Fragment: ‘When a Lover Clasps His Fairest’

Fragment: Music and Sweet Poetry.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

How sweet it is to sit and read the tales
Of mighty poets and to hear the while
Sweet music, which when the attention fails
Fills the dim pause—

Fragment: The Sepulchre of Memory.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition.]

And where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart—and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition.]

1.
When a lover clasps his fairest,
Then be our dread sport the rarest.
Their caresses were like the chaff
In the tempest, and be our laugh
His despair—her epitaph! _5

2.
When a mother clasps her child,
Watch till dusty Death has piled
His cold ashes on the clay;
She has loved it many a day—
She remains,—it fades away. _10