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, _5
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, _10
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 _15
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 _20
Breathes o’er the breezy streamlet’s edge.