[Published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1823, where it is headed
"November, 1815". Reprinted in the "Posthumous Poems", 1824. See
Editor's Note.]
1.
The cold earth slept below,
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow,
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.
2.
The wintry hedge was black,
The green grass was not seen,
The birds did rest
On the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.
3.
Thine eyes glowed in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam
On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,
And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair,
That shook in the wind of night.
4.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved—
The wind made thy bosom chill—
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.
Other Percy Bysshe Shelley songs:
all Percy Bysshe Shelley songs all songs from 1823