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SONG FOR ‘TASSO’.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.]

1. I loved—alas! our life is love; But when we cease to breathe and move I do suppose love ceases too. I thought, but not as now I do, Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore, Of all that men had thought before. And all that Nature shows, and more.

2. And still I love and still I think, But strangely, for my heart can drink The dregs of such despair, and live, And love;... And if I think, my thoughts come fast, I mix the present with the past, And each seems uglier than the last.

3. Sometimes I see before me flee A silver spirit’s form, like thee, O Leonora, and I sit ...still watching it, Till by the grated casement’s ledge It fades, with such a sigh, as sedge Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.

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