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sued by the poet's widow in the Posthumous Poems of 1824. It is written in ink, and opens thus:

With what truth I may say

Roma Roma Roma

Non e piu come era prima

1] My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, & did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid
Here its ashes find a tomb

But beneath this pyramid

Thou art not. . .if a thing divine
Like thee, can die-thy funeral sh[r]ine
Is thy mother's heart & mine

II] Where art thou my gentle child,
Let me think thy spirit feeds
With its gay life intense & mild

The love of living flowers & weeds
Among these tombs & ruins wild

Let me think that thro low seeds
Of the sweet flowers & sunny grass
Into these hues & scents may pass
A portion [...

In the first line of stanza I Ruined creature is cancelled in favour of My lost William, and in the second line sweet in favour of bright, while lived is written more like dived-the fact probably being that Shelley meant at first to write dwelt and

changed his mind when he got as far as the d. The fourth line was intended at first to read

Which its gentle lustre hid

but when he got as far as gentle lust he decided on lustre faintly. There are two false starts for line 5, In the and Thy remains. It was not at first intended to end the stanza with a triplet, for we have the rejected readings

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In line 9 the word heart was struck out and grief written below it; but as heart was ultimately restored above the line, it is doubtful whether Mary's preference for grief is fully justified.

Line I of stanza II was at first

Ι

Where art thou gone my gentle boy,

and there is a cancelled line 2

Dissolved in the living weeds [,

of which there is also a doubtful opening, Dissolved into. The adopted line 2 originally began with Whose child I, which was probably cancelled before the line was finished

Whose child I think thy spirit feeds

not being a likely line. Line 3 begins, literally, with Within, which is doubtless a mere slip for With. Between lines 2 and 3 the words life sweet are cancelled, as is young before gay. Between The and love in line 4 the words grass living are struck out; and over flowers is pencilled leaves, which Mary adopted. For line 6 there are two rejected openings, Could I believe that and A melancholy gladness, and for line 7 Of the living breathing is rejected, while line 8 was originally opened with An unknown power may. It is on page II * 45 v. that the triplet of the first stanza is supplied, occupying the whole page, save that, in the back margin, is written and partly cancelled

Think not gold or flattery vile
Wo[...

and that the words

μνημη των αγαθων αει θαλης

are written in the bottom margin again. The letters Wo were probably the beginning of Would. In recording as a comment on his poem that "the memory of the good is ever green", Shelley wrote the Greek words with his customary omission of accents. It is natural to imagine that his grief interrupted him at the close, and prevented his finishing the triplet, which would probably have been completed with some such line as

A portion of the life that was.

In the lower half of the page where the stanzas to William Shelley end abruptly (II * 46 v.) is written, with the book turned upside down, a short paragraph of the Preface to Prometheus Unbound, which, as well as the longer passage on page II* 47 r. topsy-turvy, has already been dealt with. It should, however, be recorded that the rejected motive of gold and flattery connected with funeral matters is also abortively set down in ink across this longer passage of the Preface to Prometheus, thus:

Think not gold, or [ . . .

On ten in pencil:

page II *

47 v. the following lines are writ

One atom of golden cloud, like a fiery star
Hanging amid the pink & watery air
And round about a chaos of grey vapour
Dancing like moths around a lonely taper
Driven by [..

This fragment is No. 7 among the items named in the Auctioneers' catalogue as unpublished matter. In line 3 wild is cancelled in favour of grey; and in line 4 Dancing supersedes Gathered.

In the lower half of the page the first stanza of An Exhortation is written in ink with the book held horizontally. The second stanza occurs on page II * 48 v. and the third on II * 48 r.-both written horizontally in ink among other things. The poem

is, like most of the others, unheaded, and reads thus as finally drafted here:

1] Camelions feed on light & air-
Poets food on love & fame-

If in this dark world of care

Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they

They would never change their hue
As the light camelions do-
Suiting it to every ray

Twenty times a day

II] Poets are in this cold earth
As camelions might be

Sent to darkness from their birth
In a cave beneath the sea
Where light is camelions change
Where love is not, Poets do
Fame is love disguised-if few
Find either, never think it strange
That Poets range

III] Give not grandeur, wealth & power
To a Poet's heavenly mind

If Camelions should devour
Any food but beams & wind
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are-
Children of a distant star
Spirits from beyond the moon
O reject the boon [!

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