Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou
Song: Rarely, rarely, comest thou
Original Text
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Posthumous Poems, ed. Mary Shelley (1824). Cf. Posthumous Poems of Shelley. Mary Shelley's Fair Copy Book, Bodleian MS. Shelley Adds. d. 9, Collated with the Holographs and the Printed Texts, ed. Irving Massey (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1969). PR 5403 M27 ROBA.
1Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
2 Spirit of Delight!
3Wherefore hast thou left me now
4 Many a day and night?
5Many a weary night and day
6'Tis since thou are fled away.
7How shall ever one like me
8 Win thee back again?
9With the joyous and the free
10 Thou wilt scoff at pain.
11Spirit false! thou hast forgot
12All but those who need thee not.
13As a lizard with the shade
14 Of a trembling leaf,
15Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;
16 Even the sighs of grief
17Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
18And reproach thou wilt not hear.
19Let me set my mournful ditty
20 To a merry measure;
21Thou wilt never come for pity,
22 Thou wilt come for pleasure;
23Pity then will cut away
24Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay.
25I love all that thou lovest,
26 Spirit of Delight!
27The fresh Earth in new leaves dress'd,
28 And the starry night;
29Autumn evening, and the morn
30When the golden mists are born.
31I love snow, and all the forms
32 Of the radiant frost;
33I love waves, and winds, and storms,
34 Everything almost
35Which is Nature's, and may be
36Untainted by man's misery.
37I love tranquil solitude,
38 And such society
39As is quiet, wise, and good;
40 Between thee and me
41What difference? but thou dost possess
42The things I seek, not love them less.
43I love Love--though he has wings,
44 And like light can flee,
45But above all other things,
46 Spirit, I love thee--
47Thou art love and life! Oh come,
48Make once more my heart thy home.
Publication Start Year
1824
RPO poem Editors
M. T. Wilson
RPO Edition
3RP 2.581.
Rhyme