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%\)t Kitjersiue literature §>eries 
 
 SELECTED POEMS OF 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION 
 AND NOTES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE, M.A. 
 
 Formerly Professor of English in Mercer University 
 
 — 0i - , lyjifii "^"^^^LT 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 Boston : 4 Park Street ; New York : 85 Fifth Avenue 
 Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue 
 
 dje lUitJet^iDe pre??, Cambribge 
 
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 0-a 
 
 UBRARYofCOISWRFSsl 
 Two Copies Receiveo . 
 
 AUG 14 190^ 
 
 Ce1)yrirM Entry 
 
 CLASS ^^ XXCm No. 
 
 COPY Q. 
 
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 COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
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 ^0 m^ iFat^er 
 
PREFACE 
 
 No one can attempt to deal with Shelley in editorial 
 fashion without being conscious at almost every step 
 of the great value of Professor Dowden's biography 
 of the poet, and of much of the other material men- 
 tioned in the Bibliography. I have tried, however, in 
 preparing the Introduction and Notes, to maintain 
 that independence of judgment which should charac- 
 terize all Shelleyans, and to produce a text suitable 
 indeed for student use, and conforming to classroom 
 requirements, yet based on other than formally peda- 
 gogic principles. Literature, it seems, is not getting 
 itself taught in our higher schools as vitally as we 
 would like, despite immense critical apparatus. Is 
 it because we are too judicial? Is it because a poem, 
 like a person, invites affection before it yields its con- 
 fidence ? 
 
 G. H. C. 
 
 Macoi^, Georgia, December, 1906. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Iktroduction ix 
 
 The Lif e of SheUey ix 
 
 Shelley as Poet liii 
 
 Bibliography , Ixix 
 
 Stanzas — April, 1814 1 
 
 To Coleridge 2 
 
 To Wordsworth 3 
 
 A Summer Evening Churchyard 4 
 
 Lines ("The cold earth slept below") .... 5 
 
 The Sunset 6 
 
 "^Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 8 
 
 Mont Blanc 11 
 
 To CONSTANTIA, SiNGINQ 16 
 
 Sonnet — OzYMANDiAs 17 
 
 Lines (*'That time is dead for ever, child") . . 18 
 
 Lines to a Critic 18 
 
 Passage of the Apennines 19 
 
 On a Faded Violet 19 
 
 Lines Written among the Euganean Hills . . . 20 
 Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples . . .31 
 
 Lines to an Indian Air 33 
 
 Love's Philosophy 34 
 
 Song — To the Men of England 34 
 
 England in 1819 36 
 
 ^Ode to the West Wind 36 
 
 Prometheus Unbound 40 
 
 The World's Wanderers 147 
 
 The Waning Moon . .147 
 
 To the Moon 147 
 
 Good-Night 148 
 
Viu CONTENTS 
 
 Song ("Rarely, rarely, comest thou") . . . . 148 
 
 to c'l fear thy kisses, gentle maiden ") . . .150 
 
 Song of Proserpine 150 
 
 Autumn: A Dirge . 151 
 
 The Question 152 
 
 Hymn of Apollo 153 
 
 Hymn of Pan 154 
 
 Arethusa 156 
 
 The Cloud 158 
 
 ^?o A Skylark 16i 
 
 Ode to Liberty 165 
 
 The Sensitive Plant 175 
 
 Dirge for the Year 187 
 
 To Night 188 
 
 Sonnet to Byron . i89 
 
 Lines ("Far, far away, ye") 190 
 
 To Emilia Viviani 190 
 
 To ("Music, when soft voices die") . . . .191 
 
 To ("One word is too often profaned") ... 191 
 
 To (" When passion's TRANCE IS overpast ") . . . 192 
 
 Bridal Song 193 
 
 Mutability 193 
 
 Sonnet — Political Greatness 194 
 
 To-MoRROW 195 
 
 A Lament (" World! Life ! Time ! ") . . . 195 
 
 A Lament ("Swifter far than summer's flight") . . 195 
 
 ^^Adonais 197 
 
 A Dirge ("Rough wind, that moanest loud") . . . 218 
 
 Epitaph .218 
 
 Lines ("When THE LAMP IS shattered") .... 218 
 
 Song — From " Charles THE First " 219 
 
 To Jane — The Invitation ....... 220 
 
 To Jaj^e — The Recollection 222 
 
 With a Guitar, To Jane 225 
 
 Notes 229 
 
FIELD PLACE 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE LIFE OF SHELLEY 
 
 Every life is a symbol as well as a history, — a symbol, 
 perhaps it were truer to say, because it is a history. The life 
 of Shelley as a man, exceptional as it appears, is at one with 
 the genius of Shelley as a poet, — it was impulsive ; gener- 
 ously ardent ; filled with the scorn of scorn, the love of love ; 
 eager and anxious to establish universal justice, freedom, 
 and happiness ; but pursuing too characteristically the de- 
 humanized method of importing goodness into men rather 
 than that of winning men into goodness. The course of his 
 life moved from the tense yet dark mood of Paracelsus, 
 exultant in denial and challenge, to the high affirmations of 
 Aprile, — 
 
 " . . . the over-radiant star too mad 
 To drink the life-springs." 
 
 Had he lived, it is hardly possible that he would have failed 
 to become at last 
 
 " . . . . . a third 
 And better-tempered spirit, warned by both." 
 
 On the fourth day of August, 1792, their first child was 
 born to Timothy and Elizabeth Shelley, at Field Place, near 
 Horsham, Sussex. He was called Percy, because that was 
 a favourite name in the Shelley family, ancient in Sussex ; 
 and Bysshe, because that was the name of his paternal 
 grandfather, a handsome, wealthy, and positive old gentle- 
 man, eventually made a baronet, who had been twice 
 married, first to Miss Mary Catherine Michell, a Sussex 
 heiress, who died after eight years of union, at the age of 
 twenty-six ; and again to Miss Elizabeth Jane Sidney, 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 another heiress, this time of Kent, and a descendant of Sir 
 Philip. It is interesting to note that, according to Medwin, 
 the impetuous Sir Bysshe eloped in each instance, and also 
 that he was usually on bad terms with his son Timothy, one 
 of three children -r- the others being girls — born in the first 
 family. 
 
 Timothy Shelley was a good-hearted rural Englishman of 
 social importance and limited intelligence. He believed in 
 the things that it was proper and dignified to believe in, 
 and he expected equal conformity from his fellows, perhaps 
 rather more of it from his inferiors. He had attended 
 University College, Oxford, and had got himself duly 
 elected Member of Parliament. He did his duty by the 
 Church, the State, and the family, and was hardly less willing 
 than his father to play Sir Oracle. In October, 1791, he 
 married Miss Elizabeth Pilfold, of Effingham, Surrey, a 
 somewhat unfeminine yet attractive and gracious woman. 
 She became the mother of seven children, — two boys, Percy 
 Bysshe and John, separated in age by fourteen years ; and 
 five girls, Elizabeth, Mary, two Hellens — one of whom died 
 very early — and Margaret. Their adventurous and well- 
 favoured brother was adored by the little maidens, who, 
 during his stay at home, ^^ followed my leader" in all sorts 
 of thrilling excursions about house and garden. Quiet old 
 Field Place spelled to these half-quaking explorers a land 
 of mystery and portent, of golden enchantment, — a back- 
 ground for the most moving legends, told fearsomely by 
 Bysshe to Jhis awed companions. He was fond, too, like 
 other imaginative children, of inventing remarkable but 
 shadowy situations in which he had played a leading part, 
 or again, he would detach himself from all, and go brooding 
 about alone in the moonlight, save for a watchful servant 
 following discreetly at a distance. 
 
 After six secluded years of infancy and boyhood had 
 passed, Bysshe became a pupil of the Rev. Mr. Edwards, of 
 the village of Warnham, hard by. The four succeeding years 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 he spent chiefly in studying Latin and developing his strength 
 by somewhat irregular exercise. At ten he was entered at 
 Sion House Academy, Isleworth, near Brentford. Here he 
 found himself one of some sixty pupils, ruled by a Dr. 
 Greenlaw, "a vigorous old Scotch divine," writes Professor 
 Dowden, " choleric and hard-headed, but not unkindly. . . . 
 With spectacles pushed high above his dark and bushy eye- 
 brows, the dominie would stimulate the laggard construers. 
 Frequent dips into his mull of Scotch snuff helped him to 
 sustain the wear and tear of the class-room." Shelley's 
 slight, lithe, graceful figure was at once felt by the hoi 
 polloi to present an irritatingly marked deviation from the 
 norm, and they soon found that this was true also of his man- 
 ner. His advent, accordingly, provoked roughness, persecu- 
 tion even, the more readily that the fagging system covered a 
 multitude of petty tyrannies. Thomas Medwin, a cousin and 
 biographer of Shelley, who was also a pupil at Sion House, 
 describes him as " a strange and unsocial being." Preoccu- 
 pied as he was with his visions and imaginings, he gave only 
 a constrained attention to either his schoolmates or his tasks, 
 yet he advanced steadily in learning, and was transferred at 
 the age of twelve to Eton. Meantime his taste for the eerie 
 as steadily asserted itself : he read avidly the sixpenny 
 dreadfuls, and was particularly charmed with the gothic 
 romances of Mrs. Anne Radcliffe. He was also significantly 
 interested in physical and chemical experiments. 
 
 Shelley must have passed from Sion House with scant 
 regret, for he seems there to have been an all too willing 
 Ishmael, save for a single friend ; yet at Eton his situation 
 was hardly improved. Though he found more friends of 
 a sort, he found also more persecutors among both masters 
 and pupils, and he was so often thrashed that he became 
 dully apathetic to the mere bodily pain. Dr. Goodall, the 
 head-master, a man of solid worth, was seconded in the 
 Lower School by Dr. Keate, powerful with book and birch 
 alike. Shelley entered the Fourth Form under Keate's juris- 
 
xu INTRODUCTION 
 
 diction, and resided first with a Mr. Hexton as his tutor and 
 mentor, and thereafter with George Beth ell, renowned in 
 the history of Eton for his dulness and his good-nature. 
 But neither Keate's severity nor Bethell's absurdity moved 
 Shelley much. He still lived aloof, for the most part, from 
 the ordinary associations and requirements of school citizen- 
 ship. So indifferent was he to the excitements of his five 
 hundred fellows, and so fiercely resentful, not of physical 
 hurt, but of injustice and the spirit of cruelty, that he came 
 to be known as '' Mad Shelley,^' and was baited time after 
 time for their amusement by a crew of thoughtless torment- 
 ors. When pushed to the limit of his patience, says one, his 
 eyes would " flash like a tiger's, his cheeks grow pale as 
 death, his limbs quiver." Such boys as he did attract, how- 
 ever, — though few but one Halliday appear to have had 
 an instinctive understanding of him, — loved him for his 
 unswerving honour, his kindness, and his generosity. With 
 Halliday, Shelley took many a pleasant ramble in the fields 
 and woods about Eton, pouring out his young soul in fits 
 and starts of hope and enthusiasm. " He certainly was not 
 happy at Eton,'' wrote his friend in later years, "for his 
 was a disposition that needed especial personal superintend- 
 ence, to watch and cherish and direct all his noble aspirations, 
 and the remarkable tenderness of his heart. He had great 
 moral courage, and feared nothing but what was base and 
 false and low," From the same source we learn that his 
 lessons "were child's play to him." He moved through the 
 formal curriculum with ease, and chose to add to his school 
 work the outside reading of such classical authors as Lu- 
 cretius and Pliny, with Franklin, Condorcet, and particu- 
 larly Godwin — his future father-in-law — in his Political 
 Justice, His fascinated interest in science, too, increased, 
 and he ran not a few risks — both physical and magisterial 
 — in his ardour for experiment. One likes to think of 
 Shelley's spiritual kinship with Shakespeare's Ariel, creature 
 of air and fire. Certainly, the young Etonian could have 
 
INTRODUCTION xui 
 
 found no better image of his own restless adventurings than 
 the balloons ^ of fire he so often gave to the darkness, cleav- 
 ing the gloom of night and steering their uncertain course 
 into the company of moon and stars. Shelley's science was 
 a matter of lore and wonder rather than of knowledge and 
 precision. This attitude, already characteristic, was en- 
 couraged and strengthened by the boy's contact with Dr. 
 Lind, a retired physician /living close at hand in Windsor, 
 whose memory Shelley always regarded with a lively grati- 
 tude, and who is immortalized in The Revolt of Islam as 
 the friendly hermit, and in Prince Athanase as Zonoras, — 
 
 " An old, old man, with hair of silver white, 
 And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend 
 
 With his wise words, and eyes whose arrowy light 
 Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds." 
 
 Professor Dowden, in his admirably full and discrimi- 
 nating biography, speaks of two " shining moments " in Shel- 
 ley's youth, which were to the boy as moments of revolution. 
 His experiences at Sion House led him to take careful thought 
 concerning individual and popular unhappiness, its causes 
 and conditions, and finally to vow in youthful yet serious 
 fashion that he would never oppress another nor himself 
 submit to tyranny. In the dedication of The Revolt of 
 Islam — originally Laon and Cythna — to Mary Shelley 
 he writes : — 
 
 " I do remember well the hour which burst 
 My spirit's sleep. A fresh May-dawn it was, 
 . When I walked forth upon the glittering* grass, 
 And wept, I knew not why : until there rose 
 
 From the near schoolroom voices that, alas ! 
 Were but one echo from a world of woes — 
 The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes. 
 
 " And then I clasped my hands and looked around ; 
 But none was near to mock 'my streaming eyes 
 
 1 Shelley was fond, too, of sailing miniature paper boats. Cf . Rosa- 
 lind and Helen, 11. 181-187. 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground. 
 So, without shame, I spake : ' I will be wise, 
 And just and free, and mild, if in me lies 
 
 Such power, for I grow weary to behold 
 The selfish and the strong still tyrannize 
 
 Without reproach or check.' I then controlled 
 My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold." 
 
 If in the first moment Shelley felt his conscience quickened 
 and dedicated to the cause of liberty, so in the second his 
 imagination sought deliverance from the bondage of the 
 merely horrible and sinister, and began instead to seek pure 
 beauty and pursue it. This moment, too, he has fixed for 
 us in his Hymn to Intellectual Beauty : — 
 
 " While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped 
 
 Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, ; 
 
 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 
 Hopes of high talk with the departed dead. 
 I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed. 
 I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
 When, musing deeply on the lot 
 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 
 All vital things that wake to bring 
 News of birds and blossoming, 
 Sudden thy shadow fell on me : — 
 I shrieked and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 
 
 " I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
 
 To thee and thine ; have I not kept the vow ? 
 
 They know that never joy illumed my brow 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 This world from its dark slavery, 
 
 That thou, O awful Loveliness, 
 
 Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express." 
 
 These passages were conceived by a saner mind and 
 written with a steadier hand than were the rather prolific 
 effusions of Shelley's earlier youth, productions which began 
 first at Eton to court pen and paper. Several fragment- 
 ary poems belong to this time, as also the extravagant 
 romance, Zastrozzi, written probably in collaboration with 
 
INTEODUCTION XV 
 
 Harriet Grove, Shelley's cousin and sweetheart. Indeed, 
 collaboration was something of a habit with the boy, not, 
 it would seem, through any lack of confidence in his own 
 creative powers, — for young Shelley was much less dis- 
 turbed than his riper self by doubts concerning his own 
 works, — but rather as the co-operative impulse of a spirit 
 willing to share its enthusiasms with kindred spirits. He 
 formed literary partnerships with his sisters Elizabeth 
 and Hellen, with Medwin, and possibly also with Edward 
 Graham, a friend of 1810-11. Graham may have been asso- 
 ciated with the "Victor and Cazire " project, the appearance 
 of a volume of poems that were wild and whirling indeed, 
 but of which all the copies — save one, since reprinted — 
 were apparently destroyed or suppressed. More probably, 
 however, Elizabeth was the " Cazire " of the partnership. 
 Medwin helped to shape the beginnings of a romantic 
 Nightmare, and a poem about that persevering pilgrim, the 
 Wandering Jew. Apart from their biographical interest 
 hardly one of these works is worth naming. 
 
 Complacent Mr. Timothy Shelley had no manner of doubt 
 that his son — peculiar in some respects though he seemed 
 — would do about as well at Oxford as he himself had 
 done, and the two travelled up thither amicably to arrange 
 for Bysshe's entrance upon residence in University College 
 at the beginning of the Michaelmas term of 1810. Mr. 
 Timothy was graciously paternal, and even went so far as 
 to introduce his son to a local printer named Slatter, with 
 the suggestion that this man should indulge the youth " in 
 his printing freaks." Rooms were secured, money matters 
 adjusted, advice freely given, and the Polouius of Field 
 Place departed in high good-humour with himself and all 
 the world. He would have been interested, perhaps, to know 
 what was passing in Bysshe's mind as he looked about him 
 at Oxford, deciding what he liked and what he did not like. 
 He liked the seclusion, the libraries, the natural beauty of 
 the place ; he did not like its sleepiness, its conservatism, 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION 
 
 its orderly academic routine. One is strikingly reminded of 
 Bacon's indictment of the Cambridge of his day : " In the 
 universities, all things are found opposite to the advance- 
 ment of the sciences ; for the readings and exercises are 
 here so managed that it cannot easily come into any one's 
 mind to think of things out of the common road. . . . For 
 the studies of men in such places are confined, and pinned 
 down to the writings of certain authors; from which, if 
 any man happens to differ, he is presently represented as 
 a disturber and innovator." Shelley's mind — alert, original, 
 though always in certain respects untrained — thought of 
 many things out of the common road. His prime Oxford 
 " innovation," it is true, was not carefully conceived or tact- 
 fully presented. It was a piece of folly for which he paid 
 dear, but it was not dishonourable, nor was it even " dan- 
 gerous " in any vital sense. Soon after his arrival he made 
 the acquaintance casually of a fellow-freshman, Thomas 
 Jefferson Hogg, a well-born and worldly-wise young man of 
 considerable cultivation, easy opinions, and a half-cynical, 
 half-amused, interest in the people he met and in the prob- 
 lems he heard them discuss and on occasion discussed with 
 them. Ten years later Shelley thus described him, in his 
 Letter to Maria Gisborne : — 
 
 " I cannot express 
 His virtues, though I know that they are great, 
 Because he locks, then barricades, the gate 
 Within which they inhabit ; — of his wit 
 And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit. 
 He is a pearl within an oyster shell, 
 One of the richest of the deep." 
 
 Hogg was strongly attracted by Shelley's looks, sincerity, and 
 enthusiasms. The two met night after night in each other's 
 rooms, and debated questions of literature, science, and his- 
 tory, on Shelley's side with fervour, on Hogg's with growing 
 interest in this rara avis, an interest almost wonder. Hogg 
 deeply respected Shelley's power of imagination and purity of 
 
INTRODUCTION XVll 
 
 character, though he allowed himself to be entertained by 
 his new friend's extravagances of manner and statement. 
 He has left us in his Life of Shelley a detailed and pic- 
 turesque account of the poet as he knew him during their 
 six months' comradeship at college. He describes Shelley's 
 figure as ^' slight and fragile, and yet his bones and joints 
 were large and strong. He was tall, but he stooped so much 
 that he seemed of a low stature. His clothes were expensive, 
 and made according to the most approved mode of the day ; 
 but they were tumbled, rumpled, unbrushed. His gestures 
 were abrupt, and sometimes violent, occasionally even awk- 
 ward, yet more frequently gentle and graceful. . . . His 
 features, his whole face and particularly his head, were, in 
 fact, unusually small ; yet the last appeared of a remarkable 
 bulk, for his hair was long and bushy, and in fits of absence 
 and in the agonies (if I may use the word) of anxious thought, 
 he often rubbed it fiercely with his hands, or passed his fin- 
 gers quickly through his locks unconsciously, so that it was 
 singularly wild and rough.^ . . . His features were not sym- 
 metrical (the mouth, perhaps, excepted), yet was the effect 
 of the whole extremely powerful. They breathed an anima- 
 tion, a fire, an enthusiasm, a vivid and preternatural intelli- 
 gence, that I never met with in any other countenance. Nor 
 was the moral expression less beautiful than the intellectual ; 
 for there was a softness, a delicacy, a gentleness, and espe- 
 cially (though this will surprise many) that air of profound 
 religious veneration that characterizes the best works, and 
 chiefly the frescoes (and into these they infused their whole 
 souls) of the great masters of Florence and of Rome." Only 
 his voice did Hogg find displeasing, which seemed to him at 
 first " intolerably shrill, harsh and discordant." Other friends 
 and contemporaries speak also of this defect, but generally 
 agree that it was observable only in moments of high excite- 
 ment, and that Shelley's normal tones were winsome enough. 
 The two friends not only read and talked together, but 
 1 Cf . " his scattered hair." — Alastar, I. 248. 
 
xvui INTRODUCTION 
 
 Hogg would incredulously watch Shelley performing his 
 always miraculous chemical experiments, or they would 
 tramp about the countryside — Shelley seemed rather to float 
 — and meet with adventures more or less exciting. Shelley 
 eared little for the studies imposed upon him, and pursued 
 his intellectual investigations with a free mind and in an en- 
 tirely free manner within the privacy of his chambers, read- 
 ing Plutarch, Plato, Hume, Locke, the Greek tragedies, 
 Shakespeare, and Landor. He continued also to write, pub- 
 lishing at his own expense another Etonian romance, — and 
 failure, — St, Irvyne^ or The Rosicrucian y some political 
 verse ; and a volume of miscellaneous poetry containing bur- 
 lesques that pleased undergraduate taste, printed together 
 with some more serious work produced spasmodically. That 
 Shelley could have been willing at this date to publish, though 
 anonymously, his crude and overstrained tale, and to push 
 its fortunes with enthusiasm, attests perhaps better than any 
 other single fact the condition of his critical judgment dur- 
 ing the Oxford days. The poet in him must surely have been 
 protestant the while I " I am aware," he wrote to Stockdale 
 the publisher, after reaction began to be felt, " of the impru- 
 dence of publishing a book so ill -digested as SU Irvyne.'" 
 Stockdale, for his part, from whatever motive, stirred up 
 trouble for Shelley at home by calling his father's attention 
 to the unsoundness of his views and attributing this to his 
 continued association with Hogg. Parental — chiefly pater- 
 nal — intervention followed, only to confirm Shelley in what 
 candour must designate as the heroic of the misunderstood. 
 He vowed excitedly to defend his principles to the last, and 
 to remain loyal to his friend at all hazards. His elders did 
 not treat him with the wisdom born of humour and sympa- 
 thy ; they did not know the way to his heart, and had they 
 known it they would have found that heart at the moment 
 out of tune and harsh. Harriet Grove's affection was not 
 proof against her alarm at Shelley's reputed heresies and 
 his own exaggerated declarations of belief and unbelief. 
 
INTRODUCTION xix 
 
 She both loved and dreaded the strange youth ; prudence 
 prevailed, and in 1811 she married " a clod of earth," as 
 Shelley described him, a Mr. Helyar. The boy felt the blow- 
 keenly, philosophized at length concerning it, and in a letter 
 to Hogg written from Field Place during the Christmas 
 vacation anathematized Intolerance, the cause of all his 
 woes. He now planned that Hogg should marry Elizabeth, 
 his eldest sister, who was affectionately consoling him at 
 home. At least his friend should be happy. 
 
 Most, perhaps all, of this coil had been avoided if the 
 prime actor therein had been less intense in behaviour, and 
 his friends more willing to rely on his personal goodness 
 and root docility. It is far from the mark to allow that 
 Shelley was at any time a deliberate atheist. No man, it is 
 safe to say, has felt more directly and continually than did 
 he the existence of a beneficent Spirit. As an imdergradu- 
 ate, it is true, he was affected in his thought by the dogmas 
 of materialism, but at no time ceased to postulate the being 
 of an ultimate Intelligence and Love. It would be difficult 
 id find in pure literature a more eager hunger and thirst for 
 
 V ^oliness and the Source of holiness than appears in Shel- 
 
 V ley's Adonais, The Cenci, Hellas, The Revolt of Islam^ 
 and Prometheus Unbound, not to speak of his just and 
 reverent Essay on Christianity, With what he conceived 
 to be the inherent taint of ecclesiasticism, indeed, he was 
 constantly at war, like Chaucer, Milton, Ruskin, Carlyle, 
 and Browning, in their diverse ways ; though, unlike them, 
 he attacked not merely the taint, but also, and with fierce 
 energy, the entire churchly system. In this regard he be- 
 trayed unusual zest, as witness the implications of char- 
 acter in cardinal and pope in The Cenci, and the vivid 
 pictures of the Prometheus, when compared with Chau- 
 cer's good-humoured revelations in The Canterbury Tales, 
 and Browning's half-friendly condemnations of Blougrani 
 and his kind. Shelley unfortunately tended to identify always 
 priesthood with tradition, the church with uncompromising 
 
XX INTRODUCTION 
 
 and persecuting conservatism. There is in his work no 
 '' povre Persoun of a toun," no Innocent XII. He did not 
 habitually see both sides, though in one of his more pensive 
 moods he actually expressed a desire to become himself a 
 minister. ^' Of the moral doctrines of Christianity I am a 
 more decided disciple than many of its more ostentatious 
 professors. And consider for a moment how much good a 
 good clergyman may do." -^ But for a moment only was this 
 considered. Shelley wished characteristically to dispense for 
 good and all with the ''' law " idea, and to bring the sorely 
 suffering world out into the light of knowledge, virtue, love, 
 and freedom. He knew what prayer meant ; he was deeply 
 moved by awe and wonder in the contemplation of the eternal 
 mysteries. In brief, he was not the enemy of religion that 
 he thought he was ; he everywhere proclaimed the efficacy of 
 the spirit of Love in healing and redeeming humanity. In 
 later years Dante and Petrarch, in some respects, modified 
 his aversion to historical Christianity, for through their works 
 he came to feel keenly its spiritual beauty and power. His 
 own religious instinct and attitude as a youth are suggested 
 for us in two stanzas of Wordsworth's Ode to Duty : — 
 
 *' There are who ask not if thine eye 
 Be on them ; who, in love and truth 
 Where no misgiving is, rely 
 Upon the genial sense of youth : 
 Glad hearts ! without reproach or hlot, 
 Who do thy work, and know it not : 
 Oh ! if through confidence misplaced 
 They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power ! around them cast. 
 
 " Serene will be our days and bright 
 And happy will our nature be 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security. 
 And they a blissful course may hold 
 Ev'n now, who, not unwisely bold, 
 
 1 From a conversation with Thomas Love Peacock, reported by 
 him. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxi 
 
 Live in the spirit of this creed ; 
 Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need." 
 
 The freshman of University College, however, with a 
 passion for negations and for reform, was in no mood to 
 consider his ways and be wise. He was but too " unwisely 
 bold." Almost immediately after his return to Oxford, he 
 arranged, with Hogg's connivance, if not collaboration, for 
 the anonymous publication of a little pamphlet entitled The 
 Necessity of Atheism. His motive in doing so was a mixed 
 one, — partly sincere ; partly, no doubt, dramatic. The argu- 
 ment, what there is of it, follows the beaten materialistic 
 track, assuming throughout that sense-knowledge is all of 
 knowledge, but the author seems to lament the " deficiency 
 of proof " and to court sympathy and help. Not a few 
 sedate dignitaries, to whom Shelley addressed copies of 
 the pamphlet, with a specific request from ^'Jeremiah 
 Stukeley " for counsel concerning it, fell into the trap and 
 furnished their correspondent with much-desired contro- 
 versial openings. Shelley had sent a copy to the Vice- 
 Chancellor and to each of the Masters, and by his own 
 Master he was interrogated and condemned. Upon " con- 
 tumaciously refusing " either to acknowledge or to disavow 
 the authorship of the paper, he was summarily expelled. 
 From the stern conclave of Master and Fellows he rushed 
 nervously to Hogg with the fateful news ; Hogg instantly 
 entered the breach, and drew upon himself a like examina- 
 tion, with a like result. If the judges hoped that submission 
 might finally be made, they were disappointed, and the 
 sentence had to stand. The anger of the authorities rapidly 
 cooled, but that of Shelley and Hogg flamed and mounted. 
 The next day, March 26, 1811, they left Oxford together 
 for London. She who might have become more and more 
 truly Shelley's Alma Mater had behaved in a moment of 
 natural impatience as his Dura Noverca, 
 
 After visiting friends and skirmishing about London in 
 
xxii IN TE OB UCTION 
 
 search of comfortable lodgings, which by some strange irony 
 they found at length in Oxford Road, on Poland Street, — 
 the ^'Poland,'' at least, reminded Shelley of " Thaddeus of 
 Warsaw and of freedom," — the two young men settled down 
 to their habitual comradeship, until interrupted by the 
 appearance of Shelley's father, freshly fortified by Paley's 
 Natural Theology. He had already written to Bysshe, re- 
 quiring implicit future obedience and a rupture with Hogg 
 as the price of his continued goodwill. He had also adjured 
 Mr. Hogg, Sr., to assist in separating the two. Bysshe smiled 
 mournfully at his father's blustering theological expostula- 
 tions, but flared up at the conditions named as ensuring a 
 welcome home. These he deliberately rejected, feeling that 
 to forego liberty of action was to forego all, and that his 
 truth of character, as well as his personal affection for Hogg, 
 demanded the persistence of the friendship. Hogg, however, 
 soon withdrew or was withdrawn to York to read law, and 
 Shelley, who planned to follow him later, and who was at 
 this time half willing to study medicine, found himself for 
 the first moment in his life concerned about the means to 
 live. His father had cut off all aid, and Bysshe was con- 
 strained to accept secret gifts from his devoted sisters, and 
 the more substantial assistance of his uncle, Captain Pilf old, 
 who had a strong liking for the youth. The girls sent their 
 contributions through sixteen-year-old Harriet Westbrook, 
 a close friend in their school life at Mrs. Fenning's, Clap- 
 ham. Harriet, being a resident of London, and possessing, 
 therefore, the requisite freedom, bore many messages — 
 both real and personal — between sisters and brother. Her 
 father, John Westbrook, was a former tavern-keeper of 
 some property, and her sister Eliza, a ''Dark Lady," her 
 senior by many years, exercised an almost maternal control 
 of her. Harriet was a winsome lass, exquisitely neat and 
 pretty, and of a cheerfully sentimental disposition. She 
 shared the indignation of the Shelley girls at the ill-treat- 
 ment accorded their brother, and she found that brother a 
 
INTRODUCTION xxiii 
 
 particularly attractive and interesting young man. Though 
 at first much distressed at the perversity of his views, she 
 rapidly came under the charm of his earnest manner and 
 luminous deep-blue eyes, so rapidly that before many weeks 
 had passed her heart began to whisper a secret. Shelley, 
 for his part, knew nothing, or at least thought nothing, of 
 such a possibility, but took a hearty pleasure in the comings 
 of Harriet and in their conversations. He visited her at 
 home and at school, and wrote frequently concerning the 
 matters they discussed. Harriet's health thereafter began to 
 fail, and Shelley, attributing this to some minor school '' per- 
 secutions " and to the major offence of her father in insist- 
 ing on her continued stay at school, again broke a lance 
 with Intolerance. Shortly afterward, Harriet's preceptress 
 discovered one of Shelley's letters in her possession, warned 
 both her and his families, and even, it is said, suspended 
 Harriet. 
 
 Meanwhile, through the intervention of Captain Pilfold 
 and the Duke of Norfolk, Mr. Timothy Shelley's political 
 chief, that gentleman became, in a measure, reconciled to his 
 son, endowed him unconditionally with £200 a year, and con- 
 sented to receive him at Field Place. Once again at home, 
 Shelley found constraint even in his mother and Elizabeth, 
 dearly as they loved him. Elizabeth scorned his desire that 
 she should accept Hogg. To the latter Shelley wrote : '' I 
 am a perfect hermit, not a being to speak with ! I some- 
 times exchange a word with my mother on the subject of the 
 weather, upon which she is irresistibly eloquent ; otherwise 
 all is deep silence! I wander about this place, walking all 
 over the grounds, with no particular object in view." He 
 wrote not only to Hogg, but also to theWestbrook sisters 
 and to a Miss Elizabeth Hitchener, a keen and nervously 
 intellectual schoolmistress whom he had met at Captain 
 Pilfold's house in Cuckfield. 
 
 The home of his cousin, Thomas Grove, near Rhayader, 
 Wales, shortly succeeded York as Shelley's objective point. 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION 
 
 In the midst of this beautiful country he dwelt a while, un- 
 happy and distraught, writing copious letters and marking 
 time in a dubious mood. Though the Westbrook ladies were 
 also in Wales at this time, he did not see them, but, upon 
 their return to London, was shocked to receive from Harriet 
 several letters expressing mingled misery and entreaty, — 
 misery at the thought of returning to a school where what 
 she felt to be unbearable persecution awaited her, and en- 
 treaty for sympathy and help. Shelley responded warmly, 
 counselling resistance, and even addressed a letter of advice 
 and remonstrance to Mr. Westbrook, a letter which he de- 
 clined to heed. Harriet wrote once again, appealing to 
 Shelley to save her from fear and tyranny, and the high- 
 hearted youth — he was now only nineteen — posted at once 
 to London, saw Harriet, was amazed at her altered appear- 
 ance, and enlightened only when she falteringly told her love. 
 Shelley doubtless felt as Jules felt in Browning's Pippa 
 Passes : — 
 
 " If whoever loves 
 Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
 The blessing" or the blest one, queen or page, 
 Why should we always choose the page's part ? 
 Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
 I find myself queen here, it seems! " 
 
 In a letter to Hogg he speaks of his course as resembling 
 rather "exerted action" than "inspired passion." Late in 
 August Bysshe and Harriet fled — a long, slow flight it was 
 — by coach to Edinburgh, where they were married August 
 28, 1811. 
 
 Both husband and wife — despite financial troubles, for 
 Shelley's father, deeply incensed against his son, again with- 
 drew his aid — spent a bright honeymoon of five weeks in 
 Edinburgh. Hogg shortly arrived from York, and was 
 domiciled with his friends. Edinburgh in itself did not then 
 attract Shelley, but the three shared one another's enthusi- 
 asms in matters literary, social, and political, even if Harriet 
 
INTRODUCTION XXV 
 
 somewhat surprised Shelley and Hogg by persistently read- 
 ing aloud from sententiously moral books. She was not a 
 cultured woman, but only a bright, eager, un discriminating 
 schoolgirl, very willing to accept her liege's opinions, and 
 yet a trifle positive in presenting hers. Shelley's increasing 
 anxiety concerning income was allayed a little by the good- 
 ness of Captain Pilfold, who proved himself now, as before, 
 a substantially corporeal guardian angel. From Edinburgh 
 the travellers moved on to York, Bysshe shortly resolving 
 to seek a personal interview with his father. He made a 
 hasty trip into Sussex, as the guest of his uncle, only to be 
 met with Mr. Shelley's curt refusal of help. A delightful 
 conversation with Miss Hitchener, whose fine mental and 
 spiritual qualities he characteristically overrated, was his 
 only gain. Passing through London, he returned to York 
 to find that Eliza Westbrook had come north and had 
 assumed charge of his establishment. Though Shelley was 
 aware of this plan, and had forwarded it, he seems to have 
 been somewhat disconcerted. A strict domestic programme 
 was inaugurated, and was meekly accepted by Harriet, 
 who was as clay in Eliza's hands ; and by Shelley, who 
 could only look on and wonder ; and by Hogg, who was not 
 considered at all. Harriet, indeed, was feeling the need of 
 protection from Hogg's unworthy interest, an interest which 
 shortly cost him the comradeship, though not the continued 
 friendship, of a grieved and troubled Shelley. From York 
 the little company, still numbering three, but with Eliza 
 in the place of Hogg, proceeded to Keswick and settled in 
 Chesnut Cottage, near Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. 
 Here they stayed for several months, Shelley occupying 
 himself with the beautiful nature aspects and with divers 
 literary enterprises, including a collection of his shorter 
 poems, another of essays, and a political novel, Hubert 
 Cauvin, of which nothing is now known. With the people 
 of Keswick Shelley had little to do, though he met and 
 admired friendly William Calvert, and through him became 
 
XX vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 acquainted with Robert Southey. The older poet — differ- 
 ent in temper and theory as the two were — showed the 
 younger much practical kindness, but though Shelley met 
 his early advances with some eagerness, he soon afterward 
 wrote to Miss Hitchener : ''I do not think so highly of 
 Southey as I did. ... I do not mean that he is or can be 
 the great character which once I linked him to ; his mind 
 is terribly narrow compared to it. . . . It rends my heart 
 when I think what he might have been ! " 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk was again to act as mediator be- 
 tween the Shelleys — father and son — in response to a 
 manly letter from Bysshe requesting this service. The mat- 
 ter was not at once adjusted, but negotiations were opened, 
 and before long the young couple and Miss Westbrook were 
 invited to Greystoke, the Duke's neighbouring seat. Shortly 
 afterward it was intimated to Shelley that an income of 
 £2000 annually might become his if he would consent to 
 entail the estate in favour of a possible son or of his brother 
 John. Shelley, who strongly opposed the law of primogeni- 
 ture and believed that he had no moral right to accept this 
 tentative suggestion, declined it with indignation and with- 
 out parley. Should he himself inherit the estate — which he 
 thought unlikely, as he anticipated an early death — he pur- 
 posed to share it with .his friends. Before this discussion 
 arose, however, Shelley, by the advice of the Duke, had sent 
 his father a letter so just and kind that a favourable response 
 was induced, and by January, 1812, an annuity of £200 was 
 again settled upon him. This, with a similar sum granted 
 by Mr. Westbrook for Harriet's subsistence, saved the young 
 people from what had become a really acute though tempor- 
 ary poverty. 
 
