FRAGMENT:‘ WHEN A LOVER CLASPS HIS FAIREST’.

By Percy Bysshe Shelley

When a lover clasps his fairest,

Then be our dread sport the rarest.

Their caresses were like the chaff

In the tempest, and be our laugh

His despair — her epitaph!

When a mother clasps her child,

Watch till dusty Death has piled

His cold ashes on the clay;

She has loved it many a day —

She remains,— it fades away.