The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Lines to a Reviewer

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216454The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Lines to a ReviewerPercy Bysshe Shelley

LINES TO A REVIEWER

[Published by Leigh Hunt, The Literary Pocket-Book, 1823. These lines, and the Sonnet immediately preceding, are signed Σ in the Literary Pocket-Book.]
Alas, good friend, what profit can you see
In hating such a hateless thing as me?
There is no sport in hate where[1] all the rage
Is on one side: in vain would you assuage
Your frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5
In which not even contempt lurks to beguile
Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.
Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!
For to your passion I am far more coy
Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10
In winter noon. Of your antipathy
If I am the Narcissus, you are free
To pine into a sound with hating me.

  1. Lines to a Reviewer.—3 where edd. 1824, 1839; when 1823.