 It will be recalled that Shelley, while at Eton, was much 
 interested in Godwin's revolutionary book, Political Jus- 
 tice, His interest had so grown that when he now heard 
 casually of Godwin's continued physical existence — he had 
 supposed him dead — he eagerly penned a letter overflow- 
 
IN TROD UCTION XX vii 
 
 ing with respect and admiration, for Shelley the proselyte 
 was no less ardent than Shelley the proselytizer. Godwin 
 found this communication sufficiently interesting to warrant 
 a reply inviting particulars of the writer's history. These 
 Shelley immediately supplied, and a steady correspondence 
 followed, — Godwin's letters being friendly and hortative, 
 Shelley's tractable but animated. In one of these Shelley 
 announced his purpose of going into Ireland, there to aid 
 in Catholic Emancipation, asking and receiving much good 
 advice from Godwin concerning this course. Miss Hitcliener 
 was invited to join the party, but declined, and Shelley, with 
 his wife and sister-in-law, left Keswick February 2, 1812, 
 arriving in Dublin, after tiresome delays, ten days later. 
 
 In parlous Ireland Shelley found work at first to his liking. 
 Caring little for Catholic Emancipation in itself, — he owned 
 " no cause," he wrote to Godwin, " but virtue, no party but 
 the world," — he nevertheless threw himself eagerly into the 
 service of the politically oppressed. He issued an Address 
 to the Irish People that created some stir, and, until dis- 
 suaded by Godwin, sought to form a peaceably revolutionary 
 " Association of Philanthropists." Harriet and he must have 
 greatly enjoyed their methods of distributing the pamphlets 
 he wrote, sometimes throwing them from the window to 
 '' likely " persons. On the 28th Shelley spoke with some 
 acceptance at a public meeting, and thereafter met, though 
 with scant satisfaction, several of the leading Irish patriots. 
 He encountered praise, blame, and suspicion, but made him- 
 self a manful missionary until personal reaction set in, a re- 
 action due partly to the failure of his efforts to modify the 
 situation in any practical way, and partly to Godwin's rather 
 chilling criticisms. At length, on April 4, he left Ireland 
 for Holyhead, and, after several wandering days, pitched 
 tent at Nantgwillt, North Wales. Here he penned one or 
 two literary studies, and met and liked Thomas Love Pea- 
 cock, a liberal, cultured, pleasing man and writer, thence- 
 forth Shelley's friend. But again stakes were up, and the 
 
xxvill , INTRODUCTION 
 
 pilgrims away, first to the Groves' home, near by, and then 
 to Chepstow, and to Lynmouth, Devon. Amid the entranc- 
 ing coast scenery they stayed two months, and here they 
 welcomed the advent of Miss Kitchener, whose extraordinary 
 charms, however, slowly lapsed into commonplace in Shel- 
 ley's as in Harriet's thinking. From " soul of my soul " 
 she became, through several transitions, " Brown Demon." 
 Much reading and writing went on in Lynmouth, and at 
 this time Shelley was busily at work upon his Queen Mah, 
 Here, too, he wrote his birthday sonnet and his blank verse 
 apostrophe to Harriet, and penned his energetic Letter 
 to Lord Ellenhorough concerning the prosecution of one 
 Eaton, a poor bookseller, for publishing part of Paine's^^e 
 of Reason, The Devon coast saw Shelley often engaged in 
 the boyishly serious business of scattering his revolutionary 
 writings to the world at large through the media of bottles, 
 sea-boxes, and fire-balloons. The arrest of his manservant, 
 however, while distributing copies of the Shelleyan Declara- 
 tion of Rights^ decided the swift mind. When Godwin 
 arrived unexpectedly in Lynmouth, September 18, he found 
 his disciple flown. 
 
 During the next year Shelley travelled variously in all 
 parts of the United Kingdom. He settled first at Tan-yr- 
 allt, near Tremadoc, Carnarvonshire, and turned from the 
 reform of humanity to that of nature, earnestly aiding W. 
 Alexander Madocks, M. P., in his attempt to reclaim sev- 
 eral thousand acres of land from the sea. While visiting 
 London in order to raise a subscription for this project, he 
 seized the opportunity to visit the home of Godwin, where 
 he met, besides the old philosopher, — who looked, Harriet 
 thought, like Socrates, — the second Mrs. Godwin also, her 
 young son William, and Fanny (Imlay) Godwin, born to 
 Mary Wollstonecraft before she became Godwin's first 
 wife. Clara Jane Clairmont, daughter of Mrs. Godwin 
 and her first husband, and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, 
 daughter of Godwin and his first wife — a sufficiently com- 
 
INTRODUCTION xxix 
 
 plicated family, this ! — were absent during most of the time 
 of Shelley's stay in London, and, though both were soon to 
 become closely concerned with the life of the poet, he has 
 left on record no minute of his impressions, if he then saw 
 them. While in London Shelley made other friends also, 
 and sought out Hogg, permitting such renewal as was pos- 
 sible of their old association. Miss Kitchener, her pedestal 
 being lost, took her final leave of Shelley hospitality. " We 
 were entirely deceived in her character as to republicanism," 
 wrote Harriet to an Irish friend, Mrs. Catherine Nugent, 
 " and in short everything else which she pretended to be." 
 By November 15 Tremadoc was again in sight, and months 
 of happy domesticity followed, Shelley reading much, con- 
 tinuing Queen Mab, relieving the distresses of the poor 
 about him, and consuming his soul in indignation at the 
 imprisonment of Leigh Hunt for a libel upon the Prince 
 Regent. Late in February, 1813, a burglarious attack was 
 perhaps made upon the poet's home, and his life seems to 
 have been in some danger. At all events, the incident ^ was 
 nervously magnified by Shelley into " atrocious assassina- 
 tion," and, convinced that some sinister villain was on his 
 track, he left again for Dublin. Thence the young family 
 journeyed to the beautiful Killarney Lakes, and by April 
 were again in London. 
 
 Queen Mab, a long, uneven, unrhymed poem, lyric and 
 heroic, far more representative of the boy Shelley than of 
 the man, was completed in the spring, and was printed for 
 restricted distribution. In 1821 its author described it as 
 *' a poem . . . written by me at the age of eighteen — I dare 
 say, in a sufficiently intemperate spirit. ... I doubt not but 
 that it is perfectly worthless in point of literary composition ; 
 
 1 In an interesting article in The Century Magazine for October, 1905, 
 A Strange Adventure of Shelley^s, Margaret L. Croft presents evidence 
 that one Robin Pant Evan, a rough Welsh sheep-fanner, deliberately 
 broke into Tan-yr-allt in order to frighten away Shelley, his ire having 
 been aroused at the poet's humane practice of killing his neighbours' 
 hopelessly diseased sheep. 
 
XXX IN TR OB UCTION 
 
 and that, in all that concerns moral and political speculation, 
 as well as in the subtler discriminations of metaphysical 
 and religious doctrine, it is still more crude and immature." 
 During the same year he wrote to Horace Smith : '' If you 
 happen to have brought a copy of Clarke's edition of Queen 
 Mah for me, I should like very well to see it. — I really 
 hardly know what this poem is about. I am afraid it is 
 rather rough." The lanthe in the poem gave her name to 
 Shelley and Harriet's first child, lanthe Elizabeth, born the 
 following June. Shelley's September sonnet, To lanthe, 
 expresses the growing love he bestowed upon the infant. 
 After her coming a removal was made to Bracknell, in Berk- 
 shire, at the suggestion of Mrs. Boinville, a cultured and 
 high-principled woman, and her daughter, Cornelia Turner, 
 whom Shelley had met in London. From Bracknell they went 
 into the Lake country, and thence to Edinburgh again, with 
 Peacock, but by December were back in London, securing 
 a temporary home in Windsor, near Bracknell. Shelley was 
 now feeling keenly the need of additional income, and had 
 lately paid a clandestine visit home. He wrote once again to 
 his father for consideration, urgently, but in vain. Such 
 money as was imperatively necessary to him, therefore, he 
 raised on post-obit bonds. 
 
 The biographers of Shelley agree that shortly after the 
 birth of her first babe a certain insensibility, always latent 
 in Harriet's temper, began to show itself in peculiar fashion. 
 She lost, almost completely, her interest in books and read- 
 ing, in intellectual adventures, and even in the domestic 
 responsibilities attaching to her as wife and mother. That 
 Shelley felt deeply this diminution of her customary cheer- 
 fulness, this new, strange aloofness of his formerly bright- 
 natured wife, is amply evident from the testimony of his 
 poems and letters. With an aching heart he watched the too 
 rapid course of the chill current of indifference. Sometimes 
 he would turn to the Boinvilles in perplexity and doubt, 
 seeking help for a problem he hardly knew how to voice. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxi 
 
 In the society of his thoughtful friends he found stimulus 
 for an increasingly dejected spirit, and for the time perhaps 
 succeeded in forgetting Harriet. On her side, no doubt, 
 Harriet also experienced disillusion. She was no longer a 
 fanciful schoolgirl, but a young matron who looked upon 
 her husband's exceptional views and manners with less par- 
 tial eyes than before. Now he was reading rapturously with 
 Cornelia Turner in the Italian poets, now debating ardently 
 some religious or political question, now impulsively wander- 
 ing abroad or losing himself in fantastic abstractions, but she, 
 who had given herself to him for all time, was not receiving 
 due consideration, and did not feel the necessity of making 
 her gift a progressive one. They were husband and wife, 
 and the wife had no fear of losing the husband. If Shelley 
 hoped to break through this film hardening into a barrier, 
 Eliza's constant presence, which had become very irksome 
 to him, and Harriet's ^ carelessness toward lanthe, made the 
 attempt more and more difficult. Through the advice of her 
 sister and father, too, Harriet was beginning to press for a 
 better social station in life. Was not Shelley a baronet-to-be 
 and heir to a great estate ? It was becoming surely apparent 
 that the relation between these two had never been a vital 
 one, but only for a time vitalized. Despite a second mar- 
 riage ceremony, entered upon March 22 for legal reasons, 
 and despite Shelley's passive acceptance of the duty of pa- 
 tience, Eliza and Harriet, by April, 1814, had taken their 
 departure for a season, and Shelley had written the mourn- 
 ful stanzas printed on page 1. The following month he 
 addressed a poem to Harriet, concluding with this appeal : — 
 
 " O trust for once no erring guide ! 
 Bid the remorseless feeling flee ; 
 'T is malice, 'tis revenge, 't is pride, 
 
 'T is anything but thee ; 
 O deign a nobler pride to prove, 
 And pity if thou canst not love." 
 
 ^ Harriet's last letters to Mrs. Nugent, however, contain several 
 very affectionate references to lanthe. 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTION 
 
 But Harriet remained away, settling now at Bath, while 
 Shelley walked despairingly the streets of London. He 
 called not infrequently at the home of his master, Godwin, 
 whose financial condition was even worse than his own, and 
 whom he was devotedly anxious to relieve. One midsummer 
 day he met — probably then for the first time — Godwin's 
 daughter Mary,^ seventeen years of age, pale, earnest, and 
 beautiful. Their intellectual sympathy was immediate, and 
 after but a month of acquaintance each knew but too cer- 
 tainly the feeling of the other. As yet no word of disloyalty 
 to Harriet was uttered on either side. Shelley did not at 
 the moment believe that an honourable release was open to 
 him, and Harriet, for her part, was now beginning to regret 
 their division. By July, however, Shelley had come into 
 possession of what he thought unquestionable evidence of 
 his wife's unfaithfulness to him, evidence which he continued 
 to believe, though it was later modified in some important 
 particulars, until he died. Concerning its actual value it is 
 difficult if not impossible to pronounce, but there can be no 
 doubt of Shelley's pain and sincerity in relation to it. 
 Neither he nor Mary Godwin hesitated to accept what 
 seemed to them a justifying condition of their present love 
 and, indeed, of their later union. Writing to Southey in 
 1820, Shelley declares himself " innocent of ill, either done 
 or intended ; the consequences you allude to flowed in no 
 respect from me. If you were my friend, I could tell you 
 a history that would make you open your eyes ; but I shall 
 certainly never make the public my familiar confidant." 
 
 When Shelley, about July 14, suggested to Harriet the 
 desirability of an understood separation, she did not openly 
 oppose him, thinking it probable that his regard for Mary 
 
 ^ Harriet's first reference to Mary, in her correspondence with Mrs. 
 Nugent, has pathetic interest : " There is another daughter gi hers, 
 who is now in Scotland. She is very much like her mother, whose 
 picture hangs up in his (Godwin's) study. She must have been a most 
 lovely woman. Her countenance speaks her a woman who would dare 
 to think and act for herself." 
 
, IN TR OB UCTION xxxiii 
 
 Godwin would shortly cease and that he would return to 
 her. This attitude of compliance gave Shelley a wrong im- 
 pression ; he arranged for her material welfare, and with- 
 drew with a feeling that all would be well, and that Harriet 
 concurred in the course he had resolved to pursue. That he 
 was mistaken in this supposition made Harriet's loss only the 
 more grievous, but both Shelley and Mary believed that 
 the new union was to prove best not merely for them but 
 for Harriet as well, whose ''interests," as he conceived them, 
 Shelley constantly consulted. On July 28, 1814, Mary 
 Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley, accompanied by Clara 
 Jane Clairmont, left London for the Continent, and the next 
 day, at Calais, the poet wrote in his journal : " Suddenly the 
 broad sun rose over France." 
 
 The tour that followed was a brief one, cut short by lack 
 of funds and by difficulties arising in England. While it 
 lasted, however, Shelley and Mary had opportunity to realize 
 the strength and virtue of their love, in a time of physical 
 and mental stress. Spending but a few days in Paris, they 
 proceeded on foot (Mary riding a donkey) to Charenton. 
 There they replaced their little beast by a sturdy mule, and on 
 reaching Troyes bought an open carriage. By these means, 
 after many annoyances, they at length arrived at Neuchatel, 
 and at Brunnen on Lake Lucerne. En route Shelley had 
 written to Harriet, urging her to meet them in Switzerland, 
 and assuring her of his intention to remain her friend. At 
 Brunnen he began the fragment entitled The Assassins, a 
 romantic tale of some power. After a brief stay here and at 
 Lucerne, the travellers turned homeward, following the Reuss 
 and the Rhine. The beauty of the latter river, from Mayence 
 to Bonn, greatly impressed Shelley and influenced the scenic 
 setting of Alastor. Rotterdam was reached September 8, 
 and London once again a week later. 
 
 During the remainder of the year Shelley and Mary 
 suffered seriously from the want of income. Although 
 Godwin indignantly refused to condone Shelley's course, he 
 
xxxiv INTEODUCTION 
 
 freely accepted money from his scant purse and even asked 
 for more. There is unconscious dramatic irony lurking in a 
 passage concerning Godwin in one of Shelley's early letters 
 to Miss Hitchener : " He remains unchanged. I have no 
 soul-chilling alteration to record of his character.'' Harriet, 
 too, was losing patience and troubling both Shelley and the 
 God wins with increasing demands. On November 30 she gave 
 birth to a boy, Charles Bysshe, who, with Ian the, was soon 
 to become the subject of Chancery litigation. Peacock was 
 proving himself an old friend ; Fanny Godwin was secretly 
 kind ; but for the most part Shelley and Mary were let 
 severely alone save for the companionship of Hogg, who 
 called often, and Jane Clairmont (Claire), who declined to 
 return home. Omnivorous reading solaced the evil time, — 
 Anacreon, Coleridge, Spenser, Byron, Browne of Norwich, 
 Gibbon, Godwin, etc. Claire, alert and olive-hued, often 
 disturbed the household with her fears and doubts concern- 
 ing the supernatural, and they were not unrelieved to see 
 her depart,- in May, 1815, for a stay in Lynmouth. Shelley, 
 for his part, had other fears, and was now moving from 
 spot to spot in London, protecting himself as he might 
 against the vigilance of the bailiffs. The new year brought 
 important changes. Sir Bysshe passed away on January 6, 
 Mr. Timothy Shelley became a baronet in his stead, and 
 the poet succeeded his father as heir-apparent to the title and 
 a great estate. He went down to Field Place, but was not 
 welcomed. The question of entail again came up, and 
 though Shelley declined to change his attitude, he was will- 
 ing to sell his own reversion. Eventually he planned to dis- 
 pose of his interest in a small part of the property for an 
 annual income of £1000 during the joint survival of his 
 father and himself, but Chancery would not later permit 
 this plan to be realized. Money was advanced to meet his 
 most pressing needs, and it is worthy of note that he im- 
 mediately settled £200 a year upon Harriet, a like sum 
 having been continued by Mr. Westbrook. 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxv 
 
 Shelley's health had of late become seriously impaired, 
 and was not improved by the shock consequent upon the 
 death, March 6, of Mary's first infant, hardly more than 
 a fortnight old, and by the continued alienation of Godwin, 
 whom he was aiding steadily. He bore Godwin's bitter 
 letters very patiently save for one final outbreak of feeling : 
 " Do not talk oi forgiveness again to me, for my blood boils 
 in my veins, and my gall rises against all that bears the 
 human form, when I think of what I, their benefactor and 
 ardent lover, have endured of enmity and contempt from 
 you and from all mankind." A trip of several days' dura- 
 tion up the Thames to Lechlade, in the company of Mary, 
 Peacock, and Charles Clairmont, Claire's brother, did much 
 to restore the poet to health and good spirits. On his return 
 to Bishopsgate he conceived and that autumn wrote the 
 moving revelatory poem, Alastor, the first of his really sure 
 and vital works, published the following March. Peace- 
 ful months followed, of study and composition, whose sun- 
 shine was made the brighter by the birth of William, Mary's 
 second child, January 24, 1816. But Godwin's attitude, the 
 coldness of others, and the failure of the lawyers satisfac- 
 torily to adjust financial matters, — he was again dependent 
 upon his father's voluntary advances, — led Shelley to heed 
 the invitation of a voice of whose charms he could no longer 
 be insensible. It was Switzerland's recall of him. that he 
 heard and obeyed. Byron, whom he had not yet met, but 
 with whom Claire had become only too well acquainted, was 
 soon to arrive in Geneva, and the infatuated girl, keeping 
 her secret from Shelley and Mary, asked and was permitted 
 to become one of the party. Early in May, 1816, the trio, 
 with little William, started again for Paris. They reached 
 Geneva about the 14th, and shortly afterward Byron ap- 
 peared. The two poets, though associated as contemporary 
 apostles of revolution, were yet of very different fibres, — 
 Byron, proud, passionate, fitfully purposive, like an alien 
 bird oaring and flapping close to earth; Shelley, keen, 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 luminous, mild, sun-adventuring, sailing the upper ether of 
 thought and love with tense but tireless wings. Each knew 
 the other for a poet, — Shelley has drawn the two portraits 
 for us in Julian and Maddalo^ — and they spent eager hours 
 together and with Polidori, Byron's young Anglo-Indian 
 physician, cruising about the lake, or exploring its shores. 
 During this time Byron wrote some of the best stanzas 
 of his Childe Harold^ Shelley conceived his Mont Blanc 
 and Hymn to Intellectual Beauty^ and Mary began her 
 famous romance, Frankenstein^ inspired by a ghostly con- 
 versation between the poets and Polidori. The Shelley 
 group had meanwhile secured a cottage near Coligny, and 
 Byron was living at the Villa Diodati. While they circum- 
 navigated the lake, Byron produced his Prisoner of Chil- 
 ian and Shelley stored up countless memories of joy and 
 beauty. After a visit of high emotion to Chamouni, Shelley 
 and Mary received a rather melancholy letter from Fanny 
 Godwin, and a month later left Geneva for Versailles, 
 Havre, and Portsmouth. 
 
 The year 1816 was a fatal one for several of Shelley's 
 friends and connections. The death of Sir Bysshe was fol- 
 lowed during the autumn by those of Fanny Godwin and 
 Harriet Shelley, each of these women dying by her own 
 hand. Fanny, who had been growing of late more and more 
 dejected, feeling the unkindness of her stepmother and other 
 relatives, and deprived of the immediate counsel of Shelley 
 and Mary, decided that she was a useless cumberer of the 
 ground, and took laudanum at Swansea, October 10. She 
 had written only a week earlier an affectionate letter to 
 Mary, who with Shelley was now staying at Bath, in which 
 all her thoughts unselfishly went out to the welfare of God- 
 win and the Shelleys. These were her sincere mourners. 
 '^ Our feelings are less tumultuous than deep," wrote Godwin 
 to Mary ; and she to Shelley, who went to Swansea suffer- 
 ing great anguish of spirit : " If she had lived until this 
 moment, she would have been saved, for my house would 
 
INTROD UCTION xxxvii 
 
 then have been a proper asylum for her." Two months later 
 the body of Harriet was found in the Serpentine River, after 
 a disappearance of three weeks. She had, even as a school- 
 girl, remotely contemplated such an ending, and now, with 
 Shelley gone (though he was at this very time seeking her 
 anxiously, that he might relieve her distresses), with her 
 father and sister angered against her, and with a last friend 
 unwilling longer to forward her happiness, she took the 
 plunge with a despairing calmness. If she had wandered 
 morally, she felt at least as justified as Shelley himself, whose 
 social views were not capable of a uniformly beneficent appli- 
 cation to concrete cases. Love, as she understood it, seemed 
 indeed, by harsh evidence, thrown from its eminence. Yet 
 her death was far less the specific outcome of Shelley's con- 
 duct than it was the due result of a fatal flaw in her own 
 character, and though Shelley felt acute and abiding regret, 
 he cannot be said to have experienced remorse. We may 
 briefly compare, in passing, the matrimonial beginnings of 
 Shelley with those of his grandfather, and note the untimely 
 closing of the waters over Shelley's head as over Harriet's. 
 We must pass rapidly over the accompanying and depend- 
 ent events of this season, — the renewal of old friendships, 
 Godwin's persistent difficulties, the generous literary encour- 
 agement of Shelley by Leigh Hunt, the reconciliation of 
 Godwin to the poet, and the formal ceremony of marriage 
 between Shelley and Mary at St. Mildred's Church, London, 
 December 30. 
 
 The care of his children, lanthe and Charles Bysshe, had 
 been reluctantly and at her earnest request committed to 
 Harriet by their father, who now sought to gain possession 
 of them. His right to do so was stoutly contested by the 
 Westbrooks, who filed a suit in Chancery to determine the 
 question. They represented that Shelley, as the deserter 
 of Harriet and the author of Queen Mab, was not a proper 
 person to have control of the children's upbringing and 
 education ; while Shelley's counsel argued that the poet 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 was justified in leaving Harriet, and that he had since that 
 time faithfully supplied her needs, while it were intoler- 
 able tyranny to wrest his children from him merely on ac- 
 count of his intellectual conclusions. After two months of 
 legal conflict the case was decided against both parties, Lord 
 Eldon postponing final judgment until July 25, 1818, but 
 declining to grant the custody of the children to either Shelley 
 or Mr. Westbrook. At length it was determined to place 
 lanthe and Charles in the care of Dr. and Mrs. Hume, of 
 Brent End Lodge, Hanwell, persons n6minated by Shelley 
 and paid chiefly by him and partly by the interest of a fund 
 previously settled upon the children by Mr. Westbrook. 
 Shelley keenly felt the injustice of the judgment, but pre- 
 served a fine attitude throughout the proceedings. During 
 this time he and Mary, with their child William, were for 
 the most part resident at Marlow on the Thames. Before 
 going thither, however, Shelley had met Keats, Hazlitt, and 
 J. H. Reynolds, as fellow-guests of Leigh Hunt, and also 
 Horace Smith, who became a close friend and sympathizer. 
 At Marlow he spent more than a year of busy authorship, 
 hospitality, and beneficence. As writer, he produced, among 
 other pamphlets and poems, some remonstrant lines to Lord 
 Eldon, Prince Athanasej part of Rosalind and Helen^ and 
 Laon and Cythna, — afterward The Revolt of Islam^ — 
 a stirring and eloquent prophecy of the triumph of the 
 spirit of love and liberality. " I have attempted," he wrote 
 to his publisher, ^'in the progress of my work to speak 
 to the common elementary emotions of the human heart, 
 so that though it is the story of violence and revolution, it is 
 relieved by milder pictures of friendship and love and natural 
 affections." As host, he entertained Peacock, Godwin, the 
 Hunts, William Baxter, and Horace Smith, besides Claire 
 and the little newcomer, Clara Allegra, daughter of Byron. 
 As friend and helper, the poor of Marlow knew and loved 
 him. On September 2, 1817, after the completion of Frank- 
 enstein, a third child was born to Shelley and Mary, whom 
 
INTRODUCTION xxxix 
 
 they named Clara Everina. Godwin's well-known novel, 
 Mandeville, appeared during November, and Shelley cor- 
 responded freely with its author as both admiring critic and 
 purse-opener. 
 
 " I think we ought to go to Italy," wrote restless Shelley 
 to Mary late in 1817, after much earnest discussion of ways 
 and means. Shelley's failing health, medical advice, Mary's 
 own inclination, and the desire to help Claire toward an 
 understanding with Byron, all conspired to this end. March 
 12, 1818, saw the travellers once again — for Shelley now 
 the last time — leaving the ancient cliffs of Dover for Calais. 
 Had the poet known that he was to see his native land no 
 more, his heart would have gone out to her in a high song 
 of farewell, for despite his passionate desire to compass the 
 reform of many of her laws and institutions, his life and 
 letters at many points affectionately attest the strength of 
 his love for England. 
 
 The four closing years of Shelley's brief life were the 
 happiest and most productive. Indeed, had these been 
 denied him, his works would hardly have won large place 
 in the memories and affections of men. Animation was his, 
 bright and breathless ; power was his, earnest and unmis- 
 takable ; but time and place were yet to bring their calm 
 and their counsel to his too agitated spirit. What the clear 
 sunny skies of Italy had done for Chaucer and Milton, what 
 they were to reveal to Browning and his lyric love, they 
 were now about to give to Shelley in abundant measure, 
 and thereafter to keep protective watch above his clover- 
 clustered Roman grave. 
 
 The passage of the Alps was safely achieved, and the 
 travellers reached, Milan, April 4. Thence Shelley and 
 Mary proceeded to the Lake of Como, but, disappointed by 
 their continued failure to find a suitable abode, they returned 
 to Milan, shortly gathered their little flock together, and 
 pressed on to Pisa and Leghorn, not, however, before Claire 
 had satisfied the demand Byron made from Venice that she 
 
xl INTRODUCTION 
 
 should relinquish to him the control of Allegra. At Leghorn 
 they gladly met Mr. and Mrs. John Gisborne, the latter of 
 whom, a bright, thoughtful woman, was an old friend of 
 Godwin's, and the mother of Henry Reveley, Gisborne's 
 stepson. After a few weeks in Leghorn, Shelley transferred 
 his family to the Baths of Lucca, in the beautiful forest 
 country north of Pisa. Here Rosalind and Helen was con- 
 cluded, and here husband and wife spent memorable hours 
 in the groves and vineyards, within sight of Apennine sum- 
 mits. This life of calm was broken by the growing anxiety 
 of Claire, whom Shelley at length accompanied to Venice to 
 see Byron and Allegra. Claire found her little daughter at 
 the home of the Hoppners, the English consul-general's fam- 
 ily, who received the wayfarers with great hospitality. Shel- 
 ley alone visited Byron, who heard him with friendly regard, 
 but with little real consideration. He stressed his liking for 
 Shelley, however, and insisted that he bring his family and 
 Claire to live for a time in Byron's then unoccupied villa — 
 I Cappuccini — at Este, among the Euganean Hills. Shel- 
 ley accepted the invitation, and wrote to Mary asking her to 
 meet him in Este. Little Clara was taken ill on the road, 
 and after anxious days in the new home, the parents hastened 
 with her to Venice to consult there a noted medico, but had 
 hardly arrived when the child died. A week passed sadly in 
 Venice before they returned to Este to find Claire again, and 
 William, and Allegra. Now for some time having brooded 
 his masterpiece, Prometheus Unbound, Shelley fell back 
 upon present surroundings and recent memories, first pro- 
 ducing Julian and Maddalo, and, in part at least, Lines 
 Written among the Euganean Hills. The latter poem is of 
 poignant and almost incredible lyric beauty ; the former has 
 been already touched. By October 12 the poet, with Mary 
 and William, was back in Venice, seeing much of Byron, 
 admiring his genius but despising his excesses. After a brief 
 return to Este and the re-delivery of Allegra to Byron, the 
 hospitable villa was deserted and the faces of the four were 
 
IN TR 01) UCTION xli 
 
 set southward for Naples. Here, notwithstanding his hope 
 of improvement, a deep dejection, both physical and spirit- 
 ual, seized upon Shelley, an almost Hamlet-like sense of isola- 
 tion, from which he did not well recover until the early spring. 
 It was now resolved to visit Rome, where they had spent 
 but a week en route to Naples, and the completion of their 
 first year in Italy was signalized by the entrance of the pil- 
 grims into the Eternal City. They found themselves now 
 somewhat less lonely ; acquaintances called ; steady reading 
 went on ; and interested visits were paid to the Vatican, 
 Villa Borghese, Pantheon, and Capitol. In the remote and 
 solitary moments of his frequent walks about the ruins of 
 the Baths of Caracalla, Shelley almost completed his great 
 lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound^ among at once the 
 gentlest and proudest vindications of the human spirit. He 
 felt his inevitable way to the symbolic heart of this noble 
 myth, as imagined and made vital not only by ^schylus 
 and others, but by the high instinct of man he had himself 
 developed. Here Shelley's prime idea of the self-saving 
 and self-justifying power of Love reaches its surest and 
 most elevated expression. 
 
 A long reaction and an anticipation of evil to come led 
 the poet to long again for at least a brief visit to England, 
 "out of pure weakness of heart." The temperamental 
 barometer proved true. On June 7 William, the most fondly 
 cherished of the children, passed away. The English bury- 
 ing-ground, hard-by the Porta San Paolo, received the little 
 body, and Shelley and Mary were left desolate indeed. The 
 mother's melancholy, in truth, became so intense that Shelley 
 decided upon Leghorn and Mrs. Gisborne as the place and 
 person most suited to her at the moment, and rented, accord- 
 ingly, the Villa Valsovano there. He himself had urged his 
 doubtful steps through many a gloom, and felt for the thrice- 
 bereaved mother no less than he felt with her. " We must 
 all weep on these occasions," wrote Leigh Hunt to Mary, 
 " and it is better for the kindly fountains within us that we 
 
xlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 should. May you weep quietly, but not long ; and may the 
 calmest and most affectionate spirit that comes out of the 
 contemplation of great things, and the love of all, lay his 
 most blessed hand upon you." When Mary would be much 
 alone Shelley read and thought as rapidly and as eagerly as 
 ever, adventuring through Dante, Boccaccio, and Calderon, 
 and praising the Spanish dramatist with discriminating en- 
 thusiasm. Now, too, he finished his own deeply stirring 
 drama, The Cenci, conceived more than a year before, after 
 reading an old MS. at Leghorn, and viewing Guido's sup- 
 posed portrait of Beatrice in the Colonna Palace at Rome. 
 This production, touched as it is with weaknesses of phras- 
 ing and of dramatic " business," — the dramatist sometimes 
 hinders the poet, — is yet comparable, as a study in the spirit 
 of hate and villainy, only with Shakespeare's Richard III 
 and Browning's Guido ; while Cordelia, Pompilia, and 
 Beatrice form the triad of great women in English poetry. 
 The fifth act is by far the most powerful, not only because 
 it contains the " tremendous end," but because Shelley raises 
 here a nigh unfettered wing in soul-criticism and dramatic 
 range. 
 
 In Florence, where the autumn of 1819 found them settled, 
 Shelley spent many days visiting the great galleries of paint- 
 ing and statuary, though with increasing physical unrest. On 
 November 12 a last child was born to him, christened Percy 
 Florence, who survived both his father and mother, and in- 
 herited the baronetcy. The prevailing discontent in Eng- 
 land, with which Shelley deeply sympathized, occasioned at 
 this time the writing of his Songs and Poems for the Men 
 of England^ and his Masque of Anarchy, — poems of peace- 
 ful poise but revolutionary impulse, — and a thoughtful 
 treatise, A Philosophical View of Reform. A translation 
 of Euripides' The Cyclops, the creation of an additional 
 act of the Prometheus, and the breathing of the subtly 
 lyric incantation to the spirit of the West Wind, all belong 
 to this great creative year. It is interesting to note the loyal 
 
INTRODUCTION xliii 
 
 human interest Slielley took during this winter in his friend 
 Reveley's projected steamship, an interest that did not hesi- 
 tate to provide ill-to-be-spared money for the advancement 
 of what was almost a foredoomed failure. The extreme cold 
 of early January, 1820, drove him at length to Pisa, where 
 most of his time was thenceforth to be spent. A small group 
 of friends cheered Shelley and Mary here, during the few 
 intervals not given over to study and composition, — friends 
 not unwelcome, since the Gisbornes and Henry Reveley 
 were now leaving for England. Though the poet's health 
 was responding favourably to the change of climate, God- 
 win's monotonous embarrassments and demands preyed upon 
 his spirits, and he was obliged to protect Mary from full 
 knowledge of her father's rapacity. There were other sources 
 of perplexity and even anger that greatly disturbed the 
 Shelleys at this time, — a grossly unfair attack upon the 
 poet in the Quarterly Review, and a scandal spread abroad 
 by a vicious servant which it took some time to check and 
 refute. With the advent of midsummer the heat grew so 
 intense that a move was made to the proffered home of 
 the absent Gisbornes, Casa Ricci, in Leghorn, where — fol- 
 lowing the Pisan lyric. The Cloud — the Ode to a Sky- 
 lark was written. Probably the music of the Spenserian 
 Alexandrines, for he had long loved the Faerie Queene, 
 rang in Shelley's ears as he penned this exulting yet regret- 
 ful cry. Among the other poems of 1820 are the Letter 
 to Maria Gisborne, The Sensitive Plant , The Witch of 
 Atlas, Hymn to Mercury, Ode to Liberty, and Ode to 
 Naples. By August the heat was unbearable, and another 
 change was made to the Baths of San Giuliano di Pisa. 
 Shelley's interest in European political conditions was 
 acute, and he watched with keen solicitude the course of 
 the revolutions in Spain and Naples, greatly regretting the 
 eventual success of the Austrians in restoring the false 
 Neapolitan king. During the early months of 1821 he 
 sought and found social reinforcement of his views. The 
 
xliv INTRODUCTION 
 
 Gisbornes were back, though a lively misunderstanding pre- 
 vented an early renewal of old ties ; and Thomas Med- 
 win, the poet's cousin and former schoolmate, had found 
 his not too welcome way to Pisa. Over against these was 
 the finer intelligence and exalted spirit of the Greek pa- 
 triot, Alexander Mavrocordato, to whom Shelley's prophetic 
 drama, Hellas, was afterward dedicated ; the finesse of 
 Francesco Pacchiani, aPisan academician; the good-natured 
 vapidity of Count Taaffe ; the skilful improvisations of the 
 famous Sgricci ; and the pathetic durance of the Contessina 
 Emilia Viviani, beloved alike by Shelley, Mary, and Claire. 
 Condemned, with her sister, to the strict seclusion of a con- 
 vent life by a jealous stepmother and an indifferent father, 
 Emilia was in evil case, and this, with her exquisite loveli- 
 ness, so wrought upon Shelley's imagination that he sought 
 continually to deliver her from the Intolerance he had so 
 of ten scourged of old. He became her " caro fratello " and 
 Mary her " dearest sister." The profound though passing 
 influence exerted upon Shelley by her character and situ- 
 ation is apparent in his Epipsychidion. " It is," he wrote 
 to Gisborne, after many months, " an idealized history of 
 my life and feelings. I think one is always in love with 
 something or other ; the error — and I confess it is not easy 
 for spirits cased in flesh and blood to avoid it — consists in 
 seeking in a mortal image the likeness of what is, perhaps, 
 eternal." The ''isle under Ionian skies," an idea which 
 had so strong a hold upon Shelley's fancy, ^ as upon the 
 youthful Browning's,^ here achieves its right poetic value. 
 Emilia married at last a Signor Biondi, and lived but a 
 brief and checkered life. It was fitting though almost acci- 
 
 ^ Cf. letter of August, 1821, to Mary : " My greatest content would 
 be utterly to desert all human society. I would retire with you and 
 our child to a solitary island in the sea and build a boat, and shut 
 upon ray retreat the floodgates of the world." Cf. also Prometheus, 
 IV, iv, 200, 201. 
 
