And like a Dying Lady, Lean and Pale

And like a dying lady, lean and pale,

   Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,

   Out of her chamber, led by the insane

   And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,

   The moon arose up in the murky East,

   A white and shapeless mass—

Art thou pale for weariness

     Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

     Wandering companionless

     Among the stars that have a different birth,

     And ever changing, like a joyless eye

     That finds no object worth its constancy?

Form: aabbcd1.These are among the many short fragments from Shelley's MSS. published by Mary Shelley, the poet's wife, in her editions of 1824 and 1839. There she entitles this poem The Waning Moon.