And heaps of fraud-accumulated gold,

Plead, loud as thunder, at Destruction's throne.

III.

And, whilst that sure1 slow Angel which aye stands Watching the beck of Mutability

Delays to execute her high commands,

And, though a nation weeps, spares thine and thee,

IV.

O let a father's curse be on thy soul,

And let a daughter's hope be on thy tomb; Be2 both, on thy grey head, a leaden cowl

To weigh thee down to thine3 approaching doom!

V.

I curse thee by a parent's outraged love,

By hopes long cherished and too lately lost,
By gentle feelings thou couldst never prove,
By griefs which thy stern nature never crost;

VI.

By those infantine smiles of happy light,
Which were a fire within a stranger's hearth,
Quenched even when kindled, in untimely night,
Hiding the promise of a lovely birth ;*

VII.

By those unpractised accents of young speech,
Which he who is a father thought to frame

1 In Mrs. Shelley's editions, and one of the transcripts, slow sure,-in the other transcript sure slow.

2 So in one of the transcripts; but in the other, and in Mrs. Shelley's edition, And both &c.

3 So in one transcript, but thy in the other.

4 So in both transcripts and in the second edition of 1839; but in the first

Hiding the promises of lovely birth.

To gentlest lore, such as the wisest teach

Thou strike the lyre of mind! O grief and shame!

VIII.

By all the happy see in children's growth-
That undeveloped flower of budding years-
Sweetness and sadness interwoven both,

Source of the sweetest hopes and saddest fears

IX.

By all the days under an1 hireling's care,
Of dull constraint and bitter heaviness,-

O wretched ye if ever any were,—

Sadder than orphans, yet not fatherless!

X.

By the false cant which on their innocent lips
Must hang like poison on an opening bloom,
By the dark creeds which cover with eclipse
Their pathway from the cradle to the tomb---

XI.

By thy most impious Hell, and all its terror;2
By all the grief, the madness, and the guilt
Of thine impostures, which must be their error—
That sand on which thy crumbling power is built-

XII.

By thy complicity with lust and hate

Thy thirst for tears-thy hunger after goldThe ready frauds which ever on thee waitThe servile arts in which thou hast3

1 So in both transcripts, but a in Mrs. Shelley's editions.

So in both transcripts, and error in the next line but one; but in Mrs.

grown old

XIII.

By thy most killing sneer, and by thy smile-
By all the arts and snares of thy black den,1
And-for thou canst outweep the crocodile-
By thy false tears-those millstones braining men-

XIV.

By all the hate which checks a father's love-
By all the scorn which kills a father's care—
By those most impious hands which dared remove
Nature's high bounds-by thee-and by despair—

XV.

Yes, the despair which bids a father groan,

And cry 2-my children are no longer mineThe blood within those veins may be mine own, But-Tyrant-their polluted souls are thine;—

XVI.

I curse thee-though I hate thee not-O slave!
If thou couldst quench the earth-consuming Hell
Of which thou art a dæmon, on thy grave

This curse should be a blessing. Fare thee well!

1 In one transcript this line is as in the text in the other we read

By all the snares and nets of thy false den, but in Mrs. Shelley's editions acts is misprinted for arts.

2 In one transcript say for cry.

3 So in one transcript, but their in the other.

4 So in Mrs. Shelley's editions; but soul is in both transcripts.

TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.1

I.

THE billows on the beach are leaping around it,
The bark is weak and frail,

The sea looks black, and the clouds that bound it
Darkly strew the gale.

Come with me, thous delightful child,

Come with me, though the wave is wild,

And the winds are loose, we must not stay,

Or the slaves of the law may rend thee away.

II.

They have taken thy brother and sister dear,
They have made them unfit for thee;
They have withered the smile and dried the tear
Which should have been sacred to me.
To a blighting faith and a cause of crime
They have bound them slaves in youthly prime,
And they will curse my name and thee
Because we are fearless and free.

III.

Come thou, beloved as thou art;
Another sleepeth still

Near thy sweet mother's anxious heart,
Which thou with joy shalt fill,

1 The first, fifth, and sixth of these stanzas were given by Mrs. Shelley in the note containing the last poem, in the first edition of 1839, and in the second the whole poem appeared. Mr. Charles Cowden Clarke has a transcript of it in Mrs. Shelley's writing.

2 The words on the beach, are omitted from the first edition of 1839, but appear in the second and in the transcript.

3 This word, which is in Mrs. Shel ley's editions, is not in the transcript.

So in the transcript and the first edition; but in the second the is omitted. 5 So in the transcript, but time in Mrs. Shelley's edition.

6 So in the transcript, but fearless are in Mrs. Shelley's edition.

7 So in the transcript, but wilt in previous editions.

With fairest smiles of wonder thrown
On that which is indeed our own,
And which in distant lands will be
The dearest playmate unto thee.

IV.

Fear not the tyrants will rule for ever,1
Or the priests of the evil faith;

They stand on the brink of that raging river,

Whose waves they have tainted with death.
It is fed from the depth of a thousand dells,
Around them it foams and rages and swells;
And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
Like wrecks on the surge of eternity.

V.

Rest, rest, and2 shriek not, thou gentle child!
The rocking of the boat thou fearest,
And the cold spray and the clamour wild?-
There sit between us two, thou dearest-3

Me and thy mother-well we know
The storm at which thou tremblest so,
With all its dark and hungry graves,

Less cruel than the savage slaves

Who hunt us o'er these sheltering waves.

VI.

This hour will in thy memory 5

Be a dream of days forgotten long,

1 This stanza, which with slight variation occurs in Rosalind and Helen, is not in the transcript.

2 This word and is in the transcript, but not in previous editions.

3 There is a semicolon after dearest in Mrs. Shelley's editions.

So in the transcript and the first edition of 1839; but thee in the second.

5 In the first edition of 1839 we read

This hour will sometime in thy memory but sometime is not in the transcript or the second edition.

6 In previous editions the word long is wanting, so that this line and the sixth stand rhymeless; but the word is in the transcript.