 2 Cf. Pippa Passes, ii, 314-327. 
 
INTE OD UCTION xl V 
 
 dental that at this time Shelley should put into critical form 
 his own noble theory of poetry, published after his death. 
 
 Soon after the departure of Claire, who was now engaged 
 in tutoring certain young Florentines, there arrived in Pisa 
 friends of Medwin, Lieutenant Edward Elliker Williams 
 and his wife Jane. The Shelieys, both husband and wife, 
 were much pleased with the newcomers, who in their turn 
 attached themselves with sympathy and understanding to 
 their fellow-exiles. With Williams and Reveley the poet 
 would sail the Arno in a light Arthurian shallop that on one 
 exciting occasion suddenly overset, nearly ending Shelley, 
 the non-swimmer, then and there. Notwithstanding this 
 mishap his love for nautical excursions grew into a passion, 
 nearly every day found him on the water, and on May 4, 
 he even undertook a venturesome excursion with Reveley 
 from the mouth of the Arno to Leghorn. In San Giuliano 
 the case was not different, and it was here, indeed, that The 
 Boat on the Serchio was born. Here also was produced 
 the last of Shelley's completed major poems, Adonais, writ- 
 ten in memory of John Keats. 
 
 Upon hearing of Keats's illness and of his arrival im Italy, 
 Shelley had urged him to accept the invitation to Pisa he 
 had previously extended, but poor Keats was already strug- 
 gling with death, and yielded himself at Rome, February 
 23, 1821. Shelley received the news some weeks later, 
 probably in a letter from England, and began almost imme- 
 diately to brood his elegy. He had not known Keats well, 
 had variously estimated his work, and had scarcely sympa- 
 thized with his consuming passion for his art. Indeed, he had 
 written Keats an earnest word concerning his own free- 
 dom from " system and mannerism," instancing the I^ro- 
 metheiis and The CencL Over-regularity he had sought to 
 avoid. " I wish those who excel me in genius would pursue 
 the same plan." And Keats had good-humouredly replied : 
 " An artist must serve Mammon ; he must have ' self -con- 
 centration ' — selfishness, perhaps. You, I am sure, will for- 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTION 
 
 give me for sincerely remarking that you might curb your 
 magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every 
 rift of your subject with ore." Shelley did not much ad- 
 mire Endymion, but he thought Hyperion " grand poetry," 
 the product of "transcendent genius." He sincerely re- 
 spected Keats, though he failed to understand him, and it 
 is matter for large regret that the two poets, because of the 
 sensitiveness of the one and the too lately aroused concern 
 of the other, did not find a closer union — a communion — 
 possible. The poem itself, written in Spenserians, is as a 
 pure elegy unequalled in our language. It sounds the deeps 
 of death, for Keats, for Shelley, for all " the inheritors of 
 unfulfilled renown." It was first printed at Pisa, with the 
 types of Didot. >' I am especially curious," wrote Shelley 
 to his English publisher, Oilier, "to hear the fate of 
 Adonais. I confess I should be surprised if that poem 
 were born to an immortality of oblivion." 
 
 After a flying visit to Florence, house-hunting on behalf 
 of Horace Smith, who was defending him against calumnies 
 consequent upon the pirated republication of Queen Mab, 
 and who failed, eventually, to reach Italy, Shelley journeyed 
 to Ravenna early in August, 1821, to become the guest of 
 Byron at the Guiccioli Palace. He found his fellow-poet 
 less extravagant than before in conduct, if not in criticism 
 of all things. Had he known of Byron's perfidy in failing 
 to suppress — indeed actually using — reports against Shel- 
 ley's honour, — a perfidy completed when he engaged yet 
 failed to deliver to Mrs. Hoppner an important letter written 
 to her by Mary, — it is doubtful whether he would have 
 consented to meet Byron again. As it was, he found life 
 in Ravenna none too pleasant, and though he was captivated 
 with the fifth canto of Don Juan, as Byron read it, and 
 felt his own inability to rival the facility of such art, yet 
 both Byron's personality and his very genius oppressed 
 Shelley, and he left Ravenna for Pisa August 17. Before 
 long, however, Byron and his companion had decided to 
 
INTRODUCTION xlvii 
 
 come also to Pisa, taking the Lanfranchi Palace on the 
 Lung' Amo. Byron had suggested to Shelley at Ravenna 
 that they and Leigh Hunt should unite in founding a peri- 
 odical, to contain representative future work from each of 
 them. Shelley now took up the plan with enthusiasm, so far 
 at least as it concerned Hunt, and, learning of his friend's 
 serious illness in England, wrote proposing his departure for 
 Italy. Hunt reached Leghorn early in July, 1822, but the 
 affectionate welcome with which Shelley greeted him was 
 to be both the beginning and the end of the renewed com- 
 radeship for which each was hungering. 
 
 But a few miles up the coast from Pisa lies the Gulf of 
 Spezia, whither Shelley and Mary, with Claire, who had 
 rejoined them, travelled in September, 1821, seeking a nest 
 for time to come. They explored the enchanting shores with 
 delight, and returned happy in the assurance that they had 
 found their summer haven for the succeeding year. Shortly 
 afterward they left the Baths, and re-established themselves 
 in Pisa proper, at the Tre Palazzi di Chiesa, opposite the 
 Lanfranchi Palace and Byron, inviting the Williams family 
 to occupy the lower floor. The Shelleys — free for the mo- 
 ment from the cares of authorship, now that Hellas and 
 Mary's Valperga were concluded — read freely, discussed 
 high matters with Byron and the Williamses, or beguiled the 
 time with Medwin and Taaffe. Shelley himself walked and 
 rode and sailed not a little, or Byron would mischievously 
 invite him to a formal dinner, for the sake of watching his 
 unease, or would 'read his Cain to a hearer even more 
 appreciative, perhaps, than its creator. Byron placed great 
 value upon Shelley's critical opinions, asserting that " he, 
 alone, in this age of humbug, dares stem the current, as he 
 did to-day the flooded Arno in his skiff, although I could not 
 observe he made any progress." These words are quoted 
 from the original Recollections of Edward John Trelawny, 
 a Cornishman, and friend of Medwin and Williams, who, 
 though still young, had led a wild and varied career. He 
 
xlvlii INTRODUCTION 
 
 arrived in Pisa, at Williams's instance, January 14, 1822, 
 hoping to secure Williams and other recruits for a summer 
 cruise on the Mediterranean. He was a man of fine phy- 
 sique, dark, tall, and strong, " a kind of half-Arab Eng- 
 lishman," as Mary described him, whose frank manner and 
 adventurous disposition soon won him the regard of the 
 little colony on the Lung' Arno. His Records of Shelley ^ 
 Byron and the Author are, though somewhat inaccurate, 
 peculiarly interesting and readable. Shelley found him a 
 valorous figure, a ready-to-hand symbol of knight-errantry, 
 and drew a poetic picture of him in Fragments of an Un- 
 finished Drama. Williams and Shelley, with Byron's party, 
 soon formed a league with Trelawny for the ensuing descent 
 upon Spezia, and he was commissioned to order a little 
 schooner from Captain Daniel Roberts, an old friend then 
 staying at Genoa. Early in February Shelley and Williams 
 left for Spezia to secure houses, but returned to announce 
 that only one good residence was to be had, and that this 
 was '' to serve for all." The "all," however, became limited 
 by Byron's defection. During the softly beautiful days of 
 the Tuscan spring Shelley wrote his three lyrics to Jane 
 Williams, originally intended only for the private reading of 
 her husband and herself. He was also at work on the frag- 
 mentary drama, Charles the First. 
 
 It was fortunate for the Shelleys that Byron decided 
 against going to Spezia. Not Byron's posing humours, to 
 which Shelley was accustomed, but his steady cruelty toward 
 Claire, despite all intervention, slowly wore out Shelley's 
 friendship, and it was therefore with relief on all grounds 
 that he accepted Byron's decision. Claire's anxiety for Al- 
 legra, who soon thereafter died in an unhealthful convent, 
 caused her such suffering that Shelley and Mary resolved to 
 take her with them. On April 26 Trelawny escorted Mary 
 and Claire to Spezia, followed the next day by Shelley and 
 the Williamses. By May 1 the party were settled in Casa 
 Magni, a picturesque but not too comfortable villa on the 
 
INTBODUCTION xlix 
 
 Bay of Lerici, near the fishing-hamlet of San Terenzo. 
 Claire, apprised at length of Allegra's death, returned for 
 a time to Florence, and Trelawny proceeded to Genoa, there 
 to lend a hand in Captain Roberts's boat-building. This now 
 included not only Shelley's craft, but a yacht, the Bolivar, 
 for Byron. 
 
 On May 12 the long-expected boat arrived, built from the 
 somewhat eccentric plans of Williams, but so swift and grace- 
 ful that Ariel became her name of right, rather than Don 
 Juan, as Trelawny had named her during the original part- 
 nership. Charles Vivian, a young sailor-lad, one of the crew 
 who brought her, was retained, and made a quietly efiicient 
 helper to the too pleased and energetic Williams and the 
 book-preoccupied Shelley, who, delegated to steer, used 
 often er than not to put the helm the wrong way. Trelawny 
 and Roberts touched at Spezia, June 13, with Byron's yacht, 
 and Trelawny went on to Leghorn three days later. Whether 
 on land or sea, Shelley was almost constantly reading or 
 musing, though at times his mood was as quick and merry 
 as a child's at play. The Triumph of Life, begun at Pisa, 
 and continued at Casa Magni, is the last fine fragment of 
 his poetic work. The poem is touched with a deeper and 
 truer philosophy than of old, the fruit of maturing expe- 
 rience, and leads us to feel that, if time had been his, he 
 would have become at once more human and more catholic, 
 less impatient for the renovation of life, more penetrating 
 in its interpretation. 
 
 In many of Shelley's most haunting songs there is heard 
 the echoing whisper of early death. Never of a really robust 
 constitution, and subject during his last years to spasms of 
 acute pain, he insensibly allowed his youthfully pensive anti- 
 cipations to take on a more settled habit. When boating with 
 Byron during the summer of 1816 and threatened with acci- 
 dental death, he felt in the prospect, he wrote to Peacock, 
 " a mixture of sensations, among which terror entered, though 
 but subordinately." Trelawny tells us that Shelley remained 
 
1 INTRODUCTION 
 
 inert at the bottom of a deep pool in the Arno during the 
 progress of the only swimming lesson he seems to have 
 taken, and had to be hastily rescued. "When he recovered 
 his breath, he said : ' I always find the bottom of the well, 
 and they say Truth lies there. In another minute I should 
 have found it, and you would have found an empty shell.' '' 
 And at Casa Magni, oaring the boat one day into deep water, 
 with Jane Williams and her babes as passengers, he sat 
 silent a while, at last looking up and exclaiming : '' Now let 
 us together solve the great mystery ! " Williams writes of 
 what, perhaps, was the strangest portent of all, the vision 
 that came to Shelley in May of a child like AUegi-a rising 
 from the sea, to smile at him and clap her hands in joy. 
 
 Early in June Claire returned to Casa Magni, and assisted 
 in nursing Mary, who became for a week or more seriously 
 ill. Though attended by Shelley with unrelaxing devotion, 
 she improved but slowly. By July Hunt's announced de- 
 parture from Genoa for Leghorn determined Shelley and 
 Williams to sail for the same port, that they might there 
 welcome him to Italy, and see his family safely housed in 
 the lower floor of the Lanfranchi Palace at Pisa. With 
 vague fears Mary saw her husband embark, and " cried bit- 
 terly when he went away."^ The voyage was pleasant and 
 speedy, but disappointment awaited the voyagers. Although 
 Hunt had arrived and was greeted with affectionate warmth, 
 Byron, as it happened, was sulking at a slight put upon him 
 by the Italian authorities, and was resolved to quit the lit- 
 erary enterprise and the country at once. It was imperative 
 that Shelley should appeal to Byron on behalf of Hunt's 
 necessity and good faith, which he did with so much force 
 and reason that a satisfactory programme was at last ar- 
 ranged. By July 7 all was settled, and the poet, turning 
 to Mrs. Hunt, as the three friends strolled about Pisa, 
 exclaimed : " If I die to-morrow, I have lived to be older 
 than my father ; I am ninety years of age.'' 
 ^ From a letter to Mrs. Gisborne. 
 
INTRODUCTION li 
 
 Prophetic words ! Farewells were exchanged, Hunt put 
 into Shelley's hands a copy of Keats's last volume, and the 
 evening shadows of the Leghorn road swallowed up the 
 form of his friend. On the morrow, July 8, 1822, both the 
 port authorities and the friends of Williams and Shelley at 
 Leghorn were disturbed by signs of tempest. Captain Rob- 
 erts, in particular, sought to detain them for another day. 
 But dissuasion was of no avail. Both were anxious to return 
 to Casa Magni, and shortly after noon, with the lad Vivian, 
 they set sail, watched anxiously by the glasses of Roberts 
 and Trelawny. A few hours later a thunderstorm broke in 
 earnest, the several smaller craft scurrying before it into 
 harbour. Trelawny was stationed on board the anchored 
 Bolivar, whence he did not retire until dark. Roberts saw 
 the last of the Ariel from the lighthouse tower. It was a 
 speck some miles out at sea, but his glass descried the occu- 
 pants taking in the topsail. 
 
 Not for several days did the sea relinquish its dead, cast- 
 ing up Shelley's body near Via Reggio, and Williams's 
 about three miles distant, in Tuscan territory. The end had 
 come, and Shelley's life of light and song, — 
 
 *' . . . its pinions disarrayed of might, 
 Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
 Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
 As waves which lately paved his watery way 
 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play." 
 
 Some weeks passed before Vivian's body was found. 
 
 The anxiety of the women at Casa Magni soon deepened 
 into alarm, and, on the Friday following the fatal Monday, 
 drove them into Pisa. They saw Byron first, and then 
 Roberts and Trelawny at Leghorn. None could comfort 
 them. After anguished conversations they were persuaded 
 to return to Lerici, accompanied by Trelawny. The bodies, 
 much mutilated, were found July 17 and 18. In one of 
 Shelley's pockets was a volume of Sophocles, in the other 
 the borrowed copy of Keats, turned back at The Eve of St. 
 
Hi INTROBUCTION 
 
 Agnes, The stringency of the Italian quarantine law made 
 it necessary to secure permission to cremate the bodies — 
 already officially buried in quicklime on the shore — in 
 order to preserve the ashes for later interment. On August 
 15, Trelawny, Hunt, and Byron gathered on the beach; 
 the funeral pyre for Williams's body was made ready, and 
 was lit by Trelawny. " The materials being dry and resin- 
 ous the pine-wood burnt furiously, and drove us back. It 
 was hot enough before, there was no breath of air, and the 
 loose sand scorched our feet. As soon as the flames became 
 clear, and allowed us to approach, we threw frankincense 
 and salt into the furnace, and poured a flask of wine and 
 oil over the body. The Greek oration was omitted, for we 
 had lost our Hellenic bard." The next day, at Via Reggio, 
 Shelley's remains were similarly treated, before a group of 
 curious native spectators. The story is realistically told by 
 Trelawny. "What surprised us all," he concludes, ** was that 
 the heart remained entire. In snatching this relic from the 
 fiery furnace, my hand was severely burnt ; and had any one 
 seen me do the act I should have been put into quarantine." 
 The final burial of the poet's ashes took place, by Mary's 
 desire, in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, in a tomb built 
 by Trelawny within a recess of the old Roman wall. This 
 was covered with solid stone, bearing an inscription in Latin 
 written by Leigh Hunt, with a passage added by Trelawny 
 from The Tem,pest^ well loved by Shelley : — 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 COR CORDIUM 
 
 NATUS IV AUG. MDCCXCn 
 
 OBIIT VIII JUL. MDCCCXXII 
 
 " Nothing of him that doth fade 
 But doth Buffer a sea-change 
 Into something rich and strange." 
 
 In the companion tomb lies Trelawny, whose grave is in- 
 scribed with Shelley's lines. The Epitaph. Not far away 
 
INTRODUCTION liii 
 
 are the graves of John Keats and Joseph Severn, and that 
 of John Addington Symonds, lover and biographer of Shel- 
 ley. ' And all about grow every sorte of flowre/ — violets 
 and daisies, roses and clover, and over all the tall, dark 
 cypresses wave solemn boughs. 
 
 SHELLEY AS POET ^ 
 
 There is nothing more difficult to define than Poetry, be- 
 cause there is nothing more Protean. The statements are 
 as various as the creators and the critics, and it is well that 
 it is so, for particularity and insistent dicta are foreign to 
 the spirit of literature. Literature is large and catholic ; it 
 is in its essence a mystery, incapable of precise scientific 
 analysis ; it is an unquenchable spiritual impulse and adven- 
 ture realized in words ; it is the interpretation of the dream 
 of life ; and with its instinct humanity is inalienably en- 
 dowed. " You cannot escape Literature," declared Sidney 
 Lanier. " For how can you think yourself out of thought ? 
 How can you run away from your own feet ? " 
 
 Yet there are at least three qualities that may seem to 
 determine the literary artist, the poet. He must, first, seek 
 pure truth with a devoted and single-minded enthusiasm, 
 whatever the cost. He must cherish every hint, every gleam. 
 He must catch the rhythms of the noisy life about him as 
 those of the sea and the forest. He must be at heart a man of 
 intense social sympathy, yet of a lonely habit. Certainly, 
 he will belong the more truly to the world of men because he 
 does not belong to them. He must be for mankind — 
 
 * The only speaker of essential truth, 
 Opposed to relative, comparative 
 And temporal truths.' 
 
 " Poets," said Shelley, " are the unacknowledged legislators 
 of the world." And again, " A poem is the very image of life 
 
 1 The attempt has been made to touch the biographical sketch with 
 criticism. The present treatment aims to derive general critical prin- 
 ciples from the particulars already given. 
 
liv INTRODUCTION 
 
 expressed in its eternal truth." The place of the poet is high 
 but hard. It is his, above others, to experience with forti- 
 tude '' the baptism in salt water," to suffer nobly in life 
 and even at times in art for his power's sake. If slowly 
 and with struggle, yet he still spells out his word. Shelley's 
 solitary figure of Alastor was not, we must think, unhappy, 
 though his ear was holden to hear "the eternal note of 
 sadness." 
 
 The poet must have, also, fine sensibility to the beauty that 
 lurks in language. This is the plastic material with which 
 he works, — positively, in words; negatively, in silences. 
 His diction must be sure, representing life and repre- 
 senting him. He must be keenly aware of the dignity of 
 words, their music, colours, individualities, and kinships. His 
 poems must not be word-prisons, but word-homes. And to 
 this regard for words — indeed, as conditioning and justify- 
 ing such regard — he must, last, add an impelling insight 
 into the root rightness of things. Art, with its hunger for 
 truth and its passion for beauty, feeds also and always upon 
 good, upon the law of love and virtue. A fine-grained aesthete 
 must the artist be ; but he must be, before and beyond that, 
 a man. One in any field who delights to picture the unholy 
 for its own sake, who is preoccupied rather with the tempo- 
 rary alliance of energy and evil than with the struggle 
 that makes for character — such an one is not less dead to 
 beauty than to good. It is quite true that the professed 
 moralizer has no place in pure literature, for he is a brief- 
 holder, a special pleader, and does not see and show impar- 
 tially. "A poet would do ill," thought Shelley, "to embody 
 his own conceptions of right and wrong, which are usually 
 those of his place and time, in his poetical creations, which 
 participate in neither." Yet it is also true that life is seen 
 by the poet as a unit, and that art, like life, is of moral 
 significance. Every great artist is implicitly devoted to the 
 idea of good, is sincerely on the better side. All sure literary 
 masterpieces are marked by unmistakable signs of love for 
 
INTRODUCTION Iv 
 
 that which is holy, whatever plot or method may appear. 
 No genius, however erratip, therefore, has been radically 
 vicious. Though the light he lives in may sometimes blind 
 him, it will not blast him. Extraordinary sincerity is de- 
 manded in art, whole-hearted allegiance to one's ideal and 
 inspiration, and lifelong perseverance in the attempt to realize 
 these. " Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the 
 divinity in man." 
 
 Notwithstanding the varying emphases of the great poets, 
 — variations often more apparent than real, — it will be 
 found that their lives and their works satisfy these condi- 
 tions. It is easy to distinguish Shelley's poetry from Words- 
 worth's, or from Shakespeare's, and yet it would sometimes 
 be a good deal less easy were it not for the single fact of 
 style, — the characteristic clothing, or rather the special 
 way in which each man's work wears its clothing. Even 
 so, there are brief passages in Alastor that Wordsworth 
 might have uttered, and lyric touches in the Prometheus 
 that would not readily be wrested as spurious from one of 
 Shakespeare's romantic comedies. The truth is, that Poetry, 
 too, is one, and that, as Shelley himself so finely phrases it, 
 "poetical abstractions are beautiful and new, not because 
 the portions of which they are composed had no previous 
 existence in the mind of man or in nature, but because the 
 whole produced by their combination has some intelligible 
 and beautiful analogy with those sources of emotion and 
 thought, and with the contemporary condition of them : one 
 great poet is a masterpiece of nature which another not only 
 ought to study but must study. He might as wisely and as 
 easily determine that his mind should no longer be the mirror 
 of all that is lovely in the visible universe, as exclude from 
 his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings 
 of a great contemporary. ... A poet is the combined 
 product of such internal powers as modify the nature of 
 others ; and of such external influences as excite and sustain 
 these powers ; he is not one, but both. Every man's mind 
 
Ivi INTRODUCTION 
 
 is, ill this respect, modified by all the objects of nature and 
 art ; by every word and every suggestion which he ever ad- 
 mitted to act upon his consciousness ; it is the mirror upon 
 which all forms are reflected, and in which they compose 
 one form. Poets, not otherwise than philosophers, painters, 
 sculptors, and musicians, are, in one sense, the creators, and, 
 in another, the creations, of their age. From this subjection 
 the loftiest do not escape." ^ 
 
 Shelley, for his part, saturated himself as a youth in the 
 plays of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and other Elizabethans; 
 in the Faerie Queene of Spenser (whose influence on suc- 
 ceeding English poets, particularly Milton and Keats, has 
 justly, won for him the title of "the poets' poet"); in 
 Homer and the Greek tragedies ; in Theocritus, Moschus, 
 and Bion ; in Horace, Ovid, Virgil, and Lucretius ; in Tasso, 
 Ariosto, and lesser Italians ; in Milton's austere epic and his 
 minor works ; and in the poems of Scott, Moore, Southey, 
 Wordsworth, and Coleridge. Goethe, too, he read. In later 
 years he praised much Calderon and Dante, and read Byron 
 with the added interest their frequent contact aroused. This 
 is but a partial catalogue of the poetry he eagerly absorbed — 
 the prose was correspondingly considerable — and which 
 more and more discovered to him his powers and opportun- 
 ities, as his own works did for Browning in a later day. He 
 was stirred and moved, also, by the great Biblical poems 
 and dramas, — the book of Job especially. 
 
 The living persons who most influenced Shelley have been 
 already mentioned and described in the sketch of his life, 
 and there also it was shown how deeply his imagination was 
 affected by the elemental forces of nature. Forces, — be- 
 cause. Titanic or delicate as the object might be, Mont Blanc 
 or a skylark, Shelley seems chiefly concerned with its incen- 
 tive, the spirit that gives it being and direction. He sees 
 nature neither as vast painted scenery against which as 
 against a background man plays his part, nor yet as the 
 1 From the Preface to Prometheus Unbound. 
 
INTRODUCTION Ivii 
 
 unreal projection of human thought and fancy. Responsive 
 as he is to every sensuous impression, and eager to trace the 
 course of human destiny in the symbolic aspects of nature, he 
 yet characteristically regards all natural phenomena as vital 
 in themselves and for themselves, understanding man no 
 less than understood by him, honouring their own dignity as 
 members of the spiritual economy of the universe, and 
 calmer and truer in their movement toward destiny than 
 the mortals who live among them in alternating fits of 
 love and cruelty, of fear and hope. Into their spiritual 
 brotherhood the illumined may gain access, but only on 
 terms of purity and unselfishness. What they reveal to such 
 is revealed for the large sake of all, not for the little, local 
 gain of a wandering human. Nature and man are tending 
 toward the high estate of perfect love, and each will be the 
 better for the other's understanding friendship. Prometheus, 
 the ideal of Man, and Asia, transfigured Nature, will at 
 length become united in one being, that Light of which 
 the poet sings in Adonais — 
 
 *' . . . whose smile kindles the Universe, 
 That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
 That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining* Love 
 Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
 By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 The fire for which all thirst." 
 
 It will thus be seen that Shelley is at one with the roman- 
 tic temper of his age in ascribing to nature a spiritual quality 
 and significance, and in regarding man's life as symbolic 
 and progressive ; but he goes beyond Romanticism — Words- 
 worthian Romanticism at least — in his idea of the vigor- 
 ously dynamic life of nature, an idea he holds in common 
 with modern physicists, save that with him nature is almost 
 everywhere apotheosized. Wordsworth, though he informed 
 nature with intense spiritual meaning, yet saw it in familiar 
 images and in rather still habitudes. Even at its highest, 
 
Ivill INTRODUCTION 
 
 nature in his work is somewhat domesticized, at least local- 
 ized, in tinge, and is often comparatively hushed and sta- 
 tionary. Where it moves and energizes it does so slowly, 
 and within limits. In brief, its tone is the tone of the phe- 
 nomenal tenanted in time by the Eternal, rather than that 
 of a rushing mighty wind. To Wordsworth nature is the 
 garment of the Eternal ; to Shelley, its movement. Shelley 
 makes his pictures less pictures than actional prophecies. 
 Arethusa leaps down the rocks, the Night swiftly walks over 
 the western wave, the skylark pants forth a flood of rapture, 
 the West Wind is a wild spirit moving everywhere, and 
 " Follow ! Follow ! " cry the echoing Voices to Panthea and 
 Asia in the Prometheus, The very mythological largeness 
 of many of his nature-conceptions — Greek in body but 
 intensely modern and fervent in spirit — gives them a power 
 that stirs and draws even usually unemotional readers. His 
 poetry illustrates one of his own cardinal doctrines as critic, 
 it " compels us to feel that which we perceive, and to imagine 
 that which we know." 
 
 For Shelley is nearly always a coursing poet. There is 
 sun in his work, and wind and storm. An " enemy of so- 
 ciety," he was yet an anxious lover and reformer of man- 
 kind. Against occasional laws he rebelled, considering only 
 the laws of the spirit to be binding and immutable. He was 
 always a Platonist in temper, and early became one also by 
 conviction. All that man needs, he thought, is freedom to 
 think and to act. Granted relief from fear and tyranny, he 
 cannot fail to come out into the light of love. His instinct 
 will lead him if he will but trust it, for it is not blind, but 
 is made purposeful by the Power, the Spirit, that helps all 
 things finally to realize themselves in love. Man has been 
 shamefully abused, drugged, made mad, by oppression, self- 
 ishness, and dread. Let him become himself — 
 
 "Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, 
 
 Whose nature is its own divine control , 
 Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; 
 
INTRODUCTION lix 
 
 Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; 
 Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove 
 Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they could be ! 
 
 " His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, 
 And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, 
 
 A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey, 
 Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm 
 Love rules through waves which dare not overwhelm, 
 
 Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign sway. 
 
 " The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 
 
 Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
 They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! 
 The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ; 
 And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare : 
 ' Heaven, hast thou secrets ? Man unveils me ; I have none/ '* 
 
 In order to clear man's way for him Shelley discovers not 
 only his internal foes, but also the external enemies which 
 encourage these, — King and Priest. Against political and 
 ecclesiastical tyrants he lifts up a burning voice, in his Ode 
 to Liberty, Revolt of Islam, Pi'ometheus, and The CencL 
 Here he is at one with the most ardent spirits of the modern 
 revolutionary era, though in point of patience ^ he had much 
 to learn. It seemed to Shelley that personal prosperity 
 and content meant nearly always a selfish blindness to the 
 woes of others ; it seemed to him that the world at large 
 was in the grip of baneful and intolerable custom ; that men 
 were smugly and fatuously wearing shackles that not only 
 hampered their movements but corroded their very souls ; 
 and that all that was necessary to their deliverance was 
 acceptance of the spirit of love in place of the dictates of 
 
 1 In matters intimately affecting himself, however, Shelley some- 
 times showed extraordinary long-suffering. Note the mildness of the 
 following rebuke in a letter to James Oilier, his publisher : " Mr. Gis- 
 borne has sent me a copy of the Prometheus, which is certainly most 
 beautifully printed. It is to be regretted that the errors of the press 
 are so numerous, and in many respects so destructive of the sense of 
 a species of poetry which, I fear, even without this disadvantage, very 
 few will understand or like." 
 
Ix INTRODUCTION 
 
 what they called law,^ a willingness to see and assume man- 
 kind's heritage of freedom of soul, and a determination no 
 longer to submit to the whims and wilfulnesses of self -con- 
 stituted exploiters. In brief, Shelley was a thorough-going 
 Eadical in thought, in teaching, and in deed, though a 
 many-sided one. He was wholesomely earnest in his desire 
 for the world's betterment, yet he was, in. his personal rela- 
 tions, sometimes strangely unsensitive in his very sensitive- 
 ness. He was hardly willing that men should encounter and 
 overthrow tyranny with its own weapons, and yet he was 
 deeply impatient of their long hesitation to be free. If 
 Wordsworth was a priest of Liberty, and Byron its soldier, 
 Shelley rather was its young prophet, who brooded, and 
 promised, and exhorted, and lamented, in turn. 
 
 Too often his poetry struck the note of grief at the list- 
 lessness and insufficiency of human life. It is interesting to 
 note with what unrest he time after time contrasts life with 
 death, the waking consciousness with sleep. Indeed, there 
 are few of the romantic poets who are not moved to noble 
 utterance on these twin themes. In Coleridge, Wordsworth, 
 Shelley, Keats, and Byron, such references recur again and 
 again. For the sleep-experience, it seems to the poet, pro- 
 vides for him a way of escape from the weaknesses and 
 wrongs of mortality, rescues him from his own and his 
 fellows' littleness, gives his imagination the right and the 
 power to assert its mastery and go on its unchecked adven- 
 ture. So, too, as in sleep he dies to the world of fact, from 
 sleep he rises with enlarged horizon, with cleared and 
 refreshed spirit. 
 
 *^ Every morning we are born : every night we die." 
 
 ^ In his Essay on Christianity, Shelley writes : " This, and no other, 
 is justice : — to consider, under all the circumstances of a particular 
 case, how the greatest quantity and purest quality of happiness will 
 ensue from any action ; [this] is to be just, and there is no other jus- 
 tice. The distinction between justice and mercy was first imagined 
 in the courts of tyranny. Mankind receive every relaxation of their 
 tyranny as a circumstance of grace or favour." 
 
INTRODUCTION Jxi 
 
 If sleep can so serve him, how, he asks himself, shall not 
 death also serve him, only more greatly? For death, it 
 seems, must gather into itself all the meanings and bene- 
 dictions of sleep. Shelley touches these ideas with a more 
 delicate and lingering sympathy than does any other. We 
 find their rising and falling music in Queen Mah, the 
 opening chorus in Hellas, Mutability, To Night, Adonais, 
 Stanzas written in Dejection, and in these lettered words 
 concerning the English burying-place at Rome : " To see 
 the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, when we first 
 visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear the whispering 
 of the wind among the leaves of the trees which have over- 
 grown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring 
 in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of 
 women and young people, who were buried there, one might, 
 if one were to die, desire the sleep they seem to sleep. Such 
 is the human mind, and so it peoples with its wishes vacancy 
 and oblivion." The figures under which Shelley broods upon 
 the thoughts of sleep and death are among the gentlest and 
 truest in the whole range of his shining imagery. 
 
 A rising and falling music, it was said, — tinged often 
 with melancholy. But this melancholy is not to be con- 
 founded with pessimism. It is the melancholy of art and 
 artists, a principle that has persisted in Teutonic literatures 
 especially, from the time of the Saxon sagas to our own day. 
 Its roots, perhaps, are three : recognition of the incom- 
 pleteness of human life ; inability to express a thought or 
 truth with the sheer first power of that thought or truth ; 
 and failure to secure more than a very slight share of the 
 responsive sympathy of men and women. The poet is baf- 
 fled at every turn by these " Thus far's," — even though he 
 fight the better for them, — the limitation of life, the limit- 
 ation of language, the limitation of love. Shelley felt them 
 all acutely. Himself hindered by himself, he looked for- 
 ward the more eagerly to the emancipation of mankind; in 
 his later days deeply doubtful — save in brief moments — 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the poetic power he yet felt constrained to exert ; hungry 
 always for words and looks of understanding ; he has left 
 us his testimony touching each of these common sorrows. 
 Of the imperfectness of life he wrote : — 
 
 " Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
 Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die 
 If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! '* 
 
 Of the struggle for expression : — 
 
 "Woe is me! 
 The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
 Into the height of love's rare Universe 
 Are chains of lead around its flight of fire." 
 
 And again : '' The most glorious poetry that has ever been 
 communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of 
 the original conceptions of the poet." And of the inade- 
 quacy of human love : — 
 
 " O Love ! who bewailest 
 The frailty of all things here, 
 Why choose you the frailest 
 For your cradle, your home and your bier ? " 
 
 Shelley's own thought of himself as poet and reformer is 
 set forth in the following extract from a letter of December 
 11, 1817, to Godwin, concerning Laon and Cythna, or The 
 Revolt of Islam : " I felt that it was in many respects a 
 genuine picture of my own mind. I felt that the sentiments 
 were true, not assumed. And in this have I long believed 
 that my power consists — in sympathy, and that part of 
 the imagination which relates to sympathy and contempla- 
 tion. I am formed, if for anything not in common with the 
 herd of mankind, to apprehend minute and remote dis- 
 tinctions of feeling, whether relative to external nature or 
 the living beings which surround us, and to communicate 
 the conceptions which result from considering either the 
 moral or the material universe as a whole. Of course I 
 
INTEODUCTION Ixiii 
 
 believe these faculties, which perhaps comprehend all that 
 is sublime in man, to exist very imperfectly in my own 
 mind. ... I cannot but be conscious, in much of what 
 I write, of an absence of that tranquillity which is the 
 attribute and accompaniment of power. ... If I live, or 
 if I see any trust in coming years, doubt not that I shall do 
 something, whatever it may be, which a serious and earnest 
 estimate of my powers will suggest to me, and which will 
 be in every respect accommodated to their utmost limits." 
 Godwin need not have doubted, for Shelley was not born 
 to pass away until he had uttered his masterpiece, — both 
 a revelation and a prophecy. Alastor, too, Julian and 
 Maddalo, and Adonais, have peculiar value as presenting 
 self-delineations of the poet's mind, while in the exquisite 
 song of the Fourth Spirit in the Prometheus we get 
 something of the instinct and joy of the creative faculty that 
 upbore him in those great moments for which he paid in 
 the pain and sorrow of gray intervals : — 
 
 " On a poet's lips I slept 
 Dreaming like a love-adept 
 In the sound his breathing" kept ; 
 Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 
 But feeds on the aerial kisses 
 Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 
 He will watch from dawn to gloom 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 
 The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 
 Nor heed nor see what things they be ; 
 But from these create he can 
 Forms more real than living man, 
 Nurslings of immortality." 
 
 It remains to speak of Shelley's distinctive style, which 
 is, of course, one always in point of word-lore, musical 
 keenness, vivified sensibility, acceleration, yet it is separable 
 into the lyric manner, the dramatic, the satiric, and the 
 polemic. In the lyric Shelley is most surely himself, strik- 
 ing through to the secret of his feeling with quick penetra- 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion, and singing out his emotion exultantly, as in The 
 Cloud; or mournfully, as in Stanzas written in Dejec- 
 tion ; or both, as in Epipsychidion ; yet in all with an 
 astonishing anticipativeness. It is a singing at its happiest 
 like the shrill delight of his own skylark, or the careless 
 rapture of Browning's thrush, bird-like in both its trilling 
 echoes and its swift-flung ritornelles ; in its quiet caressing 
 of a single note, as " daedal " or " multitudinous,'^ and in 
 the flooding harmonies of its finale. And here it should be 
 said that Shelley's endings are among his greatest poetic 
 victories over the clogs of expression, whether in the lyric- 
 built drama, Prometheus, with which he could not rest 
 content until he had added a fourth act of hope and glad- 
 ness; or in the magnificently sustained paean of Eternity 
 with which Adonais breaks off its music ; or in the lin- 
 gering promise-refrains of the Ode to the West Wind and 
 the apostrophes to Jane. Yet this is not true of all of his 
 work, some of which, in its sheer lyric abandon, is over- 
 careless of the oracle that " truth in art is the unity of 
 a thing with itself." In the sonnet form, particularly, Shelley 
 is less successful, possibly because his repugnance to even 
 a literary law that did not immediately commend itself to his 
 art sense may have disturbed his pen's ease and power. 
 Certainly, he was careless here of the canons, and seems to 
 have had scant appreciation of the self-justifying genius of 
 this difficult bat finely subtle form. Even so, one cannot but 
 be grateful that Shelley needed no salvation from the vice 
 of fastidiousness. It is possible to fail in art, as Browning 
 writes, " only to succeed in highest art." 
 
