That perfect mirror of pure innocence
Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,
Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice,

Who made all lovely thou didst look upon-
Thee, light of life dead, dark! while I say,

sister,

To hear I have no sister; and thou, mother,
Whose love was as a bond to all our loves
Dead! the sweet bond broken!

Enter CAMILLO and Guards

They come! Let me

Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves Are blighted-white-cold. Say farewell, before Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear You speak!

BEATRICE

Farewell, my tender brother. Think Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now;

And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee
Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,
But tears and patience. One thing more, my

child;

For thine own sake be constant to the love

Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I,

Though wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,

Lived ever holy and unstained. And though
Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name
Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow
For men to point at as they pass, do thou
Forbear, and never think a thought unkind

136 was as a, Rossetti || was a, Shelley, 1819, 1821.

Of those who perhaps love thee in their graves.
So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain
Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!

BERNARDO

I cannot say farewell!

CAMILLO

O Lady Beatrice!

BEATRICE

Give yourself no unnecessary pain,

My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair
In any simple knot; ay, that does well.

And yours I see is coming down. How often
Have we done this for one another; now
We shall not do it any more. My Lord,
We are quite ready. Well-'tis very well.

THE MASK OF ANARCHY

The Mask of Anarchy was published, with Shelley's name, at London, in 1832, under the imprint of Bradbury and Evans, for Edward Moxon. The volume was edited by Leigh Hunt. The poem had been composed in the fall of 1819, soon after the riot at Manchester on August 16, toward the close of Shelley's residence at the Villa Valvasano, near Leghorn, or during his stay at Florence. It was sent to Hunt for insertion in the Examiner, but its publication at that time was deemed inexpedient by him. The MS. sent to Hunt, in the hand of Mrs. Shelley, with corrections in Shelley's hand, is in the possession of Mr. Townshend Mayer, and has been carefully described by Forman. It affords several variations from Hunt's text. A MS. in Shelley's hand, given by Mrs. Shelley to Sir John Bowring in 1826, of which a facsimile was published by the Shelley Society in 1887, is the authority for the text. The original is in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise. Mrs. Shelley, in her editions of 1839, differs from both MSS. and the Hunt text.