The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/To ——. 'When passion's trance is overpast'

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

TO ———

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. There is a Boscombe MS.]

I
When passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep! 5

II
It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest—and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been. 10

III
After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move
And form^[1] all others, life and love. 15

 

1. To ——— 15 form Boscombe MS.; for edd. 1824, 1839.