 Something of the same unease in technique appears in 
 the dramas, Hellas, Prometheus, and The Cenci, of which 
 only the last-named is, in the traditional sense, a con- 
 tribution to drama proper. I have used of the Prometheus 
 the term " lyric-built," for Shelley's utterance is always 
 essentially lyrical, and so indeed is his point of view. By 
 this is meant that he is chiefly interested in reproducing 
 
IN TE OD UCTION Ix V 
 
 his own emotions in song, — emotions touching past deaths 
 and persecutions, present pleasures and sorrows, and ideal 
 aspirations toward a World-Cause he too often felt as silent 
 and remote. He wrote — in its highest sense — personal 
 poetry. His characteristic work is never horizontal : when 
 exultant it shoots upward ; when dejected it plunges down- 
 ward. It has no merely craftsmanlike propriety. Of the 
 craft of the dramatist, indeed, he knew little either by ex- 
 perience or by reflection, though his critical vision showed 
 him the meaning of the dramatic idea so plainly that his 
 statement of it in the preface to The Cenci is among the 
 best we have. " The highest moral purpose aimed at in the 
 highest species of the drama,'' he writes, " is the teaching 
 the human heart, through its sympathies and antipathies, 
 the knowledge of itself ; in proportion to the possession of 
 which knowledge every human being is wise, just, sincere, 
 tolerant, and kind." And again : '^ Ina dramatic composition 
 the imagery and the passion should interpenetrate one 
 another, the former being reserved for the full development 
 and illustration of the latter. Imagination is as the immor- 
 tal God which should assume flesh for the redemption of 
 mortal passion. It is true that the most remote and the 
 most familiar imagery may alike be fit for dramatic purposes 
 when employed in the illustration of strong feeling, which 
 raises what is low, and levels to the apprehension that which 
 is lofty, casting over all the shadow of its own greatness." 
 The Cenci itself, though an actable play by virtue of its 
 many sharply striking and challenging antitheses between 
 the incarnated spirits of good and evil, its fidelity to tragic 
 " pity and terror," and its general conformity to the prime 
 structural conditions of drama, is yet rather modern than 
 critically orthodox in its literary tendencies. The last act, it 
 is true, equals in nobility of diction the nobility of its passion ; 
 emphasizes the art value of reserve ; is finely selective ; and 
 not once, it seems, falls into the tiresome mire of Common- 
 place, a success only partially achieved in the acts preceding. 
 
Ixvi INTBODUCTION 
 
 In these, powerful as they are, Shelley strangely strikes a 
 few notes of undeniable flatness, his novitiate in drama, per- 
 haps, in the less inspirational moments, intimidating him. 
 The play as a whole tends, like Hellas and the Prome- 
 theus, toward closet drama. Though The Cenci is more 
 immediately forceful than Browning's plays in general, yet 
 the Prometheus is even farther away from the stage and 
 stagecraft than Hardy's Dynasts, one of the most extreme 
 instances in modern English drama of the closet play. In 
 any case, the direction of the dramatic spirit of to-day is 
 toward mind-enactment. We are beginning to suspect play- 
 house plausibility, and to feel that personal Forests of Arden 
 are better for us than any staged presentation can possibly 
 be. The normal man, no doubt, even in a cultured commun- 
 ity, will find in a carefully staged performance value for 
 both his conscience and his fancy ; yet, as the progress of 
 the race is steadily away from the objective to the subjective 
 (precisely as Shakespeare's progress was from the frankly 
 concrete figures of the early comedies to Hamlet and The 
 Tempest, neither of which plays can achieve on the stage 
 a success commensurate with its spiritual power), it is 
 natural that closet drama is becoming more and more per- 
 sistent, and that we should have come to feel as well as to 
 admit that the theatre is only an incident — however import- 
 ant — in the development of the drama, and that a play is 
 not great first of all because it is actable. Shelley, for his 
 part, felt this very keenly. '' With the exception of Fazio,'' ^ 
 wrote Peacock, " I do not remember his having been pleased 
 with any performance at an English theatre." In his De- 
 fence of Poetry he discusses at some length the history of 
 the dramatic idea and the weakness of the modern stage. 
 His own plays, given their appropriate background, will not 
 fail of their social and spiritual appeal. 
 
 Of his satiric and polemic verse but little need be said. 
 Though keen and animated, it does not convince, because 
 1 By Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868). 
 
INtRODUCTION Ixvii 
 
 neither Shelley's human experience nor his theory of life 
 was quite extensive and catholic enough to enable him easily 
 to see humour in folly, or love in hate. When he derides 
 we do not feel that he is quite true to himself, and when he 
 argues in verse we would rather hear him '' tell." He would 
 have produced less of this sort of work had he come more 
 fully into the spirit of his follower Browning, as expressed 
 in Paracelsus' dying words : — 
 
 " In my own heart love had not been made wise 
 To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, 
 To know even hate is but a mask of love's, 
 To see a good in evil, and a hope 
 In ill-success ; to sympathize, be proud 
 Of their half-reasons, faint aspirings, dim 
 Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies. 
 Their pre j udice and fears and cares and doubts ; 
 All with a touch of nobleness, despite 
 Their error, upward tending all though weak, 
 Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
 But dream of him, and guess where he may be, 
 And do their best to climb and get to him." 
 
 Shelley's theory of evil, admirably hopeful though it is, 
 seeks to abolish its reality rather than to impress that reality 
 into the service of good. He caught foregleam visions of 
 Paracelsus' final truth,^ but visions not long enough or 
 intense enough to hearten his thought of life into a steadier 
 and saner regard. Swellfoot the Tyrant is not a poem that 
 adds to Shelley's fame, and even in the youthful and not 
 ineffective Queen Mdb the poet in him is uneasily con- 
 strained to precipitate the worser part of the man's human 
 ire into footnotes. When he foregoes the ungrateful busi- 
 ness of denunciation, and begins to sound the high and pure 
 notes of the race and time to be, it is then that both he and 
 his readers most surely find their way. 
 
 Shelley stumbled sometimes in his physical gait, yet his 
 habitual movement was a quick floating or gliding. It is 
 1 See Prometheus, I, 303-305 ; III, iv, 381-383. 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTION 
 
 so in his life and his poetry. Where he stumbles and is 
 checked, he recovers for a longer adventure. A man of 
 penetrative intention and restless imagining, less anxious to 
 lead than to love, he reveals himself in spirit- winged words 
 as one of the most intimate and powerful among the stimu- 
 lators of the soul, the builders of " that great poem," to 
 use his own words, " which all poets, like the co-operating 
 thoughts of one great mind, have built up since the begin- 
 ning of the world." 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 The most important Shelley bibliographies are those of 
 H. Buxton Forman — An Essay in Bibliography — and 
 John P. Anderson — the Bibliography appended to Sharp's 
 Life of Shelley, Mention may also be made of Frederick 
 S. Ellis's An Alphabetical Table of Contents to Shelley's 
 Poetical Works, adapted to the editions of Forman and 
 Kossetti ; and of C. D. Locock's An Examination of the 
 Shelley MSS, in the Bodleian Library, The Shelley 
 Society's Papers and Publications are invaluable. 
 
 Magazine articles on Shelley and his works will be found 
 listed in Poole's Index to Periodical Literature and The 
 Reader's Gruide to Periodical Literature. The American 
 Library Association's An Index to General Literature 
 should also be consulted. 
 
 The following list comprises a carefully selected number 
 of Lives, Critical Essays, Editions, and Poems concerning 
 SheUey. 
 
 LIVES AND RECORDS 
 
 Edward Dowden: The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 Two vols. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 
 
 Same. Abridged. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 
 
 John Addington Symonds: Shelley. Macmillan. 
 
 William Sharp : Shelley, Walter Scott. 
 
 Edward John Trelawny: Records of Shelley, Byron 
 and the Author, Pickering & Chatto. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson Hogg : Life of Shelley, 
 
 Thomas Medwin : Life of Shelley. 
 
 W. M. RossETTi : Life of Shelley. Shelley Society. 
 
 Thomas Love Peacock : Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shel- 
 ley, 
 
Ixx BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 H. S. Salt ; Shelley, A Biographical Study, 
 
 Mrs. Julian Marshall: Life and Letters of Mary Woll- 
 
 stonecraft Shelley. Two vols. Bentley. 
 Leigh Hunt: Autobiography. 
 Alfred Webb : Harriet Shelley and Catherine Nugent. 
 
 The Nation, vol. xlviii. 
 
 CRITICAL ESSAYS 
 
 Robert Browning: An Essay on Shelley. 
 
 Leslie Stephen : Hours in a Library, vol. iii. 
 
 Matthew Arnold: Essays in Criticism. 
 
 David Masson : Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats. 
 
 Edward Dowden : Studies in Literature. 
 
 R. H. HuTTON : Literary Essays. Macmillan. 
 
 George Edward Woodberry : Makers of Literature. 
 
 The Torch. 
 Walter Bagehot : Literary Studies. 
 Paul Bourget : Etudes et Portraits. 
 Andrew Lang : Letters to Dead Authors. 
 W. M. RossETTi : Lives of Famous Poets. , 
 
 EDITIONS 
 
 Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose. Ed- 
 ited by Harry Buxton Forman. Eight vols. Reeves & 
 Turner. 
 
 Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited, with a 
 Memoir, by Mrs. Shelley. Two vols. Houghton, Mifflin. 
 
 Complete Poetical Works of Shelley, Edited, with Memoir 
 and Notes, by George Edward Woodberry. Four vols. 
 Houghton, Mifflin. 
 
 Poetical Works of Shelley. Edited, with Memoir and 
 Notes, by W. M. Rossetti. Three vols. 
 
 Poems of Shelley. Edited by Edward Dowden. (Globe 
 edition) Macmillan. 
 
 Poems of Shelley. Edited by George E. Woodberry. (Cam- 
 bridge edition) Houghton, Mifflin. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY Ixxi 
 
 Adonais. Edited by W. M. Rossetti. Clarendon Press. 
 Adonais and Alastor. Edited by Charles G. D. Roberts. 
 
 Silver, Burdett. 
 Prometheus Unbound, Edited by Vida D. Scudder. Heath. 
 Select Poems of Shelley. Edited by W. J. Alexander. Ginn. 
 Essays and Letters by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edited by 
 
 Ernest Rhys. Walter Scott. 
 Poems of Shelley. Selected and Arranged by Stopford A. 
 
 Brooke. Macmillan. 
 With Shelley in Italy. Selected Poems and Letters. 
 
 Edited by Anna D. McMahan. McClurg. 
 
 POEMS CONCERNING SHELLEY 
 
 Robert Browning: Memorabilia; Pauline (beginning, 
 
 " I ne'er had ventured e'en to hope for this ''). 
 Leigh Hunt : Sonnet to Shelley, 
 William Watson : To Edward Dowden^ on his Life of 
 
 Shelley ; Shelley's Centenary ; Shelley and Harriet, 
 Andrew Lang: San Terenzo ; Lines on the Inaugural 
 
 Meeting of the Shelley Society, 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman: Ariel, 
 Paul Bourget : Sur un Volume de Shelley, 
 D. G. Rossetti : Percy Bysshe Shelley. 
 W. M. Rossetti : Shelley's Heart, 
 J. B. Tabb : Shelley, A Sonnet, 
 George E. Woodberry: Shelley , A Sonnet; Shelley's 
 
 House. 
 
POEMS OF 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 
 
 STANZAS — APRIL, 1814 
 
 Away ! the moor is dark beneath the moon, 
 Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even : 
 Away ! the gathering winds will call the darkness 
 soon, 
 And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights 
 
 of heaven. 
 
 Pause not ! the time is past ! Every voice cries, 
 
 Away! 5 
 
 Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle 
 
 mood: 
 
 Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat 
 
 thy stay : 
 Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. 
 
 Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home ; 
 
 Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth ; 10 
 
 Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and 
 
 come. 
 
 And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. 
 
 The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around 
 
 thine head, 
 The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath 
 thy feet : 
 But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that 
 binds the dead, 15 
 
 Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou 
 and peace, may meet. 
 
2 TO COLERIDGE 
 
 The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own 
 repose, 
 For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in 
 the deep ; 
 Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean 
 knows ; 
 Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap- 
 pointed sleep. 20 
 Thou in the grave shalt rest — yet, till the phantoms 
 
 flee 
 Which that house and heath and garden made dear 
 to thee erewhile. 
 Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings, 
 
 are not free 
 From the music of two voices, and the light of one 
 sweet smile. 
 
 TO COLERIDGE 
 
 » MKPY2I AlOISfl nOTMON AHOTMON 
 
 O, there are spirits in the air. 
 
 And genii of the evening breeze. 
 And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair 
 As starbeams among twilight trees : — 
 Such lovely ministers to meet 5 
 
 Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet. 
 
 With mountain winds, and babbling springs, 
 
 And moonlight seas, that are the voice 
 Of these inexplicable things, 
 
 Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice 10 
 
 When they did answer thee ; but they 
 Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. 
 
TO WORDSWOETH 3 
 
 And thou hast sought in starry eyes 
 
 Beams that were never meant for thine, 
 Another's wealth; — tame sacrifice 15 
 
 To a fond faith ! Still dost thou pine ? 
 Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, 
 Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands ? 
 
 Ah ! wherefore didst thou build thine hope 
 
 On the false earth's inconstancy? 20 
 
 Did thine own mind afford no scope 
 Of love, or moving thoughts to thee ? 
 That natural scenes or human smiles 
 Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles. 
 
 Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled 25 
 
 Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted ; 
 The glory of the moon is dead ; 
 
 Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed : 
 Thine own soul still is true to thee. 
 But changed to a foul fiend through misery. 30 
 
 This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever 
 
 Beside thee like thy shadow hangs. 
 Dream not to chase ; — the mad endeavour 
 Would scourge thee to severer pangs. 
 Be as thou art. Thy settled fate, 35 
 
 Dark as it is, all change would aggravate. 
 1815. 
 
 TO WORDSWORTH 
 
 Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know 
 That things depart which never may return ; 
 
 Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's first glow, 
 Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn. 
 
4 A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD 
 
 These common woes I feel. One loss is mine, 5 
 
 Which thou too feeFst, yet I alone deplore : 
 Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine 
 
 On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar : 
 Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood 
 Above the blind and battling multitude ; 10 
 
 In honoured poverty thy voice did weave 
 
 Songs consecrate to truth and liberty ; — 
 Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve, 
 
 Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be. 
 1815. 
 
 A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD 
 
 LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE 
 
 The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere 
 Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray ; 
 
 And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 
 
 In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day. 
 
 Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, 5 
 
 Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen. 
 
 They breathe their spells towards the departing day, 
 Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea ; 
 
 Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway. 
 
 Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 10 
 
 The winds are still, or the dry church tower grass 
 
 Knows not their gentle motions as they pass. 
 
 Thou too, aerial Pile, whose pinnacles 
 
 Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, 
 
 Obey'st in silence their sweet solemn spells, 15 
 
 Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire, 
 
LINES 5 
 
 Around whose lessening and invisible height 
 Gather among the stars the clouds of night. 
 
 The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres ; 
 
 And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, 20 
 Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs. 
 
 Breathed from their wormy beds all living things 
 around ; 
 And, mingling with the still night and mute sky, 
 Its awful hush is felt inaudibly. 
 
 Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 25 
 
 And terrorless as this serenest night : 
 Here could I hope, like some inquiring child 
 
 Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human 
 sight 
 Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep 
 That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 30 
 
 September, 1815. 
 
 LINES 
 
 The cold earth slept below. 
 Above the cold sky shone ; 
 And all around. 
 With a chilling sound. 
 From caves of ice and fields of snow 5 
 
 The breath of night like death did flow 
 Beneath the sinking moon. 
 
 The wintry hedge was black. 
 The green grass was not seen. 
 
 The birds did rest 10 
 
 On the bare thorn's breast, 
 
THE SUNSET 
 
 Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 
 Had bound their folds o'er many a crack 
 Which the frost had made between. 
 
 Thine eyes glowed in the glare 15 
 
 Of the moon's dying light ; 
 As a fen-fire's beam 
 On a sluggish stream 
 Gleams dimly — so the moon shone there, 
 And it yellowed the strings of thy raven hair, 
 That shook in the wind of night. 21 
 
 The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
 The wind made thy bosom chill ; 
 The night did shed 
 
 On thy dear head 25 
 
 Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
 Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 
 
 Might visit thee at will. 
 November, 1815. 
 
 THE SUNSET 
 
 There late was One, within whose subtle being. 
 As light and wind within some delicate cloud 
 That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, 
 Genius and death contended. None may know 
 The sweetness of the joy which made his breath 5 
 Fail, like the trances of the summer air. 
 When, with the Lady of his love, w/ho then 
 First knew the unreserve of mingled being. 
 He walked along the pathway of a field, 
 Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, 10 
 But to the west was open to the sky. 
 
THE SUNSET 7 
 
 There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold 
 Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points 
 Of the far level grass and nodding flowers. 
 And the old dandelion's hoary beard, 15 
 
 And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay 
 On the brown massy woods — and in the east 
 The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose 
 Between the black trunks of the crowded trees. 
 While the faint stars were gathering overhead. 20 
 " Is it not strange, Isabel," said the youth, 
 " I never saw the sun ? We will walk here 
 To-morrow ; thou shalt look on it with me." 
 
 That night the youth and lady mingled lay 
 
 In love and sleep — but when the morning came 25 
 
 The lady found her lover dead and cold. 
 
 Let none believe that God in mercy gave 
 
 That stroke. The lady died not, nor grew wild, 
 
 But year by year lived on — in truth I think 
 
 Her gentleness and patience and sad smiles, 30 
 
 And that she did not die, but lived to tend 
 
 Her aged father, were a kind of madness, 
 
 If madness 't is to be unlike the world. 
 
 For but to see her were to read the tale 
 
 Woven by some subtlest bard, to make hard hearts 
 
 Dissolve away in wisdom-working grief ; — 36 
 
 Her eyelashes were worn away with tears, 
 
 Her lips and cheeks were like things dead — so pale; 
 
 Her hands were thin, and through their wandering 
 
 veins 
 And weak articulations might be seen 40 
 
 Day's ruddy light. The tomb of thy dead self 
 Which one vexed ghost inhabits night and day, 
 Is all, lost child, that now remains of thee ! 
 
8 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 
 
 " Inheritor of more than earth can give, 
 Passionless calm, and silence unreproved, 45 
 
 Whether the dead find, oh, not sleep ! but rest. 
 And are the uncomplaining things they seem. 
 Or live, or drop in the deep sea of Love ; 
 Oh, that like thine, mine epitaph were — Peace ! " 
 This was the only moan she ever made. 50 
 
 1816. 
 
 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 
 
 The awful shadow of some unseen Power 
 Floats though unseen among us ; visiting 
 This various world with as inconstant wing 
 As summer winds that creep from flower to flower. 
 Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain 
 shower, 5 
 
 It visits with inconstant glance 
 Each human heart and countenance ; 
 Like hues and harmonies of evening. 
 Like clouds in starlight widely spread, 
 Like memory of music fled, 10 
 
 Like aught that for its grace may be 
 Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. 
 
 Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate 
 
 With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon 
 Of human thought or form, where art thou gone ? 15 
 Why dost thou pass away and leave our state. 
 This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ? 
 Ask why the sunlight not for ever 
 Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river ; 
 Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown; 
 Why fear and dream and death and birth 21 
 
 Cast on the daylight of this earth 
 
HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 9 
 
 Such gloom ; why man has such a scope 
 For love and hate, despondency and hope. 
 
 No voice from some sublimer world hath ever 25 
 
 To sage or poet these responses given ; 
 Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, 
 Remain the records of their vain endeavour : 
 Frail spells, whose uttered charm might not avail to 
 sever, 
 From all we hear and all we see, 30 
 
 Doubt, chance, and mutability. 
 Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven, 
 Or music by the night wind sent 
 Through strings of some still instrument. 
 Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 35 
 
 Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. 
 
 Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds, depart 
 And come, for some uncertain moments lent. 
 Man were immortal and omnipotent, 
 Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, 40 
 
 Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his 
 heart. 
 Thou messenger of sympathies 
 That wax and wane in lovers' eyes ; 
 Thou, that to human thought art nourishment. 
 Like darkness to a dying flame ; 45 
 
 Depart not as thy shadow came ! 
 Depart not, lest the grave should be, 
 Like life and fear, a dark reality ! 
 
 While yet a boy, I sought for ghosts, and sped 
 
 Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin, 
 And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing 51 
 
10 HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY 
 
 Hopes of high talk with the departed dead ; 
 I called on poisonous names with which our youth is 
 fed. 
 I was not heard, I saw them not ; 
 When, musing deeply on the lot 55 
 
 Of life, at that sweet time when winds are woo- 
 ing 
 All vital things that wake to bring 
 News of birds and blossoming. 
 Sudden thy shadow fell on me : 
 I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy ! 60 
 
 I vowed that I would dedicate my powers 
 To thee and thine : have I not kept the vow ? 
 With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now 
 I call the phantoms of a thousand hours 
 Each from his voiceless grave : they have in visioned 
 bowers 65 
 
 Of studious zeal or love's delight 
 Outwatched with me the envious night : 
 They know that never joy illumed my brow, 
 Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free 
 This world from its dark slavery, 70 
 
 That thou, O awful Loveliness, 
 Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express ! 
 
 The day becomes more solemn and serene 
 When noon is past : there is a harmony 
 In autumn, and a lustre in its sky, 75 
 
 Which through the summer is not heard or seen, 
 As if it could not be, as if it had not been ! 
 Thus let thy power, which like the truth 
 Of nature on my passive youth 
 Descended, to my onward life supply 80 
 
MONT BLANC 11 
 
 Its calm, to one who worships thee, 
 And every form containing thee, 
 Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind 
 To fear himself, and love all humankind. 
 1816. 
 
 MONT BLANC 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI 
 
 The everlasting universe of things 
 
 Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves, 
 
 Now dark — now glittering — now reflecting gloom — 
 
 Now lending splendour, where from secret springs 
 
 The source of human thought its tribute brings 5 
 
 Of waters, — with a sound but half its own. 
 
 Such as a feeble brook will oft assume 
 
 In the wild woods, among the mountains lone. 
 
 Where waterfalls around it leap for ever. 
 
 Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river 10 
 
 Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves. 
 
 II 
 
 Thus thou, Kavine of Arve — dark, deep Ravine — 
 Thou many-coloured, many-voiced vale. 
 Over whose pines and crags and caverns sail 
 Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams ; awful scene, 15 
 Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down 
 From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, 
 Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame 
 Of lightning through the tempest ; — thou dost lie. 
 Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, 20 
 Children of elder time, in whose devotion 
 
12 MONT BLANC 
 
 The chainless winds still come and ever came 
 
 To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging 
 
 To hear — an old and solemn harmony : 
 
 Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep 25 
 
 Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil 
 
 Robes some unsculptured image ; the strange sleep 
 
 Which, when the voices of the desert fail. 
 
 Wraps all in its own deep eternity ; 
 
 Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion 30 
 
 A loud, lone sound, no other sound can tame ; 
 
 Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, 
 
 Thou art the path of that unresting sound, 
 
 Dizzy Ravine ! and when I gaze on thee, 
 
 I seem as in a trance sublime and strange 35 
 
 To muse on my own separate fantasy. 
 
 My own, my human mind, which passively 
 
 Now renders and receives fast influencings, 
 
 Holding an unremitting interchange 
 
 With the clear universe of things around ; 40 
 
 One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings 
 
 Now float above thy darkness, and now rest 
 
 Where that or thou art no unbidden guest. 
 
 In the still cave of the witch Poesy, 
 
 Seeking among the shadows that pass by, 45 
 
 Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, 
 
 Some phantom, some faint image ; till the breast 
 
 From which they fled recalls them, thou art there ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Some say that gleams of a remoter world 
 
 Visit the soul in sleep, — that death is slumber, 50 
 
 And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber 
 
 Of those who wake and live. I look on high ; 
 
 Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled 
 
MONT BLANC 13 
 
 The vale of life and death ? Or do I lie 
 
 In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep 55 
 
 Spread far around and inaccessibly 
 
 Its circles ? for the very spirit fails, 
 
 Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep 
 
 That vanishes among the viewless gales ! 
 
 Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, 60 
 
 Mont Blanc appears, — still, snowy, and serene — 
 
 Its subject mountains their unearthly forms 
 
 Pile around it, ice and rock ; broad vales between 
 
 Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, 
 
 Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread 65 
 
 And wind among the accumulated steeps ; 
 
 A desert peopled by the storms alone. 
 
 Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, 
 
 And the wolf tracks her there — how hideously 
 
 Its shapes are heaped around ! rude, bare, and high, 70 
 
 Ghastly, and scarred, and riven. — Is this the scene 
 
 Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young 
 
 Ruin ? Were these their toys ? or did a sea 
 
 Of fire envelope once this silent snow ? 
 
 None can reply — all seems eternal now. 75 
 
 The wilderness has a mysterious tongue 
 
 Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, 
 
 So solemn, so serene, that man may be, 
 
 But for such faith, with nature reconciled; 
 
 Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal 80 
 
 Large codes of fraud and woe ; not understood 
 
 By all, but which the wise, and great, and good 
 
 Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. 
 
 IV 
 
 The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams. 
 Ocean, and all the living things that dwell 85 
 
14 MONT BLANC 
 
 Within the daedal earth ; lightning and rain, 
 
 Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, 
 
 The torpor of the year when feeble dreams 
 
 Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep 
 
 Holds every future leaf and flower, — the bound 90 
 
 With which from that detested trance they leap ; 
 
 The works and ways of man, their death and birth, 
 
 And that of him, and all that his may be ; 
 
 All things that move and breathe with toil and sound 
 
 Are born and die, revolve, subside, and swell. 95 
 
 Power dwells apart in its tranquillity. 
 
 Remote, serene, and inaccessible : 
 
 And this^ the naked countenance of earth. 
 
 On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains, 
 
 Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, 100 
 
 Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far 
 
 fountains, 
 Slow rolling on ; there, many a precipice 
 Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power 
 Have piled — dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, 
 A city of death, distinct with many a tower 105 
 
 And wall impregnable of beaming ice. 
 Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin 
 Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky 
 Rolls its perpetual stream ; vast pines are strewing 
 Its destined path, or in the mangled soil 110 
 
 Branchless and shattered stand ; the rocks, drawn 
 
 down 
 From yon remotest waste, have overthrown 
 The limits of the dead and living world. 
 Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place 
 Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil ; 115 
 Their food and their retreat for ever gone, 
 So much of life and joy is lost. The race 
 
MONT BLANC 15 
 
 Of man flies far in dread ; his work and dwelling 
 Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, 
 And their place is not known. Below, vast caves 120 
 Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, 
 Which, from those secret chasms in tumult welling, 
 Meet in the Vale, and one majestic River, 
 The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever 
 KoUs its loud waters to the ocean waves, 125 
 
 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air. 
 
 Mont Blanc yet gleams on high : — the power is there. 
 The still and solemn power, of many sights 
 And many sounds, and much of life and death. 
 In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, 130 
 
 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend 
 Upon that mountain ; none beholds them there. 
 Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun. 
 Or the star-beams dart through them : — Winds con- 
 tend 
 Silently there, and heap the snow, with breath 135 
 Rapid and strong, but silently ! Its home 
 The voiceless lightning in these solitudes 
 Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods 
 Over the snow. The secret strength of things 
 Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome 140 
 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee ! 
 And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, 
 If to the human mind's imaginings 
 Silence and solitude were vacancy ? 
 
 June 23, 1816. 
 
16 TO CONSTANTIA. SINGING 
 
 TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING 
 
 Thus to be lost and thus to sink and die, 
 
 Perchance were death indeed! — Constantia, turn! 
 
 In thy dark eyes a power like light doth lie, 
 
 Even though the sounds which were thy voice, which 
 burn 
 
 Between thy lips, are laid to sleep ; 5 
 
 Within thy breath and on thy hair, like odour it is 
 
 yet. 
 
 And from thy touch like fire doth leap. 
 
 Even while I write, my burning cheeks are wet, 
 Alas, that the torn heart can bleed, but not forget ! 
 
 A breathless awe, like the swift change 10 
 
 Unseen but felt in youthful slumbers, 
 Wild, sweet, but uncommunicably strange. 
 
 Thou breathest now in fast ascending numbers. 
 The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven 
 
 By the enchantment of thy strain, 15 
 
 And on my shoulders wings are woven, 
 
 To follow its sublime career. 
 Beyond the mighty moons that wane 
 
 Upon the verge of nature's utmost sphere. 
 
 Till the world's shadowy walls are past and disap- 
 pear. 
 
 Her voice, is hovering o'er my soul — it lingers 21 
 O'ershadowing it with soft and lulling wings. 
 
 The blood and life within those snowy fingers 
 Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. 
 
 My brain is wild, my breath comes quick — 25 
 
 The blood is listening in my frame, 
 
 And thronging shadows, fast and thick, 
 
SONNET — 0« YMANDIAS 17 
 
 Fall on my overflowing eyes ; 
 My heart is quivering like a flame ; 
 
 As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies, 30 
 
 I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies. 
 
 I have no life, Constantia, now, but thee. 
 
 Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song 
 
 Flows on, and fills all things with melody. 
 
 Now is thy voice a tempest swift and strong, 35 
 
 On which, like one in trance upborne. 
 Secure o'er rocks and waves I sweep. 
 
 Rejoicing like a cloud of morn ; 
 
 Now 'tis the breath of summer night. 
 
 Which, when the starry waters sleep 40 
 
 Round western isles with incense-blossoms bright, 
 Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight, 
 1817. 
 
 SONNET — OZYMANDIAS 
 
 I MET a traveller from an antique land 
 
 Who said : " Two vast and trunkless legs of stone 
 Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand. 
 
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown. 
 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, 5 
 
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 
 
 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, 
 The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed ; 
 And on the pedestal these words appear : 
 
 ' My name is Ozymandias, king of kings : 10 
 
 Look on my work-s, ye Mighty, and despair ! ' 
 
 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 
 Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, 
 
 The lone and level sands stretch far away." 
 1817. 
 
18 LINES TO A CRITIC 
 
 LINES 
 
 That time is dead for ever, child, 
 Drowned, frozen, dead for ever ! 
 
 We look on the past. 
 
 And stare aghast 
 At the spectres wailing, pale, and ghast, 5 
 
 Of hopes which thou and I beguiled 
 
 To death on life's dark river. 
 
 The stream we gazed on then, rolled by ; 
 Its waves are unreturning ; 
 
 But we yet stand 10 
 
 In a lone land. 
 Like tombs to mark the memory 
 Of hopes and fears which fade and fly 
 
 In the light of life's dim morning. 
 November 5, 1817. 
 
 LINES TO A CRITIC 
 
 Honey from silkworms who can gather, 
 
 Or silk from the yellow bee ? 
 The grass may grow in winter weather 
 
 As soon as hate in me. 
 
 Hate men who cant, and men who pray, 5 
 
 And men who rail like thee; 
 An equal passion to repay, — 
 
 They are not coy like me. 
 
 Or seek some slave of power and gold, 
 
 To be thy dear heart's mate ; 10 
 
ON A FADED VIOLET 19 
 
 Thy love will move that bigot cold, 
 Sooner than me thy hate. 
 
 A passion like the one I prove 
 
 Cannot divided be ; 
 I hate thy want of truth and love — 15 
 
 How should I then hate thee? 
 
 December, 1817. 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES 
 
 Listen, listen, Mary mine, 
 To the whisper of the Apennine ; 
 It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 
 Or like the sea on a northern shore, 
 Heard in its raging ebb and flow 5 
 
 By the captives pent in the cave below. 
 The Apennine in the light of day 
 Is a mighty mountain dim and gray. 
 Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 
 But when night comes, a chaos dread 10 
 
 On the dim starlight then is spread. 
 And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 
 May 4, 1818. 
 
 ON A FADED VIOLET 
 
 The odour from the flower is gone 
 
 Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; 
 
 The colour from the flower is flown 
 Which glowed of thee and only thee ! 
 
 A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form, 5 
 
 It lies on my abandoned breast, 
 
20 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 And mocks the heart which yet is warm, 
 With cold and silent rest. 
 
 I weep, — my tears revive it not ! 
 
 I sigh, — it breathes no more on me ; 10 
 
 Its mute and uncomplaining lot 
 
 Is such as mine should be. 
 
 1818. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN 
 
 HILLS 
 
 Many a green isle needs must be 
 
 In the deep wide sea of misery, 
 
 Or the mariner, worn and wan, 
 
 Never thus could voyage on 
 
 Day and night, and night and day, 5 
 
 Drifting on his dreary way. 
 
 With the solid darkness black 
 
 Closing round his vessel's track ; 
 
 Whilst above, the sunless sky. 
 
 Big with clouds, hangs heavily ; 10 
 
 And behind, the tempest fleet 
 
 Hurries on with lightning feet. 
 
 Riving sail, and cord, and plank. 
 
 Till the ship has almost drank 
 
 Death from the o'er-brimming deep, 15 
 
 And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
 
 When the dreamer seems to be 
 
 Weltering through eternity ; 
 
 And the dim low line before 
 
 Of a dark and distant shore 20 
 
 Still recedes, as ever still 
 
 Longing with divided will, 
 
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 21 
 
 But no power to seek or shun, 
 
 He is ever drifted on 
 
 O'er the unreposing wave 25 
 
 To the haven of the grave. 
 
 What if there no friends will greet ; 
 
 What if there no heart will meet 
 
 His with love's impatient beat ; 
 
 Wander wheresoe'er he may, 30 
 
 Can he dream before that day 
 
 To find refuge from distress 
 
 In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 
 
 Then 't will wreak him little woe 
 
 Whether such there be or no : 35 
 
 Senseless is the breast, and cold, 
 
 Which relenting love would fold ; 
 
 Bloodless are the veins and chill 
 
 Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 
 
 Every little living nerve 40 
 
 That from bitter words did swerve 
 
 Round the tortured lips and brow, 
 
 Are like sapless leaflets now 
 
 Frozen upon December's bough. 
 
 On the beach of a northern sea 45 
 
 Which tempests shake eternally, 
 
 As once the wretch there lay to sleep. 
 
 Lies a solitary heap, 
 
 One white skull and seven dry bones, 
 
 On the margin of the stones, 50 
 
 Where a few gray rushes stand. 
 
 Boundaries of the sea and land: • 
 
 Nor is heard one voice of wail 
 
 But the seamews, as they sail 
 
 O'er the billows of the gale ; 55 
 
22 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 Or the whirlwind up and down 
 
 Howling, like a slaughtered town, 
 
 When a king in glory rides 
 
 Through the pomp of fratricides : 
 
 Those unburied bones around 60 
 
 There is many a mournful sound ; 
 
 There is no lament for him, 
 
 Like a sunless vapour, dim, 
 
 Who once clothed with life and thought 
 
 What now moves nor murmurs not. 65 
 
 Ay, many flowering islands lie 
 
 In the waters of wide Agony : 
 
 To such a one this morn was led 
 
 My bark, by soft winds piloted. 
 
 'Mid the mountains Euganean, 70 
 
 I stood listening to the paean 
 
 With which the legioned rooks did hail 
 
 The sun's uprise majestical ; 
 
 Gathering round with wings all hoar, 
 
 Through the dewy mist they soar 75 
 
 Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven 
 
 Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 
 
 Flecked with fire and azure, lie 
 
 In the unfathomable sky. 
 
 So their plumes of purple grain, 80 
 
 Starred with drops of golden rain, 
 
 Gleam above the sunlight woods. 
 
 As in silent multitudes 
 
 On the morning's fitful gale 
 
 Through the broken mist they sail, 85 
 
 And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
 
 Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
 
 Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 
 
 Kound the solitary hill. 
 
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 23 
 
 Beneath is spread like a green sea 90 
 
 The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
 
 Bounded by the vaporous air, 
 
 Islanded by cities fair. 
 
 Underneath day's azure eyes, 
 
 Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, — 95 
 
 A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
 
 Amphitrite's destined halls. 
 
 Which her hoary sire now paves 
 
 With his blue and beaming waves. 
 
 Lo! the sun upsprings behind, 100 
 
 Broad, red, radiant, half -reclined 
 
 On the level quivering line 
 
 Of the waters crystalline ; 
 
 And before that chasm of light. 
 
 As within a furnace bright, 105 
 
 Column, tower, and dome, and spire. 
 
 Shine like obelisks of fire, 
 
 Pointing with inconstant motion 
 
 From the altar of dark ocean 
 
 To the sapphire-tinted skies; 110 
 
 As the flames of sacrifice 
 
 From the marble shrines did rise. 
 
