The Death of Shelley.

THE DEATH OF SHELLEY.

FAIR was the morn,—a little bark bent
Like a gull o’er the waters blue,
And the mariners sang in their merriment,
For Shelley the faithful and true,
Shelley was bound on his voyage o’er the sea,
And wherever he sailed the heart beat free.

And a dark cloud flew, and the white waves hurled
The crests in their wrath, at the angry wind,
The little bark with its sails unfurled,
While the dreadful tempest gathered behind,—
With the book of Plato pressed to his heart,
Came to the beach Shelley’s mortal part,

Then a pyre they kindled by ocean side,
Poets were they who Shelley did burn,
The beautiful flame to Heaven applied,
The ashes were pressed in the marble urn,
In Rome shall those ashes long remain,
And from Shelley’s verse spring golden grain.

C.