Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation (1819)
[excerpt]
‘What Power delights to torture us? I know
That to myself I do not wholly owe
What now I suffer, though in part I may.
Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way
Where wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain
My shadow, which will leave me not again’ –
If I have erred, there was no joy in error,
But pain and insult and unrest and terror;
I have not as some do, bought penitence
With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,
For then, – if love and tenderness and truth
Had overlived hope’s momentary youth,
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;
But loathéd scorn and outrage unrelenting
Met love excited by far other seeming
Until the end was gained… as one from dreaming
Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state
Such as it is. -‘