 As to pierce the dome of gold 
 
 Where Apollo spoke of old. 
 
 Sun-girt City ! thou hast been 115 
 
 Ocean's child, and then his queen; 
 
 Now is come a darker day, 
 
 And thou soon must be his prey. 
 
 If the power that raised thee here 
 
 Hallow so thy watery bier. 120 
 
 A less drear ruin then than now. 
 
 With thy conquest-branded brow 
 
24 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 Stooping to the slave of slaves 
 
 From thy throne, among the waves 
 
 Wilt thou be, when the seamew 125 
 
 Flies, as once before it flew, 
 
 O'er thine isles depopulate. 
 
 And all is in its ancient state. 
 
 Save where many a palace-gate 
 
 With green sea-flowers overgrown 130 
 
 Like a rock of ocean's own. 
 
 Topples o'er the abandoned sea 
 
 As the tides change sullenly. 
 
 The fisher on his watery way. 
 
 Wandering at the close of day, 135 
 
 Will spread his sail and seize his oar. 
 
 Till he pass the gloomy shore. 
 
 Lest the dead should, from their sleep 
 
 Bursting o'er the starlight deep, 
 
 Lead a rapid masque of death 140 
 
 O'er the waters of his path. 
 
 Those who alone thy towers behold 
 
 Quivering through aerial gold, 
 
 As I now behold them here. 
 
 Would imagine not they were 145 
 
 Sepulchres, where human forms. 
 
 Like pollution-nourished worms. 
 
 To the corpse of greatness cling. 
 
 Murdered and now mouldering : 
 
 But if Freedom should awake 150 
 
 In her omnipotence, and shake 
 
 From the Celtic Anarch's hold 
 
 All the keys of dungeons cold. 
 
 Where a hundred cities lie 
 
 Chained like thee, ingloriously, 156 
 
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 25 
 
 Thou and all thy sister band 
 
 Might adorn this sunny land, 
 
 Twining memories of old time 
 
 With new virtues more sublime ; 
 
 If not, perish thou and they ; 160 
 
 Clouds which stain truth's rising day 
 
 By her sun consumed away, 
 
 Earth can spare ye ; while like flowers, 
 
 In the waste of years and hours, 
 
 From your dust new nations spring 165 
 
 With more kindly blossoming. 
 
 Perish ! let there only be 
 
 Floating o'er thy hearthless sea, 
 
 As the garment of thy sky 
 
 Clothes the world immortally, 170 
 
 One remembrance, more sublime 
 
 Than the tattered pall of Time, 
 
 Which scarce hides thy visage wan: 
 
 That a tempest-cleaving swan 
 
 Of the songs of Albion, 175 
 
 Driven from his ancestral streams 
 
 By the might of evil dreams. 
 
 Found a nest in thee ; and ocean 
 
 Welcomed him with such emotion 
 
 That its joy grew his, and sprung 180 
 
 From his lips like music flung 
 
 O'er a mighty thunder-fit. 
 
 Chastening terror : what though yet 
 
 Poesy's unfailing river, 
 
 Which through Albion winds for ever, 185 
 
 Lashing with melodious wave 
 
 Many a sacred poet's grave. 
 
 Mourn, its latest nursling fled ! 
 
26 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 What though thou with all thy dead 
 
 Scarce can for this fame repay 190 
 
 Aught thine own, — oh, rather say, 
 
 Though thy sins and slaveries foul 
 
 Overcloud a sunlike soul ! 
 
 As the ghost of Homer clings 
 
 Round Scamander's wasting springs 195 
 
 As divinest Shakespeare's might 
 
 Fills Avon and the world with light, 
 
 Like omniscient power, which he 
 
 Imaged 'mid mortality; 
 
 As the love from Petrarch's urn 200 
 
 Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 
 
 A quenchless lamp, by which the heart 
 
 Sees things unearthly ; so thou art, 
 
 Mighty spirit : so shall be 
 
 The city that did refuge thee. 206 
 
 Lo, the sun floats up the sky. 
 
 Like thought-winged Liberty, 
 
 Till the universal light 
 
 Seems to level plain and height ; 
 
 From the sea a mist has spread, 210 
 
 And the beams of morn lie dead 
 
 On the towers of Venice now, 
 
 Like its glory long ago. 
 
 By the skirts of that gray cloud 
 
 Many-domed Padua proud 215 
 
 Stands, a peopled solitude, 
 
 'Mid the harvest-shining plain. 
 
 Where the peasant heaps his grain 
 
 Li the garner of his foe, 
 
 And the milk-white oxen slow 220 
 
 With the purple vintage strain. 
 
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 27 
 
 Heaped upon the creaking wain, 
 
 That the brutal Celt may swill 
 
 Drunken sleep with savage will ; 
 
 And the sickle to the sword 225 
 
 Lies unchanged, though many a lord, 
 
 Like a weed whose shade is poison, 
 
 Overgrows this region's foison. 
 
 Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 
 
 To destruction's harvest-home : 230 
 
 Men must reap the things they sow, 
 
 Force from force must ever flow. 
 
 Or worse ; but 'tis a bitter woe 
 
 That love or reason cannot change 
 
 The despot's rage, the slave's revenge. 235 
 
 Padua, thou within whose walls 
 
 Those mute guests at festivals. 
 
 Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 
 
 Played at dice for Ezzelin, 
 
 Till Death cried, " I win, I win ! " 240 
 
 And Sin cursed to lose the wager. 
 
 But Death promised, to assuage her, 
 
 That he would petition for 
 
 Her to be made Vice-Emperor, 
 
 When the destined years were o'er, 245 
 
 Over all between the Po 
 
 And the eastern Alpine snow. 
 
 Under the mighty Austrian. 
 
 Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 
 
 And, since that time, ay, long before, 250 
 
 Both have ruled from shore to shore. 
 
 That incestuous pair, who follow 
 
 Tyrants as the sun the swallow, 
 
 As Repentance follows Crime, 
 
 And as changes follow Time. 255 
 
28 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 In thine halls the lamp of learning, 
 
 Padua, now no more is burning ; 
 
 Like a meteor, whose wild way 
 
 Is lost over the grave of day, 
 
 It gleams betrayed and to betray : 260 
 
 Once remotest nations came 
 
 To adore that sacred flame. 
 
 When it lit not many a hearth 
 
 On this cold and gloomy earth ; 
 
 Now new fires from antique light 265 
 
 Spring beneath the wide world's might ; 
 
 But their spark lies dead in thee. 
 
 Trampled out by tyranny. 
 
 As the Norway woodman quells. 
 
 In the depth of piny dells, 270 
 
 One light flame among the brakes. 
 
 While the boundless forest shakes. 
 
 And its mighty trunks are torn 
 
 By the fire thus lowly born — 
 
 The spark beneath his feet is dead, 275 
 
 He starts to see the flames it fed 
 
 Howling through the darkened sky 
 
 With myriad tongues victoriously. 
 
 And sinks down in fear : so thou, 
 
 O tyranny ! beholdest now 280 
 
 Light around thee, and thou hearest 
 
 The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 
 
 Grovel on the earth ; ay, hide 
 
 In the dust thy purple pride ! 
 
 Noon descends around me now : 285 
 
 'T is the noon of autumn's glow, 
 When a soft and purple mist 
 Like a vaporous amethyst, 
 
WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 29 
 
 Or an air-dissolved star 
 
 Mingling light and fragrance, far 290 
 
 From the curved horizon's bound, 
 
 To the point of heaven's profound, 
 
 Fills the overflowing sky ; 
 
 And the plains that silent lie 
 
 Underneath. The leaves unsodden 295 
 
 Where the infant frost has trodden 
 
 With his morning- winged feet, 
 
 Whose bright print is gleaming yet ; 
 
 And the red and golden vines, 
 
 Piercing with their trellised lines 300 
 
 The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 
 
 The dun and bladed grass no less. 
 
 Pointing from this hoary tower 
 
 In the windless air ; the flower 
 
 Glimmering at my feet ; the line 305 
 
 Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
 
 In the south dimly islanded ; 
 
 And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
 
 High between the clouds and sun ; 
 
 And of living things each one ; 310 
 
 And my spirit, which so long 
 
 Darkened this swift stream of song. 
 
 Interpenetrated lie 
 
 By the glory of the sky : 
 
 Be it love, light, harmony, 315 
 
 Odour, or the soul of all 
 
 Which from heaven like dew doth fall. 
 
 Or the mind which feeds this verse 
 
 Peopling the lone universe. 
 
 Noon descends, and after noon 320 
 
 Autumn's evening meets me soon. 
 
30 WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS 
 
 Leading the infantine moon, 
 
 And that one star, which to her 
 
 Almost seems to minister 
 
 Half the crimson light she brings 325 
 
 From the sunset's radiant springs : 
 
 And the soft dreams of the morn 
 
 (Which like winged winds had borne, 
 
 To that silent isle, which lies 
 
 'Mid remembered agonies, 330 
 
 The frail bark of this lone being), 
 
 Pass, to other sufferers fleeing, 
 
 And its ancient pilot. Pain, 
 
 Sits beside the helm again. 
 
 Other flowering isles must be 335 
 
 In the sea of life and agony : 
 
 Other spirits float and flee 
 
 O'er that gulf : even now, perhaps, 
 
 On some rock the wild wave wraps, 
 
 With folded wings they waiting sit 340 
 
 For my bark, to pilot it 
 
 To some calm and blooming cove, 
 
 Where for me, and those I love. 
 
 May a windless bower be built, 
 
 Far from passion, pain, and guilt, 345 
 
 In a dell 'mid lawny hills. 
 
 Which the wild sea-murmur fills. 
 
 And soft sunshine, and the sound 
 
 Of old forests echoing round, 
 
 And the light and smell divine 350 
 
 Of all flowers that breathe and shine. 
 
 We may live so happy there 
 
 That the spirits of the air. 
 
 Envying us, may even entice 
 
STANZAS 31 
 
 To our healing paradise 355 
 
 The polluting multitude : 
 
 But their rage would be subdued 
 
 By that clime divine and calm. 
 
 And the winds whose wings rain balm 
 
 On the uplifted soul, and leaves 360 
 
 Under which the bright sea heaves ; 
 
 While each breathless interval 
 
 In their whisperings musical 
 
 The inspired soul supplies 
 
 With its own deep melodies, 365 
 
 And the love which heals all strife, 
 
 Circling, like the breath of life. 
 
 All things in that sweet abode 
 
 With its own mild brotherhood. 
 
 They, not it, would change ; and soon 370 
 
 Every sprite beneath the moon 
 
 Would repent its envy vain. 
 
 And the earth grow young again. 
 
 October, 1818. 
 
 STANZAS 
 
 WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES 
 
 The sun is warm, the sky is clear, 
 
 The waves are dancing fast and bright, 
 Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
 
 The purple noon's transparent might ; 
 
 The breath of the moist earth is light, 
 Around its unexpanded buds ; 
 
 Like many a voice of one delight. 
 The winds, the birds, the ocean-floods. 
 The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 
 
32 STANZAS 
 
 I see the Deep's un trampled floor 10 
 
 With green and purple seaweeds strewn ; 
 I see the waves upon the shore, 
 
 Lake light dissolved in star-showers, thrown ; 
 
 I sit upon the sands alone. 
 The lightning of the noontide ocean 15 
 
 Is flashing round me, and a tone 
 Arises from its measured motion. 
 How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. 
 
 Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
 
 Nor peace within nor calm around, 20 
 
 Nor that content surpassing wealth 
 
 The sage in meditation found. 
 
 And walked with inward glory crowned, — 
 Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
 
 Others I see whom these surround ; 25 
 
 Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; 
 To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 
 
 Yet now despair itself is mild, 
 
 Even as the winds and waters are ; 
 
 I could lie down like a tired child, 30 
 
 And weep away the life of care 
 Which I have borne, and yet must bear, 
 
 Till death like sleep might steal on me, 
 And I might feel in the warm air 
 
 My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 35 
 
 Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 
 
 Some might lament that I were cold, 
 As I when this sweet day is gone, 
 
 Which my lost hearty too soon grown old. 
 
 Insults with this untimely moan ; 40 
 
LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR 33 
 
 They might lament — for I am one 
 Whom men love not — and yet regret, 
 
 Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
 Shall on its stainless glory set, 44 
 
 Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 
 
 December, 1818. 
 
 LINES TO AN INDIAN AIR 
 
 I ARISE from dreams of thee 
 
 In the first sweet sleep of night, 
 
 When the winds are breathing low. 
 
 And the stars are shining bright. 
 
 I arise from dreams of thee, 5 
 
 And a spirit in my feet 
 
 Has led me — who knows how ? — 
 
 To thy chamber-window, sweet ! 
 
 The wandering airs they faint 
 
 On the dark, the silent stream ; 10 
 
 The champak odours fail 
 
 Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
 
 The nightingale's complaint, 
 
 It dies upon her heart. 
 
 As I must die on thin 15 
 
 O beloved as thou art ! 
 
 lift me from the grass ! 
 
 1 die, I faint, I fail ! 
 
 Let thy love in kisses rain 
 
 On my lips and eyelids pale. 20 
 
 My cheek is cold and white, alas 1 
 
 My heart beats loud and fast, 
 
34 SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 
 
 O ! press it close to thine again, 
 Where it will break at last. 
 
 1819. 
 
 LOVE'S PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The fountains mingle with the river, 
 
 And the rivers with the ocean ; 
 The winds of heaven mix for ever 
 
 With a sweet emotion ; 
 Nothing in the world is single ; 6 
 
 All things by a law divine 
 In one another's being mingle : 
 
 Why not I with thine ? 
 
 See the mountains kiss high heaven, 
 
 And the waves clasp one another ; 10 
 
 No sister flower would be forgiven 
 
 If it disdained its brother ; 
 And the sunlight clasps the earth, 
 
 And the moonbeams kiss the sea : 
 What are all these kissings worth, 15 
 
 If thou kiss not me ? 
 1819. 
 
 SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 
 
 Men of England, wherefore plough 
 For the lords who lay ye low ? 
 Wherefore weave with toil and care 
 The rich robes your tyrants wear? 
 
 Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save. 
 From the cradle to the grave, 
 
SONG — TO THE MEN OF ENGLAND 35 
 
 Those ungrateful drones who would 
 
 Drain your sweat — nay, drink your blood? 
 
 Wherefore, Bees of England, forge 
 
 Many a weapon, chain, and scourge, 10 
 
 That these stingless drones may spoil 
 
 The forced produce of your toil? 
 
 Have ye leisure, comfort, calm. 
 
 Shelter, food, love's gentle balm ? 
 
 Or what is it ye buy so dear 15 
 
 With your pain and with your fear? 
 
 The seed ye sow, another reaps ; 
 
 The wealth ye find, another keeps ; 
 
 The robes ye weave, another wears ; 
 
 The arms ye forge, another bears. 20 
 
 Sow seed, — but let no tyrant reap ; 
 Find wealth, — let no impostor heap ; 
 Weave robes, — let not the idle wear ; 
 Forge arms, — in your defence to bear. 
 
 Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells ; 25 
 In halls ye deck, another dwells. 
 Why shake the chains ye wrought ? Ye see 
 The steel ye tempered glance on ye. 
 
 With plough and spade, and hoe and loom, 
 Trace your grave, and build your tomb, 30 
 And weave your winding-sheet, till fair 
 England be your sepulchre ! 
 1819. 
 
36 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 ENGLAND IN 1819 
 
 An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, - — 
 
 Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow 
 Through public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring ; 
 
 Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, 
 But leech-like to their fainting country cling, 5 
 
 Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow ; 
 A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field ; 
 
 An army, which liberticide and prey 
 Make as a two-edged sword to all who wield ; 
 
 Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay ; 
 Religion Christless, Godless, — a book sealed ; 11 
 
 A Senate, — time's worst statute unrepealed, — 
 
 Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may 
 
 Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day. 
 1819. 
 
 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
 Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
 Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. 
 
 Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
 Pestilence-stricken multitudes ; O thou, 5 
 
 Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 
 
 The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, 
 Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
 Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 
 
ODE TO THE WEST WIND 37 
 
 Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 10 
 
 (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
 With living hues and odours plain and hill : 
 
 Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
 Destroyer and preserver ; hear, O hear ! 
 
 II 
 
 Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commo- 
 tion, 15 
 Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
 Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and 
 ocean, 
 
 Angels of rain and lightning ; there are spread 
 
 On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
 
 Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 20 
 
 Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim 
 
 verge 
 Of the horizon to the zenith's height 
 The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 
 
 Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
 
 Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, 25 
 
 Vaulted with all thy congregated might 
 
 Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 
 
 Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst ; O hear ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams 
 
 The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 
 
 Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams. 
 
38 ODE TO THE WEST WIND 
 
 Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, 
 And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
 Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
 
 All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers 35 
 
 So sweet the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 
 For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 
 
 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
 The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
 The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 40 
 
 Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, 
 And tremble and despoil themselves ; O hear ! 
 
 IV 
 
 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 
 
 If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 
 
 A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 45 
 
 The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
 Than thou, O uncontrollable ! if even 
 I were as in my boyhood, and could be 
 
 The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, 
 
 As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed 50 
 
 Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven 
 
 As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
 
 ! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
 
 1 fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 
 
 A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 55 
 One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 
 
OBE TO THE WEST WIND 39 
 
 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
 What if my leaves are falling like its own ! 
 The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 
 
 Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, 60 
 
 Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce, 
 My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 
 
 Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
 Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ; 
 And, by the incantation of this verse, 65 
 
 Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
 Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
 Be through my lips to unawakened earth 
 
 The trumpet of a prophecy ! O Wind, 
 
 If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 
 
 70 
 
 1819. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 A LYRICAL DRAMA, IN FOUR ACTS 
 Audisne haec, AmphiaraB, sub terrain abdite ? 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The Greek tragic writers, in selecting as their subject any 
 portion of their national history or mythology, employed in their 
 treatment of it a certain arbitrary discretion. They by no means 
 conceived themselves bound to adhere to the common interpreta- 
 tion, or to imitate in story, as in title, their rivals and prede- 
 cessors. Such a system would have amounted to a resignation 
 of those claims to preference over their competitors which in- 
 cited the composition. The Agamemnonian story was exhibited 
 on the Athenian theatre with as many variations as dramas. 
 
 I have presumed to employ a similar license. The Prometheus 
 Unbound of iEschylus supposed the reconciliation of Jupiter 
 with his victim as the price of the disclosure of the danger 
 threatened to his empire by the consummation of his marriage 
 with Thetis. Thetis, according to this view of the subject, was 
 given in marriage to Peleus, and Prometheus, by the permission 
 of Jupiter, delivered from his captivity by Hercules. Had I 
 framed my story on this model, I should have done no more 
 than have attempted to restore the lost drama of iEschylus ; an 
 ambition which, if my preference to this mode of treating the 
 subject had incited me to cherish, the recollection of the high 
 comparison such an attempt would challenge might well abate. 
 But, in truth, I was averse from a catastrophe so feeble as that 
 of reconciling the Champion with the Oppressor of mankind. 
 The moral interest of the fable, which is so powerfully sustained 
 by the sufferings and endurance of Prometheus, would be annihi- 
 lated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language 
 and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary. 
 The only imaginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, 
 is Satan : and Prometheus is, in my judgement, a more poetical 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 41 
 
 character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, and ma- 
 jesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is 
 susceptible of being described as exempt from the taints of 
 ambition, envy, revenge, and a desire for personal aggrandize- 
 ment, which, in the Hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the 
 interest. The character of Satan engenders in the mind a per- 
 nicious casuistry which leads us to weigh his faults with his 
 wrongs, and to excuse the former because the latter exceed all 
 measure. In the minds of those who consider that magnificent 
 fiction with a religious feeling, it engenders something worse. 
 But Prometheus is, as it were, the type of the highest perfec- 
 tion of moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest 
 and the truest motives to the best and noblest ends. 
 
 This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of 
 the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades, and thickets 
 of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever- 
 winding labyrinths upon its immense platforms and dizzy arches 
 suspended in the air. The bright blue sky of Rome, and the 
 effect of the vigorous awakening of spring in that divinest cli- 
 mate, and the new life with which it drenches the spirits even to 
 intoxication, were the inspiration of this drama. 
 
 The imagery which I have employed will be found, in many 
 instances, to have been drawn from the operations of the human 
 mind, or from those external actions by which they are ex- 
 pressed. This is unusual in modern poetry, although Dante and 
 Shakespeare are full of instances of the same kind : Dante in- 
 deed more than any other poet, and with greater success. But 
 the Greek poets, as writers to whom no resource of awakening 
 the sympathy of their contemporaries was unknown, were in the 
 habitual use of this power ; and it is the study of their works 
 (since a higher merit would probably be denied me) to which 
 I am willing that my readers should impute this singularity. 
 
 One word is due in candour to the degree in which the study 
 of contemporary writings may have tinged my composition ; for 
 such has been a topic of censure with regard to poems far more 
 popular, and indeed more deservedly popular, than mine. It is 
 impossible that any one who inhabits the same age with such 
 writers as those who stand in the foremost ranks of our own, 
 can conscientiously assure himself that his language and tone of 
 thought may not have been modified by the study of the produc- 
 tions of those extraordinary intellects. It is true, that, not the 
 
42 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 spirit of their genius, but the forms in which it has manifested 
 itself, are due less to the peculiarities of their own minds than 
 to the peculiarity of the moral and intellectual condition of the 
 minds among which they have been produced. Thus a number 
 of writers possess the form, whilst they want the spirit of those 
 whom, it is alleged, they imitate ; because the former is the 
 endowment of the age in which they live, and the latter must 
 be the uncommunicated lightning of their own mind. 
 
 The peculiar style of intense and comprehensive imagery 
 which distinguishes the modern literature of England, has not 
 been, as a general power, the product of the imitation of any 
 particular writer. The mass of capabilities remains at every 
 period materially the same ; the circumstances which awaken it 
 to action perpetually change. If England were divided into forty 
 republics, each equal in population and extent to Athens, there 
 is no reason to suppose but that, under institutions not more per- 
 fect than those of Athens, each would produce philosophers and 
 poets equal to those who (if we except Shakespeare) have never 
 been surpassed. We owe the great writers of the golden age of 
 our literature to that fervid awakening of the public mind which 
 shook to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of the Chris- 
 tian religion. We owe Milton to the progress and development 
 of the same spirit: the sacred Milton was, let it ever be remem- 
 bered, a republican, and a bold inquirer into morals and religion. 
 The great writers of our own age are, we have reason to sup- 
 pose, the companions and forerunners of some unimagined 
 change in our social condition, or the opinions which cement it. 
 The cloud of mind is discharging its collected lightning, and the 
 equilibrium between institutions and opinions is now restoring, 
 or is about to be restored. 
 
 As to imitation, poetry is a mimetic art. It creates, but it 
 creates by combination and representation. Poetical abstractions 
 are beautiful and new, not because the portions of which they are 
 composed had no previous existence in the mind of man or in 
 nature, but because the whole produced by their combination 
 has some intelligible and beautiful analogy with those sources of 
 emotion and thought, and with the contemporary condition of 
 them: one great poet is a masterpiece of nature which another 
 not only ought to study but must study. He might as wisely 
 and as easily determine that his mind should no longer be the 
 mirror of all that is lovely in the visible universe, as exclude from 
 
PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 43 
 
 his contemplation the beautiful which exists in the writings of 
 a great contemporary. The pretence of doing it would be a 
 presumption in any but the greatest ; the effect, even in him, 
 would be strained, unnatural, and ineffectual. A poet is the 
 combined product of such internal powers as modify the nature 
 of others ; and of such external influences as excite and sustain 
 these powers: he is not one, but both. Every man's mind is, in 
 this respect, modified by all the objects of nature and art; by 
 every word and every suggestion which he ever admitted to act 
 upon his consciousness; it is the mirror upon which all forms are 
 reflected, and in which they compose one form. Poets, not other- 
 wise than philosophers, painters, sculptors, and musicians, are, in 
 one sense the creators, and, in another, the creations, of their 
 age. From this subjection the loftiest do not escape. There 
 is a similarity between Homer and Hesiod, between ^schylus 
 and Euripides, between Virgil and Horace, between Dante and 
 Petrarch, between Shakespeare and Fletcher, between Dryden 
 and Pope; each has a generic resemblance under which their 
 specific distinctions are arranged. If this similarity be the result 
 of imitation, I am willing to confess that I have imitated. 
 
 Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that 
 I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, " a 
 passion for reforming the world " : what passion incited him to 
 write and publish his book, he omits to explain. For my part, 
 I had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon than go to 
 heaven with Paley and Malthus. But it is a mistake to suppose 
 that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct 
 enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree 
 as containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life. 
 Didactic poetry is my abhorrence ; nothing can be equally well 
 expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in verse. 
 My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarize the highly 
 refined imagination of the more select classes of poetical readers 
 with beautiful idealisms of moral excellence ; aware that until 
 the mind can love, and admire, and trust, and hope, and endure, 
 reasoned principles of moral conduct are seeds cast upon the 
 highway of life, which the unconscious passenger tramples into 
 dust, although they would bear the harvest of his happiness. 
 Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a 
 systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine 
 elements of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and 
 
44 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 superstition flatter themselves that I should take -^schylus rather 
 than Plato as my model. 
 
 The having spoken of myself with unafPected freedom will 
 need little apology with the candid ; and let the uncandid con- 
 sider that they injure me less than their own hearts and minds 
 Tjy misrepresentation. Whatever talents a person may possess 
 to amuse and instruct others, be they ever so inconsiderable, he 
 is yet bound to exert them : if his attempt be ineffectual, let the 
 punishment of an unaccomplished purpose have been sufficient ; 
 let none trouble themselves to heap the dust of oblivion upon his 
 efforts ; the pile they raise will betray his grave, which might 
 otherwise have been unknown. 
 
 DRAMATIS PERSONS 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 The Earth 
 
 Ocean 
 
 Apollo 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Hercules 
 
 Asia, > 
 
 Panthea, >- Oceanides 
 lONE, ) 
 
 The Phantasm of Jupiter 
 The Spirit of the Earth 
 The Spirit of the Moon 
 Spirits of the Hours 
 Spirits. Echoes. Fauns 
 Furies 
 
 ACT I 
 
 Scene, A Ravine of Icy Rocks in the Indian Caucasus. 
 Prometheus is discovered hound to the Precipice. 
 Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet. Time, Night, 
 During the Scene, Morning slowly breaks, 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits 
 
 But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds 
 
 Which thou and I alone of living things 
 
 Behold with sleepless eyes ! regard this Earth 
 
 Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou 5 
 
 Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise, 
 
 And toil, and hecatombs of broken hearts, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 45 
 
 With fear and self-contempt and barren hope : 
 
 Whilst me, who am thy foe, eyeless in hate, 
 
 Hast thou made reign and triumph, to thy scorn, 10 
 
 O'er mine own misery and thy vain revenge. 
 
 Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours^ 
 
 And moments aye divided by keen pangs 
 
 Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, 
 
 Scorn and despair, — these are mine empire, 15 
 
 More glorious far than that which thou surveyest 
 
 From thine unenvied throne, O mighty God ! 
 
 Almighty, had I deigned to share the shame 
 
 Of thine ill tyranny, and hung not here 
 
 Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, 20 
 
 Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured ; without herb, 
 
 Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. 
 
 Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 
 
 No change, no pause, no hope ! Yet I endure. 
 
 I ask the Earth, have not the mountains felt ? 25 
 
 I ask yon Heaven, the all-beholding Sun, 
 
 Has it not seen ? The Sea, in storm or calm, 
 
 Heaven's ever-changing Shadow, spread below. 
 
 Have its deaf waves not heard my agony ? 
 
 Ah me ! alas, pain, pain ever, for ever ! 30 
 
 The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears 
 Of their moon-freezing crystals ; the bright chains 
 Eat with their burning cold into my bones. 
 Heaven's winged hound, polluting from thy lips 
 His beak in poison not his own, tears up 35 
 
 My heart ; and shapeless sights come wandering by. 
 The ghastly people of the realm of dream. 
 Mocking me : and the Earthquake-fiends are charged 
 To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds 
 
46 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 When the rocks split and close again behind ; 40 
 
 While from their loud abysses howling throng 
 
 The genii of the storm, urging the rage 
 
 Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail. 
 
 And yet to me welcome is day and night, 
 
 Whether one breaks the hoar frost of the morn, 45 
 
 Or, starry, dim, and slow, the other climbs 
 
 The leaden-coloured east ; for then they lead 
 
 The wingless, crawling hours, one among whom — 
 
 As some dark Priest hales the reluctant victim — 
 
 Shall drag thee, cruel King, to kiss the blood 50 
 
 From these pale feet, which then might trample thee 
 
 If they disdained not such a prostrate slave. 
 
 Disdain ! Ah no ! I pity thee. What ruin 
 
 Will hunt thee undefended through the wide Heaven ! 
 
 How will thy soul, cloven to its depth with terror, 55 
 
 Gape like a hell within ! I speak in grief. 
 
 Not exultation, for I hate no more. 
 
 As then ere misery made me wise. The curse 
 
 Once breathed on thee I would recall. Ye Mountains, 
 
 Whose many-voiced Echoes, through the mist 60 
 
 Of cataracts, flung the thunder of that spell ! 
 
 Ye icy Springs, stagnant with wrinkling frost, 
 
 Which vibrated to hear me, and then crept 
 
 Shuddering through India ! Thou serenest Air, 64 
 
 Through which the Sun walks burning without beams ! 
 
 And the swift Whirlwinds, who on poised wings 
 
 Hung mute and moveless o'er yon hushed abyss, 
 
 As thunder, louder than your own, made rock 
 
 The orb^d world ! If then my words had power. 
 
 Though I am changed so that aught evil wish 70 
 
 Is dead within ; although no memory be 
 
 Of what is hate, let them not lose it now ! 
 
 What was that curse ? for ye all heard me speak. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 47 
 
 FiEST Voice : from the Mountains 
 
 Thrice three hundred thousand years 
 
 O'er the Earthquake's couch we stood : 75 
 
 Oft, as men convulsed with fears, 
 We trembled in our multitude. 
 
 Seco:n^d Voice ; from the Springs 
 
 Thunderbolts had parched our water, 
 We had been stained with bitter blood, 
 
 And had run mute, 'mid shrieks of slaughter, 80 
 Through a city and a solitude. 
 
 Third Voice : from the Air 
 
 I had clothed, since Earth uprose, 
 Its wastes in colours not their own ; 
 
 And oft had my serene repose 
 
 Been cloven by many a rending groan. 85 
 
 Fourth Voice : fi^om the Whirlwinds 
 
 We had soared beneath these mountains 
 
 Unresting ages ; nor had thunder. 
 Nor yon volcano's flaming fountains, 
 
 Nor any power above or under 
 
 Ever made us mute with^ wonder, 90 
 
 First Voice 
 
 But never bowed our snowy crest 
 As at the voice of thine unrest. 
 
 Second Voice 
 
 Never such a sound before 
 
 To the Indian waves we bore. 
 
 A pilot asleep on the howling sea J 95 
 
 Leaped up from the deck in agony, \ 
 
48 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 And heard, and cried, " Ah, woe is me ! " 
 And died as mad as the wild waves be. 
 
 Third Voice 
 
 By such dread words from Earth to Heaven 
 My still realm was never riven : 100 
 
 When its wound was closed, there stood 
 Darkness o'er the day like blood. 
 
 Fourth Voice 
 
 And we shrank back : for dreams of ruin 
 
 To frozen caves our flight pursuing 
 
 Made us keep silence — thus — and thus — 105 
 
 Though silence is a hell to us. 
 
 The Earth 
 
 The tongueless Caverns of the craggy hills 
 Cried, " Misery! " then; the hollow Heaven replied, 
 '^ Misery ! " and the Ocean's purple waves, 
 Climbing the land, howled to the lashing winds, 110 
 And the pale nations heard it, *' Misery ! " 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 I hear a sound of voices : not the voice 
 
 Which I gave forth. Mother, thy sons and thou 
 
 Scorn him without whose all-enduring will 
 
 Beneath the fierce omnipotence of Jove, 115 
 
 Both they and thou had vanished, like thin mist 
 
 Unrolled on the morning wind. Know ye not me, 
 
 The Titan ? he who made his agony 
 
 The barrier to your else all-conquering Foe ? 
 
 O rock-embosomed lawns, and snow-fed streams, 120 
 
 Now seen athwart frore vapours, deep below. 
 
 Through whose overshadowing woods I wandered once 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 49 
 
 With Asia, drinking life from her loved eyes ; 
 
 Why scorns the spirit which informs ye, now 
 
 To commune with me? me alone, who checked, 125 
 
 As one who checks a fiend-drawn charioteer, 
 
 The falsehood and the force of him who reigns 
 
 Supreme, and with the groans of pining slaves 
 
 Fills your dim glens and liquid wildernesses. 
 
 Why answer ye not, still. Brethren ? 130 
 
 The Earth 
 
 They dare not. 
 Prometheus 
 
 Who dares ? for I would hear that curse again. 
 
 Ha ! what an awful whisper rises up ! 
 
 'T is scarce like sound : it tingles through the frame 
 
 As lightning tingles, hovering ere it strike. 
 
 Speak, Spirit ! From thine inorganic voice, 135 
 
 I only know that thou art moving near 
 
 And love. How cursed I him ? 
 
 The Earth 
 
 How canst thou hear 
 Who knowest not the language of the dead ? 
 
 Prometheus 
 Thou art a living spirit : speak as they ! 
 
 The Earth 
 
 I dare not speak like life, lest Heaven's fell King 140 
 Should hear, and link me to some wheel of pain 
 More torturing than the one whereon I roll. 
 Subtle thou art and good ; and though the Gods 
 Hear not this voice, yet thou art more than God, 
 Being wise and kind: earnestly hearken now ! 145 
 
50 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Obscurely through my brain, like shadows dim. 
 Sweep awful thoughts, rapid and thick. I feel 
 Faint, like one mingled in entwining love ; 
 Yet 't is not pleasure. 
 
 The Earth 
 
 No, thou canst not hear : 
 Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 150 
 
 Only to those who die. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 And what art thou, 
 O melancholy Voice ? 
 
 The Earth 
 
 I am the Earth, 
 Thy mother ; she within whose stony veins. 
 To the last fibre of the loftiest tree 
 Whose thin leaves trembled in the frozen air, 155 
 
 Joy ran, as blood within a living frame, 
 When thou didst from her bosom, like a cloud 
 Of glory, arise, a spirit of keen joy ! 
 And at thy voice her pining sons uplifted 
 Their prostrate brows from the polluting dust, 160 
 And our almighty Tyrant with fierce dread 
 Grew pale, until his thunder chained thee here. 
 Then, see those million worlds which burn and roll 
 Around us : their inhabitants beheld 
 My sphered light wane in wide Heaven ; the sea 165 
 Was lifted by strange tempest, and new fire 
 From earthquake-rifted mountains of bright snow 
 Shook its portentous hair beneath Heaven's frown ; 
 Lightning and Inundation vexed the plains ; 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 51 
 
 Blue thistles bloomed in cities ; foodless toads 170 
 
 Within voluptuous chambers panting crawled : 
 
 When Plague had fallen on man, and beast, and worm. 
 
 And Famine ; and black blight on herb and tree ; 
 
 And in the corn, and vines, and meadow-grass, 
 
 Teemed ineradicable poisonous weeds 175 
 
 Draining their growth, for my wan breast was dry 
 
 With grief ; and the thin air, my breath, was stained 
 
 With the contagion of a mother's hate 
 
 Breathed on her child's destroyer ; ay, I heard 
 
 Thy curse, the which, if thou rememberest not, 180 
 
 Yet my innumerable seas and streams. 
 
 Mountains, and caves, and winds, and yon wide air, 
 
 And the inarticulate people of the dead. 
 
 Preserve, a treasured spell. We meditate 
 
 In secret joy and hope those dreadful words, 185 
 
 But dare not speak them. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Venerable mother ! 
 All else who live and suffer take from thee 
 Some comfort ; flowers, and fruits, and happy sounds, 
 And love, though fleeting ; these may not be mine. 
 But mine own words, I pray, deny me not ! 190 
 
 The Earth 
 
 They shall be told. Ere Babylon was dust, 
 
 The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child. 
 
 Met his own image walking in the garden. 
 
 That apparition, sole of men, he saw. 
 
