The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 370 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3.

The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 370 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3.

Light-enchanted Sunflower, thou
Who gazest ever true and tender
On the sun’s revolving splendour! 
Follow not his faithless glance
With thy faded countenance, 70
Nor teach my beating heart to fear,
If leaves can mourn without a tear,
How eyes must weep!  O Nightingale,
Cease from thy enamoured tale,—­
Leafy Vine, unwreathe thy bower,
75
Restless Sunflower, cease to move,—­
Or tell me all, what poisonous Power
Ye use against me—­

NOTES:  58 To]Who to cj.  Rossetti. 63 whilst thus Rossetti, Forman, Dowden; whilst thou thus 1824.

ALL: 
Love!  Love!  Love!

JUSTINA: 
It cannot be!—­Whom have I ever loved? 
Trophies of my oblivion and disdain, 80
Floro and Lelio did I not reject? 
And Cyprian?—­
[SHE BECOMES TROUBLED AT THE NAME OF CYPRIAN.]
Did I not requite him
With such severity, that he has fled
Where none has ever heard of him again?—­
Alas!  I now begin to fear that this
85
May be the occasion whence desire grows bold,
As if there were no danger.  From the moment
That I pronounced to my own listening heart,
’Cyprian is absent!’—­O me miserable! 
I know not what I feel!
[MORE CALMLY.]
It must be pity 90
To think that such a man, whom all the world
Admired, should be forgot by all the world,
And I the cause.
[SHE AGAIN BECOMES TROUBLED.]
And yet if it were pity,
Floro and Lelio might have equal share,
For they are both imprisoned for my sake.
95
[CALMLY.]
Alas! what reasonings are these? it is
Enough I pity him, and that, in vain,
Without this ceremonious subtlety. 
And, woe is me!  I know not where to find him now,
Even should I seek him through this wide world. 100

NOTE: 
89 me miserable]miserable me editions 1839.

[ENTER DAEMON.]

DAEMON: 
Follow, and I will lead thee where he is.

JUSTINA: 
And who art thou, who hast found entrance hither,
Into my chamber through the doors and locks? 
Art thou a monstrous shadow which my madness
Has formed in the idle air?

DAEMON: 
No.  I am one 105
Called by the Thought which tyrannizes thee
From his eternal dwelling; who this day
Is pledged to bear thee unto Cyprian.

JUSTINA: 
So shall thy promise fail.  This agony
Of passion which afflicts my heart and soul 110
May sweep imagination in its storm;
The will is firm.

DAEMON: 
Already half is done
In the imagination of an act. 
The sin incurred, the pleasure then remains;
Let not the will stop half-way on the road. 115

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The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.