

⁠Yet now despair itself is mild,
⁠Even as the winds and waters are;
⁠I could lie down like a tired child,⁠                       30
⁠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                ⁠35
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

V.

⁠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; ⁠                           40
⁠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. ⁠45