 For know, there are two worlds of life and death : 195 
 
 One, that which thou beholdest ; but the other 
 
 Is underneath the grave, where do inhabit 
 
 The shadows of all forms that think and live, 
 
62 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Till death unite them and they part no more ; 
 Dreams and the light imaginings of men, 200 
 
 And all that faith creates or love desires, 
 Terrible, strange, sublime, and beauteous shapes. 
 There thou art, and dost hang, a writhing shade, 
 Mid whirlwind-peopled mountains ; all the Gods 
 Are there, and all the powers of nameless worlds, 205 
 Vast, sceptred phantoms ; heroes, men, and beasts ; 
 And Demogorgon, a tremendous gloom ; 
 And he, the supreme Tyrant, on his throne 
 Of burning gold. Son, one of these shall utter 
 The curse which all remember. Call at will 210 
 
 Thine own ghost, or the ghost of Jupiter, 
 Hades or Typhon, or what mightier Gods 
 From all-prolific Evil, since thy ruin 
 Have sprung, and trampled on my prostrate sons. 
 Ask, and they must reply : so the revenge 215 
 
 Of the Supreme may sweep through vacant shades, 
 As rainy wind through the abandoned gate 
 Of a fallen palace. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Mother, let not aught 
 Of that which may be evil, pass again 
 My lips, or those of aught resembling me. 220 
 
 Phantasm of Jupiter, arise, appear ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 My wings are folded o'er mine ears : 
 My wings are crossed o'er mine eyes : 
 
 Yet through their silver shade appears, 
 
 And through their lulling plumes arise, 225 
 
 A Shape, a throng of sounds. 
 May it be no ill to thee 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 53 
 
 O thou of many wounds ! 
 Near whom, for our sweet sister's sake, 
 Ever thus we watch and wake. 230 
 
 Panthea 
 
 The sound is of whirlwind underground, 
 
 Earthquake, and fire, and mountains cloven ; 
 The shape is awful like the sound. 
 
 Clothed in dark purple, star-inwoven. 
 A sceptre of pale gold, 235 
 
 To stay steps proud, o'er the slow cloud, 
 His veined hand doth hold. 
 Cruel he looks, but calm and strong, 
 Like one who does, not suffers wrong. 
 
 Phantasm of Jupiter 
 
 Why have the secret powers of this strange world 
 
 Driven me, a frail and empty phantom, hither 241 
 
 On direst storms ? What unaccustomed sounds 
 
 Are hovering on my lips, unlike the voice 
 
 With which our pallid race hold ghastly talk 
 
 In darkness ? And, proud sufferer, who art thou ? 245 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Tremendous Image ! as thou art must be 
 He whom thou shadowest forth. I am his foe. 
 The Titan. Speak the words which I would hear, 
 Although no thought inform thine empty voice ! 
 
 The Earth 
 
 Listen ! and though your echoes must be mute, 250 
 Gray mountains, and old woods, and haunted springs, 
 Prophetic caves, and isle-surrounding streams. 
 Rejoice to hear what yet ye cannot speak ! 
 
64 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Phantasm 
 
 A spirit seizes me and speaks within : 
 
 It tears me as fire tears a thunder-cloud. 255 
 
 Panthea 
 
 See how he lifts his mighty looks ! the Heaven 
 Darkens above ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 He speaks ! O shelter me ! 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 I see the curse on gestures proud and cold, 
 
 And looks of firm defiance, and calm hate, 
 
 And such despair as mocks itself with smiles, 260 
 
 Written as on a scroll : yet speak ! O speak ! 
 
 Phantasm 
 
 Fiend, I defy thee ! with a calm, fixed mind, 
 All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do ; 
 
 Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind, 
 
 One only being shalt thou not subdue. 265 
 
 Rain then thy plagues upon me here. 
 
 Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear ; 
 
 And let alternate frost and fire 
 
 Eat into me, and be thine ire 
 Lightning, and cutting hail, and legioned forms 270 
 Of furies, driving by upon the wounding storms ! 
 
 Ay, do thy worst ! Thou art omnipotent. 
 
 O'er all things but thyself I gave thee power. 
 And my own will. Be thy swift mischiefs sent 
 
 To blast mankind, from yon ethereal tower. 275 
 Let thy malignant spirit move 
 
FEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 55 
 
 In darkness over those I love : 
 
 On me and mine I imprecate 
 
 The utmost torture of thy hate ; 
 And thus devote to sleepless agony, 280 
 
 This undeclining head while thou must reign on high. 
 
 But thou, who art the God and Lord : O thou, 
 Who fillest with thy soul this world of woe, 
 
 To whom all things of Earth and Heaven do bow 
 In fear and worship : all-prevailing foe, — 285 
 
 I curse thee ! Let a sufferer's curse 
 
 Clasp thee, his torturer, like remorse ; 
 
 Till thine Infinity shall be 
 
 A robe of envenomed agony ; 
 And thine Omnipotence a crown of pain, 290 
 
 To cling like burning gold round thy dissolving brain ! 
 
 Heap on thy soul, by virtue of this Curse, 
 
 111 deeds ; then be thou damned, beholding good ; 
 Both infinite as is the universe. 
 
 And thou, and thy self-torturing solitude ! 295 
 An awful image of calm power 
 Though now thou sittest, let the hour 
 Come, when thou must appear to be 
 That which thou art internally. 
 And after many a false and fruitless crime 300 
 
 Scorn track thy lagging fall through boundless space 
 and time ! 
 
 Prometheus 
 Were these my words, O Parent? 
 
 The Earth 
 
 They were thine* 
 
56 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 It doth repent me : words are quick and vain ; 
 
 Grief for a while is blind, and so was mine* 
 
 I wish no living thing to suffer pain. 305 
 
 The Earth 
 
 Misery, Oh misery to me. 
 
 That Jove at length should vanquish thee ! 
 
 Wail, howl aloud. Land and Sea, 
 
 The Earth's rent heart shall answer ye. 
 
 Howl, Spirits of the living and the dead, 310 
 
 Your refuge, your defence, lies fallen and vanquished ! 
 
 First Echo 
 Lies fallen and vanquished ! 
 
 Second Echo 
 Fallen and vanquished ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 Fear not : 't is but some passing spasm : 
 
 The Titan is unvanquished still. 315 
 
 But see, where through the azure chasm 
 Of yon forked and snowy hill, 
 
 Trampling the slant winds on high 
 
 . With golden-sandalled feet, that glow 
 
 Under plumes of purple dye, 320 
 
 Like rose-ensanguined ivory, 
 A Shape comes now. 
 
 Stretching on high from his right hand 
 
 A serpent-cinctured wand. 
 
 Panthea 
 'T is Jove's world -wandering herald. Mercury, 325 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 57 
 
 lONE 
 
 And who are those with hydra tresses 
 And iron wings that climb the wind, 
 
 Whom the frowning God represses, 
 Like vapours steaming up behind, 
 
 Clanging loud, an endless crowd — 330 
 
 Panthea 
 
 These are Jove's tempest-walking hounds. 
 Whom he gluts with groans and blood. 
 When charioted on sulphurous cloud 
 
 He bursts Heaven's bounds, 
 
 lONE 
 
 Are they now led from the thin dead, 335 
 
 On new pangs to be fed ? 
 
 Panthea 
 The Titan looks as ever, firm, not proud. 
 
 First Fury 
 Ha ! I scent life ! 
 
 Second Fury 
 Let me but look into his eyes ! 
 
 Third Fury 
 
 The hope of torturing him smells like a heap 340 
 
 Of corpses, to a death-bird after battle. 
 
 First Fury 
 
 Darest thou delay, O Herald ! Take cheer, Hounds 
 Of Hell : What if the Son of Maia soon 
 
68 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Should make us food and sport — who can pleiase long 
 The Omnipotent? 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Back to your towers of iron, 345 
 And gnash, beside the streams of fire and wail, 
 Your foodless teeth ! Geryon, arise ! and Gorgon, 
 Chimaera, and thou Sphinx, subtlest of fiends, 
 Who ministered to Thebes Heaven's poisoned wine. 
 Unnatural love, and more unnatural hate : 350 
 
 These shall perform your task. 
 
 First Fury 
 
 Oh, mercy ! mercy ! 
 We die with our desire : drive us not back ! 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Crouch then in silence ! 
 
 Awful Sufferer ! 
 To thee unwilling, most unwillingly 
 I come, by the Great Father's will driven down, 355 
 To execute a doom of new revenge. 
 Alas I I pity thee, and hate myself 
 That I can do no more : aye from thy sight 
 Returning, for a season. Heaven seems Hell, 
 So thy worn form pursues me night and day, 360 
 
 Smiling reproach. Wise art thou, firm and good. 
 But vainly wouldst stand forth alone in strife 
 Against the Omnipotent ; as yon clear lamps 
 That measure and divide the weary years 
 From which there is no refuge, long have taught, 365 
 And long must teach. Even now thy Torturer arms 
 With the strange might of unimagined pains 
 The powers who scheme slow agonies in Hell, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 59 
 
 And my commission is to lead them here, 
 
 Or what more subtle, foul, or savage fiends 370 
 
 People the abyss, and leave them to their task. 
 
 Be it not so ! There is a secret known 
 
 To thee, and to none else of living things, 
 
 Which may transfer the sceptre of wide Heaven, 
 
 The fear of which perplexes the Supreme : 375 
 
 Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne 
 
 In intercession ; bend thy soul in prayer. 
 
 And, like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane. 
 
 Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart : 
 
 For benefits and meek submission tame 380 
 
 The fiercest and the mightiest. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Evil minds 
 Change good to their own nature. I gave all 
 He has ; and in return he chains me here 
 Years, ages, night and day : whether the Sun 
 Split my parched skin, or in the moony night 385 
 
 The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair : 
 Whilst my beloved race is trampled down 
 By his thought-executing ministers. 
 Such is the Tyrant's recompense. 'T is just : 
 He who is evil can receive no good ; 390 
 
 And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost. 
 He can feel hate, fear, shame ; not gratitude : 
 He but requites me for his own misdeed. 
 Kindness to such is keen reproach, which breaks 
 With bitter stings the light sleep of Revenge. 395 
 
 Submission, thou dost know I cannot try : 
 For what submission but that fatal word. 
 The death-seal of mankind's captivity. 
 Like the Sicilian's hair-suspended sword. 
 
60 PEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Which trembles o'er his crown, would he accept, 400 
 
 Or could I yield ? Which yet I will not yield. 
 
 Let others flatter Crime, where it sits throned 
 
 In brief Omnipotence : secure are they : 
 
 For Justice, when triumphant, will weep down 
 
 Pity, not punishment, on her own wrongs, 405 
 
 Too much avenged by those who err. I wait, 
 
 Enduring thus, the retributive hour 
 
 Which since we spake is even nearer now. 
 
 But hark, the hell-hounds clamour. Fear delay ! 
 
 Behold! Heaven lowers under thy Father's frown. 410 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Oh, that we might be spared: I to inflict, 
 And thou to suffer ! Once more answer me : 
 Thou knowest not the period of Jove's power? 
 
 Prometheus 
 I know but this, that it must come. 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Alas! 
 Thou canst not count thy years to come of pain? 415 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 They last while Jove must reign ; nor more, nor less 
 Do I desire or fear. 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Yet pause, and plunge 
 Into eternity, where recorded time. 
 Even all that we imagine, age on age, 
 Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind 420 
 
 Flags wearily in its unending flight. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 61 
 
 Till it sink, dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless ; 
 Perchance it has not numbered the slow years 
 Which thou must spend in torture, unreprieved? 424 
 
 Prometheus 
 Perchance no thought can count them, yet they pass. 
 
 Mercury 
 
 If thou mightst dwell among the Gods the while 
 Lapped in voluptuous joy ? 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 I would not quit 
 This bleak ravine, these unrepentant pains. 
 
 Mercury 
 Alas ! I wonder at, yet pity thee. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven, 430 
 
 Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene, 
 As light in the sun, throned. How vain is talk ! 
 Call up the fiends ! 
 
 lOKE 
 
 O sister, look ! White fire 
 Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar ; 
 How fearfully God's thunder howls behind ! 435 
 
 Mercury 
 
 I must obey his words and thine : alas ! 
 Most heavily remorse hangs at my heart! 
 
 Panthea 
 
 See where the child of Heaven, with winged feet, 
 Buns down the slanted sunlight of the dawn. 
 
62 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 lONE 
 
 Dear sister, close thy plumes over thine eyes, 440 
 
 Lest thou behold and die. They come, they come, 
 Blackening the birth of day with countless wings. 
 And hollow underneath, like death. 
 
 First Fury 
 
 Prometheus ! 
 
 Second Fury 
 Immortal Titan ! 
 
 Third Fury 
 Champion of Heaven's slaves ! 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 He whom some dreadful voice invokes is here ; 445 
 Prometheus, the chained Titan. Horrible forms, 
 What and who are ye ? Never yet there came 
 Phantasms so foul through monster-teeming Hell 
 From the all-miscreative brain of Jove ; 
 Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, 450 
 
 Methinks I grow like what I contemplate, 
 And laugh and stare in loathsome sympathy. 
 
 First Fury 
 
 We are the ministers of pain, and fear. 
 
 And disappointment, and mistrust, and hate. 
 
 And clinging crime ; and, as lean dogs pursue 455 
 
 Through wood and lake some struck and sobbing 
 
 fawn, 
 We track all things that weep, and bleed, and 
 
 live. 
 When the great King betrays them to our will. 
 
PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 63 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 many fearful natures in one name, 
 
 1 know ye ; and these lakes and echoes know 460 
 The darkness and the clangour of your wings. 
 
 But why more hideous than your loathed selves 
 Gather ye up in legions from the deep ? 
 
 Second Fury 
 We knew not that : Sisters, rejoice, rejoice ! 
 
 Prometheus 
 Can aught exult in its deformity ? 465 
 
 Second Fury 
 
 The beauty of delight makes lovers glad, 
 
 Gazing on one another : so are we. 
 
 As from the rose which the pale priestess kneels 
 
 To gather for her festal crown of flowers 
 
 The aerial crimson falls, flushing her cheek, 470 
 
 So from our victim's destined agony 
 
 The shade which is our form invests us round ; 
 
 Else we are shapeless as our mother Night. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 I laugh your power, and his who sent you here, 
 
 To lowest scorn. Pour forth the cup of pain ! 475 
 
 First Fury 
 
 Thou thinkest we will rend thee bone from bone, 
 And nerve from nerve, working like fire within ? 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Pain is my element, as hate is thine. 
 Ye rend me now : I care not. 
 
64 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Second Fury 
 
 Dost imagine 
 We will but laugh into thy lidless eyes ? 480 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 I weigh not what ye do, but what ye suffer, 
 Being evil. Cruel was the power which called 
 You, or aught else so wretched, into light. 
 
 Third Fury 
 
 Thou think*st we will live through thee, one by one, 
 Like animal life, and, though we can obscure not 485 
 The soul which burns within, that we will dwell 
 Beside it, like a vain loud multitude 
 Vexing the self -content of wisest men : 
 That we will be dread thought beneath thy brain, 
 And foul desire round thine astonished heart, 490 
 
 And blood within thy labyrinthine veins 
 Crawling like agony ? 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Why, ye are thus now ; 
 Yet am I king over myself, and rule 
 The torturing and conflicting throngs within. 
 As Jove rules you when Hell grows mutinous. 495 
 
 Chorus of Furies 
 
 From the ends of the earth, from the ends of the 
 
 earth. 
 Where the night has its grave and the morning its 
 
 birth. 
 
 Come, come, come! 
 O ye who shake hills with the scream of your mirth. 
 When cities sink howling in ruin ; and ye 500 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 65 
 
 Who with wingless footsteps trample the sea, 
 And close upon Shipwreck and Famine's track, 
 Sit chattering with joy on the f oodless wreck ; 
 Come, come, come ! 
 Leave the bed, low, cold, and red, 505 
 
 Strewed beneath a nation dead ; 
 Leave the hatred, as in ashes 
 
 Fire is left for future burning : 
 It will burst in bloodier flashes 
 
 When ye stir it, soon returning : > 510 
 
 Leave the self -con tempt implanted 
 In young spirits, sense-enchanted. 
 
 Misery's yet unkindled fuel : 
 Leave Hell's secrets half unchanted 
 
 To the maniac dreamer ; cruel 515 
 
 More than ye can be with hate, 
 Is he with fear. 
 
 Come, come, come ! 
 We are steaming up from Hell's wide gate 
 And we burthen the blasts of the atmosphere, 
 But vainly we toil till ye come here. 521 
 
 lONE 
 
 Sister, I hear the thunder of new wings. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 These solid mountains quiver with the sound. 
 
 Even as the tremulous air : their shadows make 524 
 
 The space within my plumes more black than night. 
 
 First Fury 
 
 Your call was as a winged car, 
 Driven on whirlwinds fast and far ; 
 It rapt us from red gulfs of war. 
 
66 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 , Second Fury 
 
 From wide cities, famine-wasted ; 
 
 Third Fury 
 Groans half heard, and blood untasted ; 530 
 
 Fourth Fury 
 
 Kingly conclaves, stern and cold, 
 
 Where blood with gold is bought and sold ; 
 
 Fifth Fury 
 
 From the furnace, white and hot. 
 In which — 
 
 A Fury 
 
 Speak not : whisper not : 
 I know all that ye would tell, 535 
 
 But to speak might break the spell 
 Which must bend the Invincible, 
 
 The stern of thought ; 
 He yet defies the deepest power of Hell. 
 
 Fury 
 Tear the veil ! 
 
 Another Fury 
 It is torn. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 The pale stars of the morn 540 * 
 Shine on a misery, dire to be borne. 
 Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to 
 
 scorn. 
 Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken'dst 
 
 for man ? 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 67 
 
 Then was kindled within him a thirst which out- 
 ran 
 Those perishing waters ; a thirst of fierce fever, 545 
 Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. 
 One came forth of gentle worth. 
 Smiling on the sanguine earth ; 
 His words outlived him, like swift poison 
 
 Withering up truth, peace, and pity. 550 
 Look ! where round the wide horizon 
 
 Many a million-peopled city 
 Vomits smoke in the bright air ; 
 Mark that outcry of despair ! 
 'T is his mild and gentle ghost 555 
 
 Wailing for the faith he kindled : 
 Look again ! the flames almost 
 
 To a glow-worm's lamp have dwindled : 
 The survivors round the embers 
 
 Gather in dread. 560 
 
 Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers ; 
 And the future is dark, and the present is spread 
 Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head. 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 Drops of bloody agony flow 565 
 
 From his white and quivering brow. 
 Grant a little respite now : 
 See ! a disenchanted nation 
 Springs like day from desolation ; 
 To Truth its state is dedicate, 570 
 
 And Freedom leads it forth, her mate ; 
 A legioned band of linked brothers, 
 Whom Love calls children — 
 
68 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Semichorus II 
 
 'T is another's : 
 See how kindred murder kin ! 
 'T is the vintage-time for death and sin. 575 
 Blood, like new wine, bubbles within : 
 Till Despair smothers 
 The struggling world, which slaves and tyrants win. 
 
 \_All the Furies vanish^ except one. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Hark, sister ! what a low yet dreadful groan 
 Quite unsuppressed is tearing up the heart 580 
 
 Of the good Titan, as storms tear the deep, 
 And beasts hear the sea moan in inland caves. 
 Darest thou observe how the fiends torture him ? 
 
 Panthea 
 Alas ! I looked forth twice, but will no more. 
 
 lONE 
 
 What didst thou see ? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 A wof ul sight : a youth 585 
 With patient looks, nailed to a crucifix. 
 
 lONE 
 
 What next? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 The heaven around, the earth below, 
 Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, 
 All horrible, and wrought by human hands ; 
 And some appeared the work of human hearts, 590 
 For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles ; 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 69 
 
 And other sights too foul to speak and live 
 
 Were wandering by. Let us not tempt worse fear 
 
 By looking forth : those groans are grief enough. 
 
 Fury 
 
 Behold an emblem : those who do endure 595 
 
 Deep wrongs for man, and scorn and chains, but 
 
 heap 
 Thousandfold torment on themselves and him. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Remit the anguish of that lighted stare ; 
 
 Close those wan lips ; let that thorn-wounded brow 
 
 Stream not with blood ; it mingles with thy tears ! 600 
 
 Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death. 
 
 So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix. 
 
 So those pale fingers play not with thy gore. 
 
 Oh horrible ! Thy name I will not speak, 
 
 It hath become a curse. I see, I see 605 
 
 The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just, 
 
 Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee, 
 
 Some hunted by foul lies from their heart's home, — 
 
 An early-chosen, late-lamented home, — 
 
 As hooded ounces cling to the driven hind ; 610 
 
 Some linked to corpses in unwholesome cells ; 
 
 Some — Hear I not the multitude laugh loud ? — 
 
 Impaled in lingering fire : and mighty realms 
 
 Float by my feet, like sea-uprooted isles, 
 
 Whose sons are kneaded down in common blood 615 
 
 By the red light of their own burning homes. 
 
 Fury 
 
 Blood thou canst see, and fire ; and canst hear groans : 
 Worse things, unheard, unseen, remain behind. 
 
70 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Prometheus 
 Worse ? 
 
 Fury 
 
 In each human heart terror survives 
 The ruin it has gorged : the loftiest fear 620 
 
 All that they would disdain to think were true : 
 Hypocrisy and custom make their minds 
 The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. 
 They dare not devise good for man's estate, 
 And yet they know not that they do not dare. 625 
 The good want power, but to weep barren tears. 
 The powerful goodness want : worse need for them. 
 The wise want love ; and those who love want wisdom; 
 And all best things are thus confused to ill. 
 Many are strong and rich, and would be just, 630 
 
 But live among their suffering fellow-men 
 As if none felt : they know not what they do. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes ; 
 And yet I pity those they torture not. 
 
 Fury 
 
 Thou pitiest them ? I speak no more ! 635 
 
 [ Vanishes. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Ah woe ! 
 Ah woe ! Alas ! pain, pain ever, for ever ! 
 I close my tearless eyes, but see more clear 
 Thy works within my woe-illumined mind. 
 Thou subtle Tyrant ! Peace is in the grave : 
 The grave hides all things beautiful and good. 640 
 I am a God and cannot find it there. 
 
FBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 71 
 
 Nor would I seek it : for, though dread revenge, 
 This is defeat, fierce King ! not victory. 
 The sights with which thou torturest gird my soul 
 With new endurance, till the hour arrives 645 
 
 ^hen they shall be no types of things which are. 
 
 Panthea 
 Alas ! what sawest thou ? 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 There are two woes : 
 To speak, and to behold ; thou spare me one. 
 Names are there, Nature's sacred watchwords, they 
 Were borne aloft in bright emblazonry ; 650 
 
 The nations thronged around, and cried aloud, 
 As with one voice. Truth, liberty, and love ! 
 Suddenly fierce confusion fell from heaven 
 Among them : there was strife, deceit, and fear : 
 Tyrants rushed in, and did divide the spoil. 655 
 
 This was the shadow of the truth I saw. 
 
 The Earth 
 
 I felt thy torture, son, with such mixed joy 
 
 As pain and virtue give. To cheer thy state, 
 
 I bid ascend those subtle and fair spirits, 659 
 
 Whose homes are the dim caves of human thought, 
 
 And who inhabit, as birds wing the wind, 
 
 Its world-surrounding ether : they behold 
 
 Beyond that twilight realm, as in a glass. 
 
 The future : may they speak comfort to thee ! 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Look, sister, where a troop of spirits gather, 665 
 
 Like flocks of clouds in spring's delightful weather. 
 Thronging in the blue air ! 
 
72 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 lONE 
 
 And see ! more come, 
 Like fountain-vapours when the winds are dumb, 
 That climb up the ravine in scattered lines. 
 And hark ! is it the music of the pines ? 670 
 
 Is it the lake ? Is it the waterfall ? 
 
 Panthea 
 'T is something sadder, sweeter far than all. 
 
 Chorus of Spirits 
 
 From unremembered ages we 
 
 Gentle guides and guardians be 
 
 Of heaven-oppressed mortality ! 675 
 
 And we breathe, and sicken not, 
 
 The atmosphere of human thought : 
 
 Be it dim, and dank, and gray. 
 
 Like a storm-extinguished day. 
 
 Travelled o'er by dying gleams : 680 
 
 Be it bright as all between 
 Cloudless skies and windless streams. 
 
 Silent, liquid, and serene. 
 As the birds within the wind. 
 
 As the fish within the wave, 685 
 
 As the thoughts of man's own mind 
 
 Float through all above the grave : 
 We make there our liquid lair. 
 Voyaging cloudlike and unpent 
 Through the boundless element. 690 
 
 Thence we bear the prophecy 
 Which begins and ends in thee ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 More yet come, one by one : the air around them 
 Looks radiant as the air around a star. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 73 
 
 First Spirit 
 
 On a battle-trumpet's blast 695 
 
 I fled hither, fast, fast, fast, 
 
 'Mid the darkness upward east. 
 
 From the dust of creeds outworn, 
 
 From the tyrant's banner torn, 
 
 Gathering round me, onward borne, 700 
 
 There was mingled many a cry — 
 
 Freedom ! Hope ! Death ! Victory ! 
 
 Till they faded through the sky ; 
 
 And one sound, above, around. 
 
 One sound, beneath, around, above, 705 
 
 Was moving ; 't was the soul of love : 
 
 'T was the hope, the prophecy, 
 
 Which begins and ends in thee. 
 
 Second Spirit 
 
 A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, 
 
 Which rocked beneath, immovably ; 710 
 
 And the triumphant storm did flee. 
 
 Like a conqueror, swift and proud, 
 
 Between, with many a captive cloud, 
 
 A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd, 
 
 Each by lightning riven in half. 715 
 
 I heard the thunder hoarsely laugh : 
 
 Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff 
 
 And spread beneath a hell of death 
 
 O'er the white waters. I alit 
 
 On a great ship lightning-split, 720 
 
 And speeded hither on the sigh 
 
 Of one who gave an enemy 
 
 His plank, then plunged aside to die. 
 
74 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Third Spirit 
 
 I sate beside a sage's bed, 
 
 And the lamp was burning red 725 
 
 Near the book where he had fed, 
 
 When a Dream with plumes of flame 
 
 To his pillow hovering came, 
 
 And I knew it was the same 
 
 Which had kindled long ago 730 
 
 Pity, eloquence, and woe ; 
 
 And the world awhile below 
 
 Wore the shade its lustre made. 
 
 It has borne me here as fleet 
 
 As Desire's lightning feet : 735 
 
 I must ride it back ere morrow. 
 
 Or the sage will wake in sorrow. 
 
 Fourth Spirit 
 
 On a poet's lips T slept, 
 
 Dreaming like a love-adept 
 
 In the sound his breathing kept; 740 
 
 Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses. 
 
 But feeds on the aerial kisses 
 
 Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 
 
 He will watch from dawn to gloom 
 
 The lake-reflected sun illume 745 
 
 The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom. 
 
 Nor heed nor see, what things they be ; 
 
 But from these create he can 
 
 Forms more real than living man, 
 
 Nurslings of immortality ! 750 
 
 One of these awakened me. 
 
 And I sped to succour thee. 
 
PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 75 
 
 lONE 
 
 Behold'st thou not two shapes from the east and west 
 Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, 
 Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air, 755 
 
 On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere ? 
 And, hark ! their sweet, sad voices ! 't is despair 
 Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound. 
 
 Panthea 
 Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float 760 
 
 On their sustaining wings of skyey grain, 
 
 Orange and azure deepening into gold ! 
 
 Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire. 
 
 Chorus of Spirits 
 Hast thou beheld the form of Love ? 
 
 Fifth Spirit 
 
 As over wide dominions 
 
 I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air's 
 wildernesses, 765 
 
 That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning- 
 braided pinions, 
 
 Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial 
 tresses : 
 
 His footsteps paved the world with light; but as I 
 passed 't was fading, 
 
 And hollow ruin yawned behind : great sages bound 
 in madness. 
 
 And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, 
 unupbraiding, 770 
 
76 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Gleamed in the night. I wandered o'er, till thou, O 
 
 King of sadness, 
 Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected 
 
 gladness. 
 
 Sixth Spirit 
 
 Ah, sister ! Desolation is a delicate thing : 
 
 It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air. 
 
 But treads with silent footstep, and fans with silent 
 
 wing 775 
 
 The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and 
 
 gentlest bear ; 
 Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes 
 
 above, 
 And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy 
 
 feet, 
 Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster 
 
 Love, 
 And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom 
 
 now we greet. 780 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Though Ruin now Love's shadow be, 
 Following him, destroyingly, 
 
 On Death's white and winged steed, 
 Which the fleetest cannot flee. 
 
 Trampling down both flower and weed, 785 
 Man and beast, and foul and fair, 
 Like a tempest through the air ; 
 Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, 
 Woundless though in heart or limb. 
 
 Prometheus 
 Spirits ! how know ye this shall be ? 790 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 7T 
 
 Chorus 
 
 In the atmosphere we breathe, 
 As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee, 
 
 From spring gathering up beneath, 
 Whose mild winds shake the elder-brake, 
 And the wandering herdsmen know 795 
 
 That the white-thorn soon will blow : 
 Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, 
 When they struggle to increase, 
 
 Are to us as soft winds be 
 
 To shepherd-boys, the prophecy 800 
 
 Which begins and ends in thee. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Where are the Spirits fled ? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Only a sense 
 Remains of them, like the omnipotence 
 Of music, when the inspired voice and lute 
 Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, 805 
 
 Which through the deep and labyrinthine soul, 
 Like echoes through long caverns, wind and roll. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 How fair these air-born shapes ! and yet I feel 
 Most vain all hope but love ; and thou art far, 
 Asia! who, when my being overflowed, 810 
 
 Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine 
 Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. 
 All things are still : alas ! how heavily 
 This quiet morning weighs upon my heart ; 
 Though I should dream I could even sleep with 
 grief 815 
 
78 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 If slumber were denied not. I would fain 
 
 Be what it is my destiny to be, 
 
 The saviour and the strength of suffering man, 
 
 Or sink into the original gulf of things : 
 
 There is no agony, and no solace left ; 820 
 
 Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee 
 The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when 
 The shadow of thy spirit falls on her? 
 
 Prometheus 
 I said all hope was vain but love : thou lovest. 825 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Deeply in truth ; but the eastern star looks white, 
 
 And Asia waits in that far Indian vale. 
 
 The scene of her sad exile ; rugged once 
 
 And desolate and frozen, like this ravine ; 
 
 But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, 830 
 
 And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow 
 
 Among the woods and waters, from the ether 
 
 Of her transforming presence, which would fade 
 
 If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell ! 
 
 ACT II 
 
 Scene I. — Morning. A lovely vale in the Indian 
 Caucasus. Asia, alone, 
 
 Asia 
 
 From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended : 
 Yes, like a spirit, like a thought which makes 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 79 
 
 Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, 
 
 And beatings haunt the desolated heart, 
 
 Which should have learnt repose : thou hast descended 
 
 Cradled in tempests ; thou dost wake, O Spring ! 6 
 
 O child of many winds ! As suddenly 
 
 Thou comest as the memory of a dream, 
 
 Which now is sad because it hath been sweet ; 
 
 Like genius, or like joy which riseth up 10 
 
 As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds 
 
 The desert of our life. 
 
 This is the season, this the day, the hour ; 
 
 At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine, 
 
 Too long desired, too long delaying, come ! 15 
 
 How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl ! 
 
 The point af one white star is quivering still 
 
 Deep in the orange light of widening morn 
 
 Beyond the purple mountains : through a chasm 
 
 Of wind-divided mist the darker lake 20 
 
 Reflects it ; now it wanes : it gleams again 
 
 As the waves fade, and as the burning threads 
 
 Of woven cloud unravel in pale air : 
 
 'T is lost ! and through yon peaks of cloudlike snow 
 
 The roseate sunlight quivers : hear I not 25 
 
 The ^olian music of her sea-green plumes 
 
 Winnowing the crimson dawn ? [Panthea enters. 
 
 I feel, I see 
 Those eyes which burn through smiles that fade in 
 
 tears. 
 Like stars half-quenched in mists of silver dew. 
 Beloved and most beautiful, who wearest 30 
 
 The shadow of that soul by which I live, 
 How late thou art ! the sphered sun had climbed 
 The sea ; my heart was sick with hope, before 
 The printless air felt thy belated plumes. 
 
80 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Pardon, great Sister ! but my wings were faint 35 
 
 With the delight of a remembered dream, 
 
 As are the noontide plumes of summer winds 
 
 Satiate with sweet flowers. I was wont to sleep 
 
 Peacefully, and awake refreshed and calm, 
 
 Before the sacred Titan's fall, and thy 40 
 
 Unhappy love, had made, through use and pity, 
 
 Both love and woe familiar to my heart 
 
 As they had grown to thine : erewhile I slept 
 
 Under the glaucous caverns of old Ocean 
 
 Within dim bowers of green and purple moss, 45 
 
 Our young lone's soft and milky arms 
 
 Locked then, as now, behind my dark, moist hair. 
 
 While my shut eyes and cheek were pressed within 
 
 The folded depth of her life-breathing bosom : 
 
 But not as now, since I am made the wind 50 
 
 Which fails beneath the music that I bear 
 
 Of thy most wordless converse; since dissolved 
 
 Into the sense with which love talks, my rest 
 
 Was troubled and yet sweet ; my waking hours 
 
 Too full of care and pain. 
 
 Asia 
 
 Lift up thine eyes, 55 
 And let me read thy dream. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 As I have said, 
 With our sea-sister at his feet I slept. 
 The mountain mists, condensing at our voice 
 Under the moon, had spread their snowy flakes. 
 From the keen ice shielding our linked sleep. 60 
 
 Then two dreams came. One, I remember not. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 81 
 
 But in the other his pale wound-worn limbs 
 
 Fell from Prometheus, and the azure night 
 
 Grew radiant with the glory of that form 
 
 Which lives unchanged within, and his voice fell 65 
 
 Like music which makes giddy the dim brain, 
 
 Faint with intoxication of keen joy : 
 
 " Sister of her whose footsteps pave the world 
 
 With loveliness — more fair than aught but her, 
 
 Whose shadow thou art — lift thine eyes on me ! " 70 
 
 I lifted them : the overpowering light 
 
 Of that immortal shape was shadowed o'er 
 
 By love ; which, from his soft and flowing limbs. 
 
 And passion-parted lips, and keen, faint eyes. 
 
 Steamed forth like vaporous fire ; an atmosphere 75 
 
 Which wrapt me in its all-dissolving power, 
 
 As the warm ether of the morning sun 
 
 Wraps ere it drinks some cloud of wandering dew. 
 
 I saw not, heard not, moved not, only felt 
 
 His presence flow and mingle through my blood 80 
 
 Till it became his life, and his grew mine, 
 
 And I was thus absorbed, until it past. 
 
 And like the vapours when the sun sinks down, 
 
 Gathering again in drops upon the pines. 
 
 And tremulous as they, in the deep night 85 
 
 My being was condensed ; and as the rays 
 
 Of thought were slowly gathered, I could hear 
 
 His voice, whose accents lingered ere they died 
 
 Like footsteps of weak melody : thy name 
 
 Among the many sounds alone I heard 90 
 
 Of what might be articulate ; though still 
 
 I listened through the night when sound was none. 
 
 lone wakened then, and said to me : 
 
 " Canst thou divine what troubles me to-night ? 
 
 I always knew what I desired before, 95 
 
82 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Nor ever found delight to wish in vain. 
 
 But now I cannot tell thee what I seek ; 
 
 I know not ; something sweet, since it is sweet 
 
 Even to desire ; it is thy sport, false sister ; 
 
 Thou hast discovered some enchantment old, 100 
 
 Whose spells have stolen my spirit as I slept 
 
 And mingled it with thine : for when just now 
 
 We kissed, I felt within thy parted lips 
 
 The sweet air that sustained me, and the warmth 
 
 Of the life-blood, for loss of which I faint, 105 
 
 Quivered between our intertwining arms." 
 
 I answered not, for the eastern star grew pale, 
 
 But fled to thee. 
 
 Asia 
 
 Thou speakest, but thy words 
 Are as the air : I feel them not. Oh, lift 
 Thine eyes, that I may read his written soul ! 110 
 
 Panthea 
 
 I lift them, though they droop beneath the load 
 Of that they would express : what canst thou see 
 But thine own fairest shadow imaged there ? 
 
 Asia 
 
 Thine eyes are like the deep, blue, boundless heaven 
 Contracted to two circles underneath 115 
 
 Their long, fine lashes ; dark, far, measureless. 
 Orb within orb, and line through line inwoven. 
 
 Panthea 
 Why lookest thou as if a spirit past? 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 83 
 
 Asia 
 
 There is a change : beyond their inmost depth 
 
 I see a shade, a shape : 't is He, arrayed 120 
 
 In the soft light of his own smiles, which spread 
 
 Like radiance from the cloud-surrounded moon. 
 
 Prometheus, it is thine ! Depart not yet ! 
 
 Say not those smiles that we shall meet again 
 
 Within that bright pavilion which their beams 125 
 
 Shall build on the waste world ? The dream is told. 
 
 What shape is that between us ? Its rude hair 
 
 Roughens the wind that lifts it, its regard 
 
 Is wild and quick, yet 't is a thing of air. 
 
 For through its gray robe gleams the golden dew 130 
 
 Whose stars the noon has quenched not. 
 
 Dream 
 
 Follow! Follow! 
 
 Panthea 
 
 It is mine other dream. 
 
 Asia 
 
 It disappears. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 It passes now into my mind. Methought 
 
 As we sate here, the flower-enfolding buds 
 
 Burst on yon lightning-blasted almond-tree, 135 
 
 When swift from the white Scythian wilderness 
 
 A wind swept forth wrinkling the earth with frost : 
 
 I looked, and all the blossoms were blown down ; 
 
 But on each leaf was stamped, as the blue bells 
 
 Of Hyacinth tell Apollo's written grief, 140 
 
 O, FOLLOW, follow! 
 
84 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Asia 
 
 As you speak, your words 
 Fill, pause by pause, my own forgotten sleep 
 With shapes. Methought among the lawns to- 
 gether 
 We wandered, underneath the young gray dawn, 
 And multitudes of dense white fleecy clouds 145 
 
 Were wandering in thick flocks along the moun- 
 tains, 
 Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind ; 
 And the white dew on the new-bladed grass, 
 Just piercing the dark earth, hung silently ; 
 And there was more which I remember not : 150 
 
 But on the shadows of the morning clouds. 
 Athwart the purple mountain slope, was written 
 Follow, O, follow ! as they vanished by ; 
 And on each herb, from which Heaven's dew had 
 
 fallen. 
 The like was stamped, as with a withering fire; 155 
 A wind arose among the pines : it shook 
 The clinging music from their boughs, and then 
 Low, sweet, faint sounds, like the farewell of 
 
 . ghosts, • 
 
 Were heard : O, follow, follow, follow me ! 
 And then I said : " Panthea, look on me ! " 160 
 
 But in the depth of those beloved eyes 
 
 Still I saw, FOLLOW, FOLLOW ! 
 
 Echo 
 
 Follow, follow ! 
 
 Panthea 
 
 The crags, this clear spring morning, mock our voices, 
 As they were spirit-tongued. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 85 
 
 Asia 
 
 It is some being 164 
 Around the crags. What fine clear sounds ! O, list ! 
 
 Echoes (unseen) 
 
 Echoes we : listen ! 
 
 We cannot stay : 
 As dew-stars glisten 
 
 Then fade away — 
 
 Child of Ocean ! 170 
 
 Asia 
 
 Hark ! Spirits speak. The liquid responses 
 Of their aerial tongues yet sound. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 I hear. 
 
 Echoes 
 
 O, follow, follow, 
 
 As our voice recedeth 
 Through the caverns hollow, 175 
 
 Where the forest spreadeth ; 
 
 {More distant.) 
 
 O, follow, follow ! 
 Through the caverns hollow, 
 As the song floats thou pursue. 
 Where the wild bee never flew, 180 
 
 Through the noontide darkness deep. 
 By the odour-breathing sleep 
 Of faint night-flowers, and the waves 
 At the fountain-lighted caves, 
 While our music, wild and sweet, 185 
 
 Mocks thy gently falling feet. 
 
 Child of Ocean ! 
 
86 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Asia 
 
 Shall we pursue the sound ? It grows more faint 
 And distant. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 List ! the strain floats nearer now. 
 
 Echoes 
 
 In the world unknown 190 
 
 Sleeps a voice unspoken ; 
 By thy step alone 
 
 Can its rest be broken ; 
 Child of Ocean ! 
 
 Asia 
 How the notes sink upon the ebbing wind ! 195 
 
 Echoes 
 
 O, follow, follow ! 
 Through the caverns hollow, 
 As the song floats thou pursue, 
 By the woodland noontide dew, 
 ' By the forests, lakes, and fountains, 200 
 
 Through the many-folded mountains ; 
 To the rents, and gulfs, and chasms, 
 Where the Earth reposed from spasms, 
 On the day when He and Thou 
 Parted, to commingle now ; 205 
 
 Child of Ocean ! 
 
 Asia 
 
 Come, sweet Panthea, link thy hand in mine, 
 And follow, ere the voices fade away. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 87 
 
 Scene II. — A Forest, intermingled with Hocks and 
 Caverns, Asia and Panthea pass into it. Two young 
 Fauns are sitting on a Rock, listening. 
 
 Semichorus I OF Spirits 
 
 The path through which that lovely twain 
 
 Have past, by cedar, pine, and yew, 210 
 
 And each dark tree that ever grew, 
 
 Is curtained out from heaven's wide blue ; 
 
 Nor sun, nor moon, nor wind, nor rain. 
 Can pierce its interwoven bowers. 
 Nor aught, save where some cloud of dew, 215 
 
 Drifted along the earth-creeping breeze, 
 
 Between the trunks of the hoar trees, 
 
 Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers 
 Of the green laurel, blown anew ; 
 
 And bends, and then fades silently, 220 
 
 One frail and fair anemone : 
 
 Or when some star of many a one 
 
 That climbs and wanders through steep night, 
 
 Has found the cleft through which alone 
 
 Beams fall from high those depths upon, 225 
 
 Ere it is borne away, away. 
 
 By the swift heavens that cannot stay, 
 
 It scatters drops of golden light. 
 
 Like lines of rain that ne'er unite : 
 
 And the gloom divine is all around ; 230 
 
 And underneath is the mossy ground. 
 
 Semichorus II 
 
 There the voluptuous nightingales. 
 
 Are awake through all the broad noonday. 
 
 When one with bliss or sadness fails. 
 
 And through the windless ivy-boughs, 235 
 
 Sick with sweet love, droops dying away 
 
88 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 On its mate's music-panting bosom ; 
 Another, from the swinging blossom, 
 
 Watching to catch the languid close 
 
 Of the last strain, then lifts on high 240 
 
 The wings of the weak melody, 
 Till some new strain of feeling bear 
 
 The song, and all the woods are mute ; 
 When there is heard through the dim air 
 The rush of wings, and rising there 245 
 
 Like many a lake-surrounded flute, 
 Sounds overflow the listener's brain 
 So sweet, that joy is almost pain. 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 There those enchanted eddies play 
 
 Of echoes, music-tongued, which draw, 250 
 
 By Demogorgon's mighty law, 
 
 With melting rapture, or sweet awe. 
 All spirits on that secret way ; 
 
 As inland boats are driven to Ocean 
 Down streams made strong with mountain-thaw ; 255 
 And first there comes a gentle sound 
 To those in talk or slumber bound. 
 
 And wakes the destined soft emotion, 
 Attracts, impels them : those who saw 
 
 Say from the breathing earth behind 260 
 
 There steams a plume-uplifting wind 
 Which drives them on their path, while they 
 
 Believe their own swift wings and feet 
 The sweet desires within obey : 
 And so they float upon their way, 265 
 
 Until, still sweet, but loud and strong, 
 The storm of sound is driven along, 
 
 Sucked up and hurrying : as they fleet 
 
 Behind, its gathering billows meet 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 89 
 
 And to the fatal mountain bear 270 
 
 Like clouds amid the yielding air. 
 
 First Faun 
 
 Canst thou imagine where those spirits live 
 
 Which make such delicate music in the woods ? 
 
 We haunt within the least frequented caves 
 
 And closest coverts, and we know these wilds, 275 
 
 Yet never meet them, though we hear them oft: 
 
 Where may they hide themselves ? 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 'T is hard to tell : 
 I have heard those more skilled in spirits say, 
 The bubbles, which the enchantment of the sun 
 Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave 280 
 The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, 
 Are the pavilions where such dwell and float 
 Under the green and golden atmosphere 
 Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves ; 
 And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, 285 
 
 The which they breathed within those lucent 
 
 domes. 
 Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, 
 They ride on them, and rein their headlong speed. 
 And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire 
 Under the waters of the earth again. 290 
 
 First Faun 
 
 If such live thus, have others other lives, 
 
 Under pink blossoms or within the bells 
 
 Of meadow flowers, or folded violets deep. 
 
 Or on their dying odours, when they die, 
 
 Or in the sunlight of the sphered dew ? 295 
 
90 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Second Faun 
 
 Ay, many more which we may well divine. 
 
 But should we stay to speak, noontide would come, 
 
 And thwart Silenus find his goats undrawn, 
 
 And grudge to sing those wise and lovely songs 
 
 Of fate, and chance, and God, and Chaos old, 300 
 
 And Love, and the chained Titan's woful doom. 
 
 And how he shall be loosed, and make the earth 
 
 One brotherhood : delightful strains which cheer 
 
 Our solitary twilights, and which charm 
 
 To silence the unenvying nightingales. 305 
 
 Scene III. — A Pinnacle of Rock among Mountains. 
 Asia and Panthea. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Hither the sound has borne us — to the realm 
 
 Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal. 
 
 Like a volcano's meteor-breathing chasm. 
 
 Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up 
 
 Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth, 310 
 
 And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy, 
 
 That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain 
 
 To deep intoxication ; and uplift, 
 
 Like Msenads who cry loud, Evoe ! Evoe ! 
 
 The voice which is contagion to the world. 315 
 
 Asia 
 
 Fit throne for such a Power ! Magnificent ! 
 
 How glorious art thou. Earth ! And if thou be 
 
 The shadow of some spirit lovelier still. 
 
 Though evil stain its work, and it should be 
 
 Like its creation, weak yet beautiful, 320 
 
 I could fall down and worship that and thee. 
 
 Even now my heart adoreth. Wonderful ! 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 91 
 
 Look, sister, ere the vapour dim thy brain : 
 
 Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist. 
 
 As a lake, paving in the morning sky, 325 
 
 With azure waves which burst in silver light, 
 
 Some Indian vale. Behold it, rolling on 
 
 Under the curdling winds, and islanding 
 
 The peak whereon we stand, midway, around, 
 
 Encinctured by the dark and blooming forests, 330 
 
 Dim twilight lawns, and stream-illumined caves, 
 
 And wind-enchanted shapes of wandering mist; 
 
 And far on high the keen sky-cleaving mountains 
 
 From icy spires of sunlike radiance fling 
 
 The dawn, as lifted Ocean's dazzling spray, 335 
 
 From some Atlantic islet scattered up. 
 
 Spangles the wind with lamp-like water-drops. 
 
 The vale is girdled with their walls, a howl 
 
 Of cataracts from their thaw-cloven ravines 
 
 Satiates the listening wind, continuous, vast, 340 
 
 Awful as silence. Hark ! the rushing snow ! 
 
 The sun-awakened avalanche ! whose mass, 
 
 Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered there 
 
 Flake after flake, in heaven-defying minds 344 
 
 As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth 
 
 Is loosened, and the nations echo round, 
 
 Shaken to their roots, as do the mountains now. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking 
 
 In crimson foam, even at our feet ! it rises 
 
 As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon 350 
 
 Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle. 
 
 Asia 
 
 The fragments of the cloud are scattered up; 
 The wind that lifts them disentwines my hair ; 
 
92 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Its billows now sweep o'er mine eyes ; my brain 
 Grows dizzy; I see thin shapes within the mist. 355 
 
 Panthea 
 
 A countenance with beckoning smiles : there burns 
 An azure fire within its golden locks ! 
 Another and another : hark ! they speak ! 
 
 Song of Spirits 
 
 To the deep, to the deep, 
 
 Down, down ! 360 
 
 Through the shade of sleep, 
 Through the cloudy strife 
 Of Death and of Life ; 
 Through the veil and the bar 
 Of things which seem and are, 365 
 
 Even to the steps of the remotest throne, 
 Down, down ! 
 
 While the sound whirls around, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 As the fawn draws the hound, 370 
 
 As the lightning the vapour. 
 As a weak moth the taper ; 
 Death, despair ; love, sorrow ; 
 Time, both; to-day, to-morrow: 
 As steel obeys the spirit of the stone; 375 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 Through the gray, void abysm, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 Where the air is no prism. 
 And the moon and stars are not, 380 
 
 And the cavern-crags wear not 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 93 
 
 The radiance of Heaven 
 Nor the gloom to Earth given, 
 Where there is one pervading, one alone, — 
 
 Down, down ! 385 
 
 In the depth of the deep, 
 
 Down, down ! 
 Like veiled lightning asleep, 
 Like the spark nursed in embers, 
 The last look Love remembers, 390 
 
 Like a diamond, which shines 
 On the dark wealth of mines, 
 A spell is treasured but for thee alone. 
 
 Down, down ! 
 
 We have bound thee, we guide thee ; 395 
 
 Down, down ! 
 With the bright form beside thee ; 
 Kesist not the weakness ! 
 Such strength is in meekness 
 That the Eternal, the Immortal, 400 
 
 Must unloose through life's portal 
 The snake-like Doom coiled underneath his throne 
 By that alone. 
 
 Scene IV. — The Cave of Demogorgon. Asia and 
 
 Panthea. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 What veiled form sits on that ebon throne ? 
 
 Asia 
 The veil has fallen. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 I see a mighty darkness 405 
 
94 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Filling the seat of power, and rays of gloom 
 Dart round, as light from the meridian sun, 
 Ungazed upon and shapeless ; neither limb. 
 Nor form, nor outline ; yet we feel it is 
 A living Spirit. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 Ask what thou wouldst know. 410 
 
 Asia 
 What canst thou tell ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 All things thou dar'st demand. 
 
 Asia 
 Who made the living world ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 God. 
 
 Asia 
 
 Who made all 
 That it contains ? thought, passion, reason, will, 
 Imagination ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 God : Almighty God. 
 
 Asia 
 
 Who made that sense which, when the winds of spring 
 In rarest visitation, or the voice 416 
 
 Of one beloved heard in youth alone, 
 Fills the faint eyes with falling tears which dim 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 95 
 
 The radiant looks of unbewailing flowers, 
 
 And leaves this peopled earth a solitude 420 
 
 When it returns no more ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Merciful God. 
 
 Asia 
 
 And who made terror, madness, crime, remorse, 
 
 Which from the links of the great chain of things, 
 
 To every thought within the mind of man 
 
 Sway and drag heavily, and each one reels 425 
 
 Under the load towards the pit of death ; 
 
 Abandoned hope, and love that turns to hate ; 
 
 And self -contempt, bitterer to drink than blood ; 
 
 Pain, whose unheeded and familiar speech 
 
 Is howling, and keen shrieks, day after day ; 430 
 
 And Hell, or the sharp fear of Hell ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 His reigns. 
 
 Asia 
 
 Utter his name : a world pining in pain 
 
 Asks but his name : curses shall drag him down. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 He reigns. 
 
 Asia 
 I feel, I know it : who ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 He reigns. 434 
 
 Asia 
 Who reigns ? There was the Heaven and Earth at first, 
 
96 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 And Light and Love ; then Saturn, from whose throne 
 
 Time fell, an envious shadow : such the state 
 
 Of the earth's primal spirits beneath his sway, 
 
 As the calm joy of flowers and living leaves 
 
 Before the wind or sun has withered them 440 
 
 And semivital worms ; but he refused 
 
 The birthright of their being, knowledge, power, 
 
 The skill which wields the elements, the thought 
 
 Which pierces this dim universe like light. 
 
 Self-empire, and the majesty of love ; 445 
 
 For thirst of which they fainted. Then Prometheus 
 
 Gave wisdom, which is strength, to Jupiter, 
 
 And with this law alone, " Let man be free," 
 
 Clothed him with the dominion of wide Heaven. 
 
 To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to be 450 
 
 Omnipotent but friendless, is to reign ; 
 
 And Jove now reigned ; for on the race of man 
 
 First famine, and then toil, and then disease, 
 
 Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before. 
 
 Fell ; and the unseasonable seasons drove, 455 
 
 With alternating shafts of frost and fire, 
 
 Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves: 
 
 And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent, 
 
 And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle 
 
 Of unreal good, which levied mutual war, 460 
 
 So ruining the lair wherein they raged. 
 
 Prometheus saw, and waked the legioned hopes 
 
 Which sleep within folded Elysian flowers. 
 
 Nepenthe, Moly, Amaranth, fadeless blooms. 
 
 That they might hide with thin and rainbow wings 465 
 
 The shape of Death ; and Love he sent to bind 
 
 The disunited tendrils of that vine 
 
 Which bears the wine of life, the human heart ; 
 
 And he tamed fire, which, like some beast of prey. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 97 
 
 Most terrible, but lovely, played beneath 470 
 
 The frown of man ; and tortured to his will 
 
 Iron and gold, the slaves and signs of power, 
 
 And gems and poisons, and all subtlest forms 
 
 Hidden beneath the mountains and the waves. 
 
 He gave man speech, and speech created thought, 475 
 
 Which is the measure of the universe ; 
 
 And Science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, 
 
 Which shook, but fell not ; and the harmonious mind 
 
 Poured itself forth in all-prophetic song ; 
 
 And music lifted up the listening spirit 480 
 
 Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, 
 
 Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound ; 
 
 And human hands first mimicked and then mocked, 
 
 With moulded limbs more lovely than its own. 
 
 The human form, till marble grew divine, 485 
 
 And mothers, gazing, drank the love men see 
 
 Reflected in their race, behold, and perish. 
 
 He told the hidden power of herbs and springs. 
 
 And Disease drank and slept. Death grew like sleep. 
 
 He taught the implicated orbits woven 490 
 
 Of the wide-wandering stars ; and how the sun 
 
 Changes his lair, and by what secret spell 
 
 The pale moon is transformed, when her broad eye 
 
 Gazes not on the interlunar sea. 
 
 He taught to rule, as life directs the limbs, 495 
 
 The tempest-winged chariots of the Ocean, 
 
 And the Celt knew the Indian. Cities then 
 
 Were built, and through their snow-like columns 
 
 flowed 
 The warm winds, and the azure ether shone. 
 And the blue sea and shadowy hills were seen. 500 
 Such, the alleviations of his state, 
 Prometheus gave to man, for which he hangs 
 
98 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Withering in destined pain :' but who rains down 
 
 Evil, the immedicable plague, which, while 
 
 Man looks on his creation like a God 505 
 
 And sees that it is glorious, drives him on, 
 
 The wreck of his own will, the scorn of earth. 
 
 The outcast, the abandoned, the alone ? 
 
 Not Jove : while yet his frown shook heaven, ay, when 
 
 His adversary from adamantine chains 510 
 
 Cursed him, he trembled like a slave. Declare 
 
 Who is his master ? Is he too a slave ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil : 
 Thou knowest if Jupiter be such or no. 
 
 Asia 
 Whom calledst thou God ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 I spoke but as ye speak. 
 For Jove is the supreme of living things. 516 
 
 Asia 
 Who is master of the slave ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 If the abysm 
 Could vomit forth his secrets. . . . But a voice 
 Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless ; 
 For what would it avail to bid thee gaze 520 
 
 On the revolving world ? what to bid speak 
 Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change ? To these 
 All things are subject but eternal Love. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 99 
 
 Asia 
 
 So much I asked before, and my heart gave 
 
 The response thou hast given ; and of such truths 525 
 
 Each to itself must be the oracle. 
 
 One more demand ; and do thou answer me 
 
 As my own soul would answer, did it know 
 
 That which I ask. Prometheus shall arise 
 
 Henceforth the sun of this rejoicing world : 530 
 
 When shall the destined hour arrive ? 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Behold! 
 
 Asia 
 
 The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night 
 I see cars drawn by rainbow-winged steeds 
 Which trample the dim winds : in each there stands 
 A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight. 535 
 
 Some look behind, as fiends pursue them there, 
 And yet I see no shape, but the keen stars : 
 Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink 
 With eager lips the wind of their own speed, 
 As if the thing they loved fled on before, 540 
 
 And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks 
 Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all 
 Sweep onward. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 These are the immortal Hours, 
 Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee. 
 
 Asia 
 
 A spirit with a dreadful countenance 545 
 
 Checks its dark chariot by the craggy gulf. 
 Unlike thy brethren, ghastly charioteer. 
 Who art thou? Whither wouldst thou bear me? Speak! 
 
100 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Spirit 
 
 I am the shadow of a destiny 
 
 More dread than is my aspect : ere yon planet 550 
 
 Has set, the darkness which ascends with me 
 
 Shall wrap in lasting night Heaven's kingless throne. 
 
 Asia 
 What meanest thou ? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 That terrible shadow floats 
 Up from its throne, as may the lurid smoke 
 Of earthquake-ruined cities o'er the sea. 555 
 
 Lo ! it ascends the car ; the coursers fly 
 Terrified : watch its path among the stars 
 Blackening the night ! 
 
 Asia 
 Thus I am answered : strange ! 
 
 Panthea 
 
 See, near the verge, another chariot stays ; 
 
 An ivory shell inlaid with crimson fire, 560 
 
 Which come§ and goes within its sculptured rim 
 
 Of delicate strange tracery ; the young spirit 
 
 That guides it has the dove-like eyes of hope ; 
 
 How its soft smiles attract the soul ! as light 
 
 Lures winged insects through the lampless air. 565 
 
 Spirit 
 
 My coursers are fed with the lightning. 
 
 They drink of the whirlwind's stream. 
 And when the red morning is brightening, 
 
 They bathe in the fresh sunbeam ; 
 
 They have strength for their swiftness I deem, 570 
 Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 101 
 
 I desire : and their speed makes night kindle ; 
 I fear : they outstrip the typhoon ; 
 
 Ere the cloud piled on Atlas can dwindle 
 
 We encircle the earth and the moon : 575 
 
 We shall rest from long labours at noon : 
 
 Then ascend with me, daughter of Ocean. 
 
 Scene V. — The Car pauses within a Cloud on the Top of 
 a snowy Mountain. Asia, Panthea, and the Spirit of 
 THE Hour. 
 
 Spirit 
 
 On the brink of the night and the morning 
 My coursers are wont to respire ; 
 
 But the Earth has just whispered a warning 580 
 That their flight must be swifter than fire : 
 They shall drink the hot speed of desire ! 
 
 Asia 
 
 Thou breathest on their nostrils, but my breath 
 Would give them swifter speed. 
 
 Spirit 
 
 Alas ! it could not. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 O Spirit ! pause, and tell whence is the light 585 
 
 Which fills the cloud ? The sun is yet unrisen. 
 
 Spirit 
 
 The sun will rise not until noon. Apollo 
 
 Is held in heaven by wonder ; and the light 
 
 Which fills this vapour, as the aerial hue 
 
 Of fountain-gazing roses fills the water, 590 
 
 Flows from thy mighty sister. 
 
102 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Yes, I feel — 
 Asia 
 
 What is it with thee, sister ? Thou art pale. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 How thou art changed ! I dare not look on thee ; 
 
 I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure 
 
 The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change 595 
 
 Is working in the elements, which suffer 
 
 Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids tell 
 
 That on the day when the clear hyaline 
 
 Was cloven at thy uprise, and thou didst stand 
 
 Within a veined shell, which floated on 600 
 
 Over the calm floor of the crystal sea, 
 
 Among the JEgean isles, and by the shores 
 
 Which bear thy name ; love, like the atmosphere 
 
 Of the sun's fire filling the living world. 
 
 Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven 605 
 
 And the deep ocean and the sunless caves. 
 
 And all that dwells within them ; till grief cast 
 
 Eclipse upon the soul from which it came. 
 
 Such art thou now ; nor is it I alone, 
 
 Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one, 610 
 
 But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy. 
 
 Hearest thou not sounds i' the air which speak the love 
 
 Of all articulate beings ? Feelest thou not 
 
 The inanimate winds enamoured of thee ? List ! 
 
 Asia 
 
 Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his 615 
 Whose echoes they are : yet all love is sweet, 
 Given or returned. Common as light is love, 
 And its familiar voice wearies not ever. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 103 
 
 Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air, 
 
 It makes the reptile equal to the God : 620 
 
 They who inspire it most are fortunate, 
 
 As I am now ; but those who feel it most 
 
 Are happier still, after long sufferings, 
 
 As I shall soon become. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 List ! Spirits speak. 
 
 Voice in the air, singing. 
 
 Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 625 
 
 With their love the breath between them ; 
 
 And thy smiles before they dwindle 
 
 Make the cold air fire ; then screen them 
 
 In those looks, where whoso gazes 
 
 Faints, entangled in their mazes. 630 
 
 Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning 
 
 Through the vest which seems to hide them ; 
 
 As the radiant lines of morning 
 
 Through the clouds ere they divide them ; 
 
 And this atmosphere divinest 635 
 
 Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. 
 
 Fair are others ; none beholds thee. 
 But thy voice sounds low and tender 
 
 Like the fairest ; for it folds thee 
 
 From the sight, that liquid splendour, 640 
 
 And all feel, yet see thee never, 
 
 As I feel now, lost for ever! 
 
 Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou mo vest 
 Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 
 
104 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 And the souls of whom thou lovest 645 
 
 Walk upon the winds with lightness, 
 Till they fail, as I am failing, 
 Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing ! 
 
 Asia 
 
 My soul is an enchanted boat, 
 
 Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 650 
 
 Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 
 
 And thine doth like an angel sit 
 
 Beside the helm conducting it. 
 Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 
 
 It seems to float ever, for ever, • 655 
 
 Upon that many-winding river. 
 
 Between mountains, woods, abysses, 
 
 A paradise of wildernesses ! 
 Till, like one in slumber bound. 
 
 Borne to the ocean, I float down, around, 660 
 
 Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound. 
 
 Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 
 
 In music's most serene dominions ; 
 Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 
 
 And we sail on, away, afar, 665 
 
 Without a course, without a star. 
 But by the instinct of sweet music driven ; 
 
 Till through Elysian garden-islets 
 
 By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 
 
 Where never mortal pinnace glided, 670 
 
 The boat of my desire is guided : 
 Kealms where the air we breathe is love. 
 Which in the winds and on the waves doth move. 
 Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 106 
 
 We have passed Age's icy caves, 675 
 
 And Manhood's dark and tossing waves, 
 And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray : 
 
 Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee 
 
 Of shadow-peopled Infancy, 
 Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day : 680 
 
 A paradise of vaulted bowers 
 
 Lit by downward-gazing flowers, 
 
 And watery paths that wind between 
 
 Wildernesses calm and green. 
 Peopled by shapes too bright to see, 685 
 
 And rest, having beheld ; somewhat like thee ; 
 Which walk upon the sea, and chaunt melodiously ! 
 
 ACT III 
 
 Scene I. — Heaven. Jupiter on his Throne ; Thetis 
 and the other Deities assembled, 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 Ye congregated powers of heaven, who share 
 
 The glory and the strength of him ye serve. 
 
 Rejoice ! henceforth I am omnipotent. 
 
 All else had been subdued to me ; alone 
 
 The soul of man, like unextinguished fire, 5 
 
 Yet burns towards heaven with fierce reproach, 
 
 and doubt. 
 And lamentation, and reluctant prayer. 
 Hurling up insurrection, which might make 
 Our antique empire insecure, though built 
 On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear ; 10 
 
 And though my curses through the pendulous air, 
 Like snow on herbless peaks, fall flake by flake. 
 And cling to it ; though under my wrath's night 
 
106 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 It climb the crags of life, step after step, 
 
 Which wound it, as ice wounds unsandalled feet, 15 
 
 It yet remains supreme o'er misery. 
 
 Aspiring, unrepressed, yet soon to fall : 
 
 Even now have I begotten a strange wonder, 
 
 That fatal child, the terror of the earth. 
 
 Who waits but till the destined hour arrive, 20 
 
 Bearing from Demogorgon's vacant throne 
 
 The dreadful might of ever-living limbs 
 
 Which clothed that awful spirit unbeheld, 
 
 To redescend, and trample out the spark. 
 
 Pour forth heaven's wine, Idaean Ganymede, 25 
 
 And let it fill the daedal cups like fire, 
 
 And from the flower-inwoven soil divine 
 
 Ye all-triumphant harmonies arise. 
 
 As dew from earth under the twilight stars : 
 
 Drink ! be the nectar circling through your veins 30 
 
 The soul of joy, ye ever-living Gods, 
 
 Till exultation burst in one wide voice 
 
 Like music from Elysian winds. 
 
 And thou 
 Ascend beside me, veiled in the light 
 Of the desire which makes thee one with me, 35 
 
 Thetis, bright image of eternity ! 
 When thou didst cry, " Insufferable might ! 
 God ! spare me ! I sustain not the quick flames. 
 The penetrating presence ; all my being. 
 Like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw 40 
 
 Into a dew with poison, is dissolved. 
 Sinking through its foundations : " even then 
 Two mighty spirits, mingling, made a third 
 Mightier than either, which, unbodied now, 
 Between us floats, felt, although unbeheld, 45 
 
PEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 107 
 
 Waiting the incarnation, which ascends, 
 
 (Hear ye the thunder of the fiery wheels 
 
 Griding the winds ? ) from Demogorgon's throne. 
 
 Victory ! victory ! FeeFst thou not, O world, 
 
 The earthquake of his chariot thundering up 50 
 
 Olympus ? 
 
 [TAe Car of the Hour arrives, Demogor- 
 GON descends, and moves towards the 
 Throne 0/ Jupiter. 
 Awful shape, what art thou ? Speak ! 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Eternity. Demand no direr name ! 
 
 Descend, and follow me down the abyss ! 
 
 I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn's child ; 
 
 Mightier than thee : and we must dwell together 55 
 
 Henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not ! 
 
 The tyranny of heaven none may retain, 
 
 Or reassume, or hold, succeeding thee : 
 
 Yet, if thou wilt, as 't is the destiny 
 
 Of trodden worms to writhe till they are dead, 60 
 
 Put forth thy might ! 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 Detested prodigy ! 
 Even thus beneath the deep Titanian prisons 
 I trample thee ! Thou lingerest ? 
 
 Mercy ! mercy ! 
 No pity, no release, no respite ! Oh, 
 That thou wouldst make mine enemy my judge, 65 
 Even where he hangs, seared by my long revenge, 
 On Caucasus ! he would not doom me thus. 
 Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not 
 The monarch of the world ? What then art thou? 
 No refuge ! no appeal ! 
 
108 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Sink with me then, 70 
 
 We two will sink on the wide waves of ruin, 
 Even as a vulture and a snake outspent 
 Drop, twisted in inextricable fight, 
 Into a shoreless sea. Let hell unlock 
 Its mounded oceans of tempestuous fire, 75 
 
 And whelm on them into the bottomless void 
 This desolated world, and thee, and me, 
 The conqueror and the conquered, and the wreck 
 Of that for which they combated ! 
 
 Ai! Ai! 
 The elements obey me not. I sink 80 
 
 Dizzily down, ever, for ever, down. 
 And, like a cloud, mine enemy above 
 Darkens my fall with victory ! Ai ! Ai ! 
 
 Scene II. — The Mouth of a great River in the Island 
 Atlantis, Ocean is discovered reclining near the 
 Shore ; ApollO stands beside him. 
 
 Ocean 
 He fell, thou sayest, beneath his conqueror's frown ? 
 
 Apollo 
 
 Ay, when the strife was ended which made dim 85 
 
 The orb I rule, and shook the solid stars. 
 
 The terrors of his eye illumined heaven 
 
 With sanguine light, through the thick ragged skirts 
 
 Of the victorious darkness, as he fell : 
 
 Like the last glare of day's red agony, 90 
 
 Which, from a rent among the fiery clouds. 
 
 Burns far along the tempest-wrinkled deep. 
 
 Ocean 
 He sunk to the abyss ? to the dark void ? 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND . 109 
 
 Apollo 
 
 An eagle so caught in some bursting cloud 
 
 On Caucasus, his thunder-baffled wings 95 
 
 Entangled in the whirlwind, and his eyes 
 
 Which gazed on the undazzling sun, now blinded 
 
 By the white lightning, while the ponderous hail 
 
 Beats on his struggling form, which sinks at length 
 
 Prone, and the aerial ice clings over it. 100 
 
 Ocean 
 
 Henceforth the fields of Heaven-reflecting sea 
 
 Which are my realm, will heave, unstained with blood. 
 
 Beneath the uplifting winds, like plains of corn 
 
 Swayed by the summer air ; my streams will flow 
 
 Round many-peopled continents, and round 105 
 
 Fortunate isles; and from their glassy thrones 
 
 Blue Proteus and his humid nymphs shall mark 
 
 The shadow of fair ships, as mortals see 
 
 The floating bark of the light-laden moon 
 
 With that white star, its sightless pilot's crest, 110 
 
 Borne down the rapid sunset's ebbing sea ; 
 
 Tracking their path no more by blood and groans, 
 
 And desolation, and the mingled voice 
 
 Of slavery and command ; but by the light 
 
 Of wave-reflected flowers, and floating odours, 115 
 
 And music soft, and mild, free, gentle voices, 
 
 That sweetest music, such as spirits love. 
 
 Apollo 
 
 And I shall gaze not on the deeds which make 
 My mind obscure with sorrow, as eclipse 
 Darkens the sphere I guide ; but list, I hear 120 
 
 The small, clear, silver lute of the young Spirit 
 That sits i' the morning star. 
 
110 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Ocean 
 
 Thou must away ; 
 Thy steeds will pause at even, till when farewell: 
 The loud deep calls me home even now to feed it 
 With azure calm out of the emerald urns 125 
 
 Which stand for ever full beside my throne. 
 Behold the Nereids under the green sea, 
 Their wavering limbs borne on the wind-like stream, 
 Their white arms lifted o'er their streaming hair 
 With garlands pied and starry sea-flower crowns, 130 
 Hastening to grace their mighty sister's joy. 
 
 \^A sound of waves is heard. 
 It is the unpastured sea hungering for calm. 
 Peace, monster ; I come now. Farewell. 
 
 Apollo 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Scene III. — Caucasus. Prometheus, Hercules, Ione, 
 the Earth, Spirits, Asia, and Panthea, home in the 
 Car with the Spirit of the Hour. 
 
 Hercules unbinds Prometheus, who descends. 
 
 Hercules 
 
 Most glorious among spirits ! thus doth strength 
 To wisdom, courage, and long-suffering love, 135 
 
 And thee, who art the form they animate. 
 Minister like a slave. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Thy gentle words 
 Are sweeter even than freedom long desired 
 And long delayed. 
 
 Asia, thou light of life, 
 Shadow of beauty unbeheld ; and ye, 140 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 111 
 
 Fair sister nymphs, who made long years of pain 
 
 Sweet to remember, through your love and care : 
 
 Henceforth we will not part. There is a cave, 
 
 All overgrown with trailing odorous plants 144 
 
 Which curtain out the day with leaves and flowers, 
 
 And paved with veined emerald, and a fountain 
 
 Leaps in the midst with an awakening sound. 
 
 From its curved roof the mountain's frozen tears. 
 
 Like snow, or silver, or long diamond spires. 
 
 Hang downward, raining forth a doubtful light : 150 
 
 And there is heard the ever-moving air. 
 
 Whispering without from tree to tree, and birds, 
 
 And bees ; and all around are mossy seats, 
 
 And the rough walls are clothed with long soft grass; 
 
 A simple dwelling, which shall be our own ; 155 
 
 Where we will sit and talk of time and change. 
 
 As the world ebbs and flows, ourselves unchanged. 
 
 What can hide man from mutability? 
 
 And if ye sigh, then I will smile ; and thou, 
 
 lone, shalt chaunt fragments of sea-music, 160 
 
 Until I weep, when ye shall smile away 
 
 The tears she brought, which yet were sweet to shed. 
 
 We will entangle buds and flowers and beams 
 
 Which twinkle on the fountain's brim, and make 
 
 Strange combinations out of common things, 165 
 
 Like human babes in their brief innocence ; 
 
 And we will search, with looks and words of love. 
 
 For hidden thoughts each lovelier than the last. 
 
 Our unexhausted spirits ; and like lutes 
 
 Touched by the skill of the enamoured wind, 170 
 
 Weave harmonies divine, yet ever new, 
 
 From difference sweet where discord cannot be ; 
 
 And hither come, sped on the charmed winds 
 
 Which meet from all the points of heaven, as bees 
 
112 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 From every flower aerial Enna feeds, 175 
 
 At their own island-homes in Himera, 
 
 The echoes of the human world, which tell 
 
 Of the low voice of love, almost unheard, 
 
 And dove-eyed pity's murmured pain, and music. 
 
 Itself the echo of the heart, and all 180 
 
 That tempers or improves man's life, now free ; 
 
 And lovely apparitions, dim at first. 
 
 Then radiant, as the mind, arising bright 
 
 From the embrace of beauty, whence th^ forms 
 
 Of which these are the phantoms, casts on them 185 
 
 The gathered rays which are reality. 
 
 Shall visit us, the progeny immortal 
 
 Of Painting, Sculpture, and rapt Poesy, 
 
 And arts, though unimagined, yet to be. 
 
 The wandering voices and the shadows these 190 
 
 Of all that man becomes, the mediators 
 
 Of that best worship, love, by him and us 
 
 Given and returned ; swift shapes and sounds, which 
 
 grow 
 More fair and soft as man grows wise and kind, 
 And, veil by veil, evil and error fall : 195 
 
 Such virtue has the cave and place around. 
 
 \_Turning to the Spirit of the Hour. 
 For thee, fair Spirit, one toil remains. lone, 
 Give her that curved shell, which Proteus old 
 Made Asia's nuptial boon, breathing within it 
 A voice to be accomplished, and which thou 200 
 
 Didst hide in grass under the hollow rock. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Thou most desired Hour, hiore loved and lovely 
 Than all thy sisters, this [is] the mystic shell. 
 See the pale azure fading into silver 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 113 
 
 Lining it with a soft yet glowing light : 205 
 
 Looks it not like lulled music sleeping there ? 
 
 Spirit 
 
 It seems in truth the fairest shell of Ocean : 
 
 Its sound must be at once both sweet and strange. 
 
 Prometheus 
 
 Go, borne over the cities of mankind 
 
 On whirlwind-footed coursers : once again 210 
 
 Outspeed the sun around the orb^d world ; 
 
 And as thy chariot cleaves the kindling air, 
 
 Thou breathe into the many -folded shell. 
 
 Loosening its mighty music ; it shall be 
 
 As thunder mingled with clear echoes : then 215 
 
 Return ; and thou shalt dwell beside our cave. 
 
 And thou, O Mother Earth ! — 
 
 The Earth 
 
 I hear, I feel ; 
 Thy lips are on me, and thy touch runs down 
 Even to the adamantine central gloom 
 Along these marble nerves ; 't is life, 't is joy, 220 
 And through my withered, old, and icy frame 
 The warmth of an immortal youth shoots down 
 Circling. Henceforth the many children fair 
 Folded in my sustaining arms : all plants. 
 And creeping forms, and insects rainbow-winged, 225 
 And birds, and beasts, and fish, and human shapes. 
 Which drew disease and pain from my wan bosom, 
 Draining the poison of despair, shall take 
 And interchange sweet nutriment ; to me 
 Shall they become like sister-antelopes 230 
 
114 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 By one fair dam, snow-white and swift as wind, 
 Nursed among lilies near a brimming stream. 
 The dew-mists of my sunless sleep shall float 
 Under the stars like balm : night-folded flowers 
 Shall suck unwithering hues in their repose : 235 
 
 And men and beasts in happy dreams shall gather 
 Strength for the coming day, and all its joy : 
 And death shall be the last embrace of her 
 Who takes the life she gave, even as a mother. 
 Folding her child, says, " Leave me not again ! " 240 
 
 Asia 
 
 O mother ! wherefore speak the name of death? 
 
 Cease they to love, and move, and breathe, and speak. 
 
 Who die? 
 
 The Earth 
 
 It would avail not to reply : 
 Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known 
 But to the uncommunicating dead. 245 
 
 Death is the veil which those who live call life : 
 They sleep, and it is lifted : and meanwhile 
 In mild variety the seasons mild 
 With rainbow-skirted showers, and odorous winds, 
 And long blue meteors cleansing the dull night, 250 
 And the life-kindling shafts of the keen sun's 
 All-piercing bow, and the dew-mingled rain 
 Of the calm moonbeams, a soft influence mild. 
 Shall clothe the forests and the fields, ay, even 
 The crag-built deserts of the barren deep, 255 
 
 With ever-living leaves, and fruits, and flowers. 
 And thou ! There is a cavern where my spirit 
 Was panted forth in anguish whilst th}^ pain 
 Made my heart mad, and those who did inhale it 
 Became mad too, and built a temple there, 260 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 115 
 
 And spoke, and were oracular, and lured 
 
 The erring nations round to mutual war, 
 
 And faithless faith, such as Jove kept with thee ; 
 
 Which breath now rises, as amongst tall weeds 
 
 A violet's exhalation, and it fills 265 
 
 With a serener light and crimson air, 
 
 Intense, yet soft, the rocks and woods around ; 
 
 It feeds the quick growth of the serpent vine, 
 
 And the dark linked ivy tangling wild. 
 
 And budding, blown, or odour-faded blooms 270 
 
 Which star the winds with points of coloured light, 
 
 As they rain through them ; and bright golden globes 
 
 Of fruit, suspended in their own green heaven ; 
 
 And through their veined leaves and amber stems 
 
 The flowers whose purple and translucid bowls 275 
 
 Stand ever mantling with aerial dew. 
 
 The drink of spirits : and it circles round. 
 
 Like the soft waving wings of noonday dreams, 
 
 Inspiring calm and happy thoughts, like mine. 
 
 Now thou art thus restored. This cave is thine. 280 
 
 Arise ! Appear ! 
 
 \_A Spirit rises in the likeness of a winged child. 
 This is my torch-bearer ; 
 Who let his lamp out in old time with gazing 
 On eyes from which he kindled it anew 
 With love, which is as fire, sweet daughter mine. 
 For such is tkat within thine own. Run, wayward, 285 
 And guide this company beyond the peak 
 Of Bacchic Nysa, Maenad-haunted mountain. 
 And beyond Indus and its tribute rivers, 
 Trampling the torrent streams and glassy lakes 
 With feet unwet, unwearied, undelaying, 290 
 
 And up the green ravine, across the vale, 
 Beside the windless and crystalline pool 
 
116 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Where ever lies on unerasing waves 
 
 The image of a temple, built above, 
 
 Distinct with column, arch, and architrave, 295 
 
 And palm-like capital, and overwrought 
 
 And populous most with living imagery, 
 
 Praxitelean shapes, whose marble smiles 
 
 Fill the hushed air with everlasting love. 
 
 It is deserted now, but once it bore 300 
 
 Thy name, Prometheus ; there the emulous youths 
 
 Bore to thy honour through the divine gloom 
 
 The lamp which was thine emblem ; even as those 
 
 Who bear the untransmitted torch of hope 
 
 Into the grave, across the night of life, 305 
 
 As thou hast borne it most triumphantly 
 
 To this far goal of Time. Depart, farewell. 
 
 Beside that temple is the destined cave. 
 
 Scene IV. — A Forest In the Background a Cave. 
 
 Prometheus, Asia, Panthea, Ione, and the Spirit 
 
 OF THE Earth. 
 
 Ione 
 Sister, it is not earthly : how it glides 
 Under the leaves ! how on its head there burns 310 
 A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams 
 Are twined with its fair hair ! how, as it moves, 
 The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass ! 
 Knowest thou it ? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 It is the delicate spirit 
 That guides the earth through heaven. From afar 315 
 The populous constellations call that light 
 The loveliest of the planets ; and sometimes 
 It floats along the spray of the salt sea. 
 Or makes its chariot of a foggy cloud, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 117 
 
 Or walks through fields or cities while men sleep, 320 
 
 Or o'er the mountain-tops, or down the rivers. 
 
 Or through the green waste wilderness, as now. 
 
 Wondering at all it sees. Before Jove reigned 
 
 It loved our sister Asia, and it came 
 
 Each leisure hour to drink the liquid light 325 
 
 Out of her eyes, for which it said it thirsted 
 
 As one bit by a dipsas, and with her 
 
 It made its childish confidence, and told her 
 
 All it had known or seen, for it saw much. 
 
 Yet idly reasoned what it saw ; and called her, 330 
 
 For whence it sprung it knew not, nor do I, 
 
 Mother, dear mother. 
 
 The Spirit of the Earth (running to Asia) 
 
 Mother, dearest mother ; 
 May I then talk with thee as I was wont ? 
 May I then hide my eyes in thy soft arms. 
 After thy looks have made them tired of joy ? 335 
 May I then play beside thee the long noons. 
 When work is none in the bright silent air ? 
 
 Asia 
 
 I love thee, gentlest being, and henceforth 
 
 Can cherish thee unenvied ; speak, I pray : 
 
 Thy simple talk once solaced, now delights. 340 
 
 Spirit of the Earth 
 
 Mother, I am grown wiser, though a child 
 Cannot be wise like thee, within this day ; 
 And happier too ; happier and wiser both. 
 Thou knowest that toads, and snakes, and loathly 
 
 worms. 
 And venomous and malicious beasts, and boughs 345 
 
118 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 That bore ill berries in the woods, were ever 
 
 An hindrance to my walks o'er the green world : 
 
 And that, among the haunts of humankind. 
 
 Hard-featured men, or with proud, angry looks, 
 
 Or cold, staid gait, or false and hollow smiles, 350 
 
 Or the dull sneer of self-loved ignorance, 
 
 Or other such foul masks, with which ill thoughts 
 
 Hide that fair being whom we spirits call man ; 
 
 And women too, ugliest of all things evil, 
 
 (Though fair, even in a world where thou art fair, 355 
 
 When good and kind, free and sincere like thee,) 
 
 When false or frowning made me sick at heart 
 
 To pass them, though they slept, and I unseen. 
 
 Well, my path lately lay through a great city 
 
 Into the woody hills surrounding it : 360 
 
 A sentinel was sleeping at the gate : 
 
 When there was heard a sound, so loud it shook 
 
 The towers amid the moonlight, yet more sweet 
 
 Than any voice but thine, sweetest of all ; 
 
 A long, long sound, as it would never end : 365 
 
 And all the inhabitants leapt suddenly 
 
 Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets, 
 
 Looking in wonder up to heaven, while yet 
 
 The music pealed along. I hid myself 
 
 Within a fountain in the public square, 370 
 
 Where I lay like the reflex of the moon 
 
 Seen in a wave under green leaves ; and soon 
 
 Those ugly human shapes and visages 
 
 Of which I spoke as having wrought me pain. 
 
 Past floating through the air, and fading still 375 
 
 Into the winds that scattered them ; and those 
 
 From whom they past seemed mild and lovely forms 
 
 After some foul disguise had fallen, and all 
 
 Were somewhat changed, and after brief surprise 
 
PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 119 
 
 And greetings of delighted wonder, all 380 
 
 Went to their sleep again : and when the dawn 
 Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and 
 
 efts. 
 Could e'er be beautiful ? yet so they were, 
 And that with little change of shape or hue : 
 All things had put their evil nature off : 385 
 
 I cannot tell my joy, when o'er a lake 
 Upon a drooping bough with nightshade twined, 
 I saw two azure halcyons clinging downward 
 And thinning one bright bunch of amber berries. 
 With quick long beaks, and in the deep there lay 390 
 Those lovely forms imaged as in a sky ; 
 So with my thoughts full of these happy changes. 
 We meet again, the happiest change of all. 
 
 Asia 
 
 And never will we part, till thy chaste sister 
 
 Who guides the frozen and inconstant moon, 395 
 
 Will look on thy more warm and equal light 
 
 Till her heart thaw like flakes of April snow, 
 
 And love thee. 
 
 Spirit of the Earth 
 
 What ! as Asia loves Prometheus ? 
 
 Asia 
 
 Peace, wanton, thou art yet not old enough. 
 
 Think ye by gazing on each other's eyes 400 
 
 To multiply your lovely selves, and fill 
 
 With sphered fires the interlunar air ? 
 
 Spirit of the Earth 
 
 Nay, mother, while my sister trims her lamp 
 'T is hard I should go darkling. 
 
120 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Asia 
 
 Listen; look! 
 IThe Spirit of the Hour enters. 
 
 Prometheus 
 We feel what thou hast heard and seen : yet speak ! 405 
 
 Spirit of the Hour 
 
 Soon as the sound had ceased whose thunder filled 
 
 The abysses of the sky and the wide earth, 
 
 There was a change : the impalpable thin air 
 
 And the all-circling sunlight were transformed, 
 
 As if the sense of love, dissolved in them, 410 
 
 Had folded itself round the sphered world. 
 
 My vision then grew clear, and I could see 
 
 Into the mysteries of the universe. 
 
 Dizzy as with delight I floated down, 
 
 Winnowing the lightsome air with languid plumes, 415 
 
 My coursers sought their birthplace in the sun. 
 
 Where they henceforth will live exempt from toil, 
 
 Pasturing [on] flowers of vegetable fire ; 
 
 And where my moonlike car will stand within 
 
 A temple, gazed upon by Phidian forms 420 
 
 Of thee, and Asia, and the Earth, and me. 
 
 And you fair nymphs, looking the love we feel; 
 
 In memory of the tidings it has borne ; 
 
 Beneath a dome fretted with graven flowers. 
 
 Poised on twelve columns of resplendent stone, 425 
 
 And open to the bright and liquid sky. 
 
 Yoked to it by an amphisbaenic snake 
 
 The likeness of those winged steeds will mock 
 
 The flight from which they find repose. Alas, 
 
 Whither has wandered now my partial tongue, 430 
 
 When all remains untold which ye would hear ? 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 121 
 
 As I have said, I floated to the earth : 
 
 It was, as it is still, the pain of bliss 
 
 To move, to breathe, to be. I wandering went 
 
 Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, 435 
 
 And first was disappointed not to see 
 
 Such mighty change as I had felt within. 
 
 Expressed in outward things; but soon I looked, 
 
 And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked 
 
 One with the other even as spirits do : 440 
 
 None fawned, none trampled ; hate, disdain, or fear, 
 
 Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows 
 
 No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell, 
 
 " All hope abandon ye who enter here ; " 
 
 None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear 445 
 
 Gazed on another's eye of cold command, 
 
 Until the subject of a tyrant's will 
 
 Became, worse fate, the abject of his own, 
 
 Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death. 
 
 None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines 450 
 
 Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak ; 
 
 None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart 
 
 The sparks of love and hope till there remained 
 
 Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed. 
 
 And the wretch crept a vampire among men, 455 
 
 Infecting all with his own hideous ill ; 
 
 None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk 
 
 Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes, 
 
 Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy 
 
 With such a self-mistrust as has no name. 460 
 
 And women too, frank, beautiful, and kind 
 
 As the free heaven which rains fresh light and dew 
 
 On the wide earth, past ; gentle, radiant forms, 
 
 From custom's evil taint exempt and pure ; 
 
 Speaking the wisdom once they could not think, 465 
 
122 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Looking emotions once they feared to feel, 
 
 And changed to all which once they dared not be, 
 
 Yet being now, made earth like heaven ; nor pride, 
 
 Nor jealousy, nor envy, nor ill-shame, 
 
 The bitterest of those drops of treasured gall, 470 
 
 Spoilt the sweet taste of the nepenthe, love. 
 
 Thrones, altars, judgment-seats, and prisons, — wherein, 
 
 And beside which, by wretched men were borne 
 
 Sceptres, tiaras, swords, and chains, and tomes 
 
 Of reasoned wrong, glozed on by ignorance, — 475 
 
 Were like those monstrous and barbaric shapes. 
 
 The ghosts of a no-more-remembered fame, 
 
 Which from their unworn obelisks, look forth 
 
 In triumph o'er the palaces and tombs 
 
 Of those who were their conquerors, mouldering 
 
 round, 480 
 
 Those imaged, to the pride of kings and priests, 
 A dark yet mighty faith, a power as wide 
 As is the world it wasted, and are now 
 But an astonishment. Even so the tools 
 And emblems of its last captivity, 485 
 
 Amid the dwellings of the peopled earth. 
 Stand, not o'erthrown, but unregarded now ; 
 And those foul shapes, abhorred by god and man. 
 Which, under many a name and many a form, 
 Strange, savage, ghastly, dark, and execrable, 490 
 Were Jupiter, the tyrant of the world ; 
 And which the nations, panic-stricken, served 
 With blood, and hearts broken by long hope, and 
 
 love 
 Dragged to his altars soiled and garlandless. 
 And slain among men's unreclaiming tears, 495 
 
 Flattering the thing they feared, which fear was hate, — 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 123 
 
 Frown, mouldering fast, o'er their abandoned shrines. 
 The painted veil, by those who were, called life, 
 Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread. 
 All men believed and hoped, is torn aside ; 500 
 
 The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains, 
 Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man: 
 Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless, 
 Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king- 
 Over himself ; just, gentle, wise : but man. 505 
 Passionless ? no, yet free from guilt or pain. 
 Which were, for his will made or suffered them ; 
 Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves, 
 From chance, and death, and mutability. 
 The clogs of that which else might oversoar 510 
 The loftiest star of unascended heaven, 
 Pinnacled dim in the intense inane. 
 
 ACT IV 
 
 Scene. — A part of the Forest near the Cave of Prome- 
 theus. Panthea and Ione are sleeping : they awaken 
 gradually during the first Song. 
 
 Voice of Unseen Spirits 
 
 The pale stars are gone ! 
 For the sun, their swift shepherd, 
 To their folds them compelling, 
 In the depths of the dawn. 
 Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee 5 
 Beyond his blue dwelling. 
 As fauns flee the leopard. 
 
 But where are ye ? 
 [A train of dark Forms and Shadows p)(^sses by 
 confusedly^ singing. 
 
124 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Here, oh, here : 
 
 We bear the bier 10 
 
 Of the Father of many a cancelled year ! 
 
 Spectres we 
 
 Of the dead Hours be, 
 We bear Time to his tomb in eternity. 
 
 Strew, oh, strew 15 
 
 Hair, not yew ! 
 Wet the dusty pall with tears, not dew ! 
 
 Be the faded flowers 
 
 Of Death's bare bowers 
 Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours ! 
 
 Haste, oh, haste ! 21 
 
 As shades are chased. 
 Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste, 
 
 We melt away. 
 
 Like dissolving spray, 25 
 
 From the children of a diviner day, 
 
 With the lullaby 
 
 Of winds that die 
 On the bosom of their own harmony ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 What dark forms were they ? 30 
 
 Panthea 
 
 The past Hours weak and gray, 
 With the spoil which their toil 
 Eaked together 
 From the conquest but One could foil. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Have they past ? 35 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 125 
 
 Panthea 
 
 They have past ; 35 
 They outspeeded the blast, 
 While 't is said, they are fled : 
 
 lONE 
 
 Whither, oh, whither? 
 
 Panthea 
 To the dark, to the past, to the dead. 
 
 Voice of Unseen Spirits 
 
 Bright clouds float in heaven, 40 
 
 Dew-stars gleam on earth. 
 Waves assemble on ocean : 
 They are gathered and driven 
 By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee ! 
 
 They shake with emotion, 45 
 
 They dance in their mirth. 
 But where are ye ? 
 
 The pine-boughs are singing 
 Old songs with new gladness, 
 The billows and fountains 50 
 
 Fresh music are flinging, 
 Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea ; 
 The storms mock the mountains 
 With the thunder of gladness. 
 
 But where are ye ? 55 
 
 lONE 
 
 What charioteers are these ? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Where are their chariots ? 
 
126 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Semichorus of Hours 
 
 The voice of the Spirits of Air and of Earth 
 Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep 
 
 Which covered our being and darkened our birth 
 In the deep. 
 
 A Voice 
 In the deep ? 
 
 Semichorus II 
 
 Oh, below the deep. 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 An hundred ages we had been kept 61 
 
 Cradled in visions of hate and care, 
 And each one who waked as his brother slept, 
 
 Found the truth — 
 
 Semichorus II 
 
 Worse than his visions were ! 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep ; 65 
 
 We have known the voice of Love in dreams ; 
 We have felt the wand of Power, and leap — 
 
 Semichorus II 
 As the billows leap in the morning beams ! 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, 
 
 Pierce with song heaven's silent light, 70 
 
 Enchant the day that too swiftly flees. 
 To check its flight ere the cave of night. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 127 
 
 Once the hungry Hours were hounds 
 
 Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, 
 
 And it limped and stumbled with many wounds 75 
 Through the nightly dells of the desert year. 
 
 But now, oh weave the mystic measure 
 Of music, and dance, and shapes of light ; 
 
 Let the Hours, and the spirits of might and pleasure, 
 Like the clouds and sunbeams, unite ! 80 
 
 A Voice 
 
 Unite ! 
 Panthea 
 
 See, where the Spirits of the human mind, 
 
 Wrapt in sweet sounds, as in bright veils, approach ! 
 
 Chorus of Spirits 
 
 We join the throng 
 
 Of the dance and the song. 
 By the whirlwind of gladness borne along ; 85 
 
 As the flying-fish leap 
 
 From the Indian deep. 
 And mix with the sea-birds, half asleep. 
 
 Chorus of Hours 
 
 Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet ? — 
 For sandals of lightning are on your feet, . 90 
 
 And your wings are soft and swift as thought, 
 And your eyes are as love which is veiled not. 
 
 Chorus of Spirits 
 
 We come from the mind 
 Of humankind. 
 Which was late so dusk, and obscene, and blind ; 95 
 
128 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Now 't is an ocean 
 Of clear emotion, 
 A heaven of serene and mighty motion. 
 
 From that deep abyss 
 
 Of wonder and bliss, 100 
 
 Whose caverns are crystal palaces ; 
 
 From those skyey towers 
 
 Where Thought's crowned powers 
 Sit watching your dance, ye happy Hours ! 
 
 From the dim recesses 105 
 
 Of woven caresses. 
 Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses ; 
 
 From the azure isles, 
 
 Where sweet Wisdom smiles, 
 Delaying your ships with her siren wiles. 110 
 
 From the temples high 
 
 Of Man's ear and eye. 
 Roofed over Sculpture and Poesy ; 
 
 From the murmurings 
 
 Of the unsealed springs 115 
 
 Where Science bedews his daedal wings. 
 
 Years after years. 
 
 Through blood, and tears, 
 And a thick hell of hatreds, and hopes, and fears. 
 
 We waded and flew, 120 
 
 And the islets were few 
 Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew. 
 
 Our feet now, every palm. 
 Are sandalled with calm. 
 And the dew of our wings is a rain of balm ; 125 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 129 
 
 And, beyond our eyes, 
 The human love lies 
 Which makes all it gazes on Paradise. 
 
 Chorus of Spirits and Hours 
 
 Then weave the web of the mystic measure ; 
 
 From the depths of the sky and the ends of the 
 earth, 130 
 
 Come, swift Spirits of might and of pleasure, 
 
 Fill the dance and the music of mirth, 
 As the waves of a thousand streams rush by 
 To an ocean of splendour and harmony ! 
 
 Chorus of Spirits 
 
 Our spoil is won, 135 
 
 Our task is done. 
 We are free to dive, or soar, or run ; 
 
 Beyond and around, 
 
 Or within the bound 
 Which clips the world with darkness round. 140 
 
 We '11 pass the eyes 
 
 Of the starry skies 
 Into the hoar deep to colonize : 
 
 Death, Chaos, and Night, 
 
 From the sound of our flight, 145 
 
 Shall flee, like mist from a tempest's might. 
 
 And Earth, Air, and Light, 
 
 And the Spirit of Might, 
 Which drives round the stars in their fiery flight ; 
 
 And Love, Thought, and Breath, 150 
 
 The powers that quell Death, 
 Wherever we soar shall assemble beneath. 
 
130 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 And our singing shall build 
 
 In the void's loose field 
 A world for the Spirit of Wisdom to wield ; 155 
 
 We will take our plan 
 
 From the new world of man, 
 And our work shall be called the Promethean. 
 
 Chorus of Hours 
 
 Break the dance, and scatter the song; 
 
 Let some depart, and some remain. 160 
 
 Semichorus I 
 We, beyond heaven, are driven along : 
 
 Semichorus II 
 Us the enchantments of earth retain : 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 Ceaseless, and rapid, and fierce, and free. 
 
 With the Spirits which build a new earth and sea, 
 
 And a heaven where yet heaven could never be. 165 
 
 Semichorus II 
 
 Solemn, and slow, and serene, and bright, 
 Leading the Day, and outspeeding the Night, 
 With the powers of a world of perfect light. 
 
 Semichorus I 
 
 We whirl, singing loud, round the gathering sphere. 
 Till the trees, and the beasts, and the clouds appear 
 From its chaos made calm by love, not fear. 171 
 
 Semichorus II 
 We encircle the ocean and mountains of earth, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 131 
 
 And the happy forms of its death and birth 
 Change to the music of our sweet mirth. 
 
 Chorus of Hours axd Spirits 
 
 Break the dance, and scatter the song, 175 
 
 Let some depart, and some remain ; 
 Wherever we fly we lead along 
 In leashes, like starbeams, soft yet strong, 
 
 The clouds that are heavy with love's sweet rain. 
 
 Panthea 
 Ha ! they are gone ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 Yet feel you no delight 180 
 
 From the past sweetness? 
 
 Panthea 
 
 As the bare green hill, 
 When some soft cloud vanishes into rain. 
 Laughs with a thousand drops of sunny water 
 To the unpavilioned sky ! 
 
 lONE 
 
 Even whilst we speak 
 New notes arise. What is that awful sound? 185 
 
 Panthea 
 
 'T is the deep music of the rolling world. 
 Kindling within the strings of the waved air 
 -^olian modulations. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Listen, too, 
 How every pause is filled with under-notes, 
 
132 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Clear, silver, icy, keen awakening tones, 190 
 
 Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul, 
 As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air, 
 And gaze upon themselves within the sea. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 But see where, through two openings in the forest 
 Which hanging branches overcanopy, 195 
 
 And where two runnels of a rivulet 
 Between the close moss, violet-inwoven. 
 Have made their path of melody, like sisters 
 Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles. 
 Turning their dear disunion to an isle 200 
 
 Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts ; 
 Two visions of strange radiance float upon 
 The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, 
 Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet. 
 Under the ground and through the windless air. 205 
 
 lONE 
 
 I see a chariot like that thinnest boat 
 
 In which the mother of the months is borne 
 
 By ebbing night into her western cave, 
 
 When she upsprings from interlunar dreams ; 
 
 O'er which is curved an orblike canopy 210 
 
 Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods 
 
 Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil. 
 
 Regard like shapes in an enchanter's glass ; 
 
 Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold. 
 
 Such as the genii of the thunderstorm 215 
 
 Pile on the floor of the illumined sea 
 
 When the sun rushes under it ; they roll 
 
 And move and grow as with an inward wind ; 
 
 Within it sits a winged infant, white 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 133 
 
 Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow, 220 
 
 Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost, 
 
 Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds 
 
 Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl. 
 
 Its hair is white, the brightness of white light 
 
 Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens 225 
 
 Of liquid darkness, which the deity 
 
 Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured 
 
 From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes, 
 
 Tempering the cold and radiant air around. 
 
 With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand 230 
 
 It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point 
 
 A guiding power directs the chariot's prow 
 
 Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll 
 
 Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds, 
 
 Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. 235 
 
 Panthea 
 
 And from the other opening in the wood 
 
 Rushes, with loud and whirlwind harmony, 
 
 A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, 
 
 Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass 
 
 Flow, as through empty space, music and light : 240 
 
 Ten thousand orbs involving and involved. 
 
 Purple and azure, white, green, and golden. 
 
 Sphere within sphere ; and every space between 
 
 Peopled with unimaginable shapes. 
 
 Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep, 245 
 
 Yet each intertranspicuous, and they whirl 
 
 Over each other with a thousand motions. 
 
 Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning. 
 
 And with the force of self -destroying swiftness. 
 
 Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on, 250 
 
 Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones. 
 
134 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Intelligible words and music wild. 
 
 With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb 
 
 Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist 
 
 Of elemental subtlety, like light ; 255 
 
 And the wild odour of the forest flowers, 
 
 The music of the living grass and air. 
 
 The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams. 
 
 Round its intense yet self-conflicting speed 
 
 Seem kneaded into one aerial mass 260 
 
 Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself, 
 
 Pillowed upon its alabaster arms. 
 
 Like to a child o'erwearied with sweet toil. 
 
 On its own folded wings and wavy hair, 
 
 The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, 265 
 
 And you can see its little lips are moving. 
 
 Amid the changing light of their own smiles. 
 
 Like one who talks of what he loves in dream. 
 
 lOKE 
 
 'T is only mocking the orb's harmony. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 And from a star upon its forehead, shoot, 270 
 
 Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears 
 With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined. 
 Embleming heaven and earth united now. 
 Vast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel 274 
 Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought, 
 Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings, 
 And perpendicular now, and now transverse. 
 Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass. 
 Make bare the secrets of the earth's deep heart ; 
 Infinite mine of adamant and gold, 280 
 
 Valueless stones, and unimagined gems. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 135 
 
 And caverns on crystalline columns poised 
 
 With vegetable silver overspread ; 
 
 Wells of unf athomed fire, and water-springs 
 
 Whence the great sea even as a child is fed, 285 
 
 Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops 
 
 With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on. 
 
 And make appear the melancholy ruins 
 
 Of cancelled cycles : anchors, beaks of ships ; 
 
 Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears, 
 
 And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels 291 
 
 Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 
 
 Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts. 
 
 Round which Death laughed, sepulchred emblems 
 
 Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! 295 
 
 The wrecks beside of many a city vast. 
 
 Whose population which the earth grew over 
 
 Was mortal, but not human ; see, they lie. 
 
 Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons. 
 
 Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes 300 
 
 Huddled in gray annihilation, split. 
 
 Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and, over these, 
 
 The anatomies of unknown winged things. 
 
 And fishes which were isles of living scale. 
 
 And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 305 
 
 The iron crags, or within heaps of dust 
 
 To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs 
 
 Had crushed the iron crags ; and over these 
 
 The jagged alligator, and the might 
 
 Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 310 
 
 Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, 
 
 And weed-overgrown continents of earth. 
 
 Increased and multiplied like summer worms 
 
 On an abandoned corpse, till the blue globe 
 
 Wrapt deluge round it like a cloke, and they 315 
 
136 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God 
 Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried, 
 Be not ! And like my words they were no more. 
 
 The Earth 
 
 The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness ! 
 
 The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness, 320 
 The vaporous exultation not to be confined ! 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the animation of delight 
 
 Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light. 
 And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind ! 
 
 The Moon 
 
 Brother mine, calm wanderer, 325 
 
 Happy globe of land and air, 
 Some Spirit is darted like a beam from thee, 
 
 Which penetrates my frozen frame, 
 
 And passes with the warmth of flame. 
 With love, and odour, and deep melody 330 
 
 Through me, through me ! 
 
 The Earth 
 
 Ha ! ha ! the caverns of my hollow mountains. 
 My cloven fire-crags, sound-exulting fountains. 
 
 Laugh with a vast and inextinguishable laughter. 
 The oceans, and the deserts, and the abysses, 335 
 And the deep air's unmeasured wildernesses. 
 
 Answer from all their clouds and billows, echoing 
 after. 
 
 They cry aloud as I do : Sceptred curse. 
 Who all our green and azure universe 
 Threatenedst to muffle round with black destruction, 
 sending 340 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 137 
 
 A solid cloud to rain hot thunder-stones, 
 And splinter and knead down my children's bones, 
 All I bring forth, to one void mass battering and 
 blending ; 
 
 Until each crag-like tower, and storied column, 
 
 Palace, and obelisk, and temple solemn, 345 
 
 My imperial mountains crowned with cloud, and snow, 
 and fire ; 
 
 My sea-like forests, every blade and blossom . 
 
 Which finds a grave or cradle in my bosom. 
 Were stamped by thy strong hate into a lifeless mire. 
 
 How art thou sunk, withdrawn, covered, drunk 
 up 350 
 
 By thirsty nothing, as the brackish cup 
 Drained by a desert-troop, a little drop for all ; 
 And from beneath, around, within, above. 
 Filling thy void annihilation, love 
 Bursts in like light on caves cloven by the thunder- 
 ball ! 355 
 
 The Moon 
 
 The snow upon my lifeless mountains 
 
 Is loosened into living fountains. 
 My solid oceans flow, and sing, and shine : 
 
 A spirit from my heart bursts forth, 
 
 It clothes with unexpected birth 360 
 
 My cold bare bosom : Oh, it must be thine 
 On mine, on mine ! 
 
 Gazing on thee, I feel, I know, 
 Green stalks burst forth, and bright flowers 
 grow, 
 And living shapes upon my bosom move : 365 
 
138 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Music is in the sea and air, 
 Winged clouds soar here and there, 
 Dark with the rain new buds are dreaming of : 
 'T is love, all love ! 
 
 The Earth 
 
 It interpenetrates my granite mass, 370 
 
 Through tangled roots and trodden clay doth pass, 
 
 Into the utmost leaves and delicatest flowers ; 
 Upon the winds, among the clouds 't is spread : 
 It wakes a life in the forgotten dead, — 
 
 They breathe a spirit up from their obscurest bowers. 
 
 And like a storm bursting its cloudy prison 376 
 With thunder and with whirlwind, has arisen 
 
 Out of the lampless caves of unimagined being : 
 
 With earthquake shock and swiftness making shiver 
 Thought's stagnant chaos, unremoved for ever, 380 
 
 Till hate, and fear, and pain, light- vanquished shadows, 
 fleeing, 
 
 Leave Man, who was a many-sided mirror, 
 Which could distort to many a shade of error, 
 
 This true fair world of things, a sea reflecting love ; 
 Which over all his kind as the sun's heaven 385 
 Gliding o'er ocean, smooth, serene, and even 
 
 Darting from starry depths radiance and life, doth 
 move: 
 
 Leave Man, even as a leprous child is left, 
 Who follows a sick beast to some warm cleft 
 Of rocks, through which the might of healing springs 
 is poured, — 390 
 
 Then when it wanders home with rosy smile, 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 139 
 
 Unconscious, and its mother fears awhile 
 It is a spirit, then, weeps on her child restored : 
 
 Man, oh, not men ! a chain of linked thought, 
 
 Of love and might to be divided not, 395 
 
 Compelling the elements with adamantine stress ; 
 
 As the sun rules, even with a tyrant's gaze, 
 
 The unquiet republic of the maze 
 Of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free 
 wilderness : 
 
 Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul, 400 
 
 Whose nature is its own divine control. 
 Where all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; 
 
 Familiar acts are beautiful through love ; 
 
 Labour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove 
 Sport like tame beasts, none knew how gentle they 
 could be ! 405 
 
 His will, with all mean passions, bad delights, 
 And selfish cares, its trembling satellites, 
 A spirit ill to guide, but mighty to obey. 
 Is as a tempest-winged ship, whose helm 
 Love rules through waves which dare not over- 
 whelm, 410 
 Forcing life's wildest shores to own its sovereign 
 sway. 
 
 All things confess his strength. Through the cold 
 
 mass 
 Of marble and of colour his dreams pass ; 
 Bright threads whence mothers weave the robes their 
 
 children wear ; 
 Language is a perpetual orphic song, 415 
 
140 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Which rules with daedal harmony a throng 
 Of thoughts and forms, which else senseless and shape- 
 less were. 
 
 The lightning is his slave ; heaven's utmost deep 
 
 Gives up her stars, and like a flock of sheep 
 They pass before his eye, are numbered, and roll on ! 420 
 
 The tempest is his steed, he strides the air ; 
 
 And the abyss shouts from her depth laid bare. 
 Heaven, hast thou secrets? Man unveils me; I have 
 none. 
 
 The Moon 
 
 The shadow of white death has past 
 
 From my path in heaven at last, 425 
 
 A clinging shroud of solid frost and sleep ; 
 
 And through my newly-woven bowers. 
 
 Wander happy paramours. 
 Less mighty, but as mild as those who keep 
 
 Thy vales more deep. 430 
 
 The Earth 
 
 As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold 
 A half infrozen dew-globe, green, and gold. 
 
 And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist. 
 And wanders up the vault of the blue day. 
 Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray 435 
 
 Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst. 
 
 The Moon 
 
 Thou art folded, thou art lying 
 In the light which is undying 
 Of thine own joy, and heaven's smile divine ; 
 All suns and constellations shower 440 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 141 
 
 On thee a light, a life, a power 
 Which doth array thy spear ; thou pourest thine 
 On mine, on mine ! 
 
 The Earth 
 
 I spin beneath my pyramid of night, 
 
 Which points into the heavens, dreaming delight, 445 
 Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep ; 
 
 As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing, 
 
 Under the shadow of his beauty lying. 
 
 Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth 
 
 doth keep. 
 
 The Moon 
 
 As in the soft and sweet eclipse, 450 
 
 When soul meets soul on lovers' lips. 
 High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are 
 dull; 
 So when thy shadow falls on me. 
 Then am I mute and still, by thee 
 Covered ; of thy love, Orb most beautiful, 455 
 Full, oh, too full! 
 
 Thou art speeding round the sun, 
 
 Brightest world of many a one ; 
 
 Green and azure sphere which shinest 
 
 With a light which is divinest 460 
 
 Among all the lamps of heaven 
 
 To whom life and light is given. 
 
 I, thy crystal paramour. 
 
 Borne beside thee by a power 
 
 Like the polar paradise, 465 
 
 Magnet-like, of lovers' eyes ; 
 
 I, a most enamoured maiden 
 
 Whose weak brain is overladen 
 
142 PBOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 With the pleasure of her love, 
 
 Maniac-like around thee move 470 
 
 Gazing, an insatiate bride. 
 
 On thy form from every side 
 
 Like a Maenad, round the cup 
 
 Which Agave lifted up 
 
 In the weird Cadmean forests. 475 
 
 Brother, wheresoe'er thou soarest 
 
 I must hurry, whirl and follow 
 
 Through the heavens wide and hollow, 
 
 Sheltered by the warm embrace 
 
 Of thy soul from hungry space, 480 
 
 Drinking from thy sense and sight 
 
 Beauty, majesty, and might, 
 
 As a lover or cameleon 
 
 Grows like what it looks upon ; 
 
 As a violet's gentle eye 485 
 
 Gazes on the azure sky 
 Until its hue grows like what it beholds, 
 
 As a gray and watery mist 
 
 Glows like solid amethyst 
 Athwart the western mountain it enfolds, 490 
 
 When the sunset sleeps 
 Upon its snow. 
 
 The Earth 
 
 And the weak day weeps 
 That it should be so. 
 O gentle Moon, the voice of thy delight 495 
 
 Falls on me like thy clear and tender light 
 Soothing the seaman, borne the summer night 
 
 Through isles for ever calm ; 
 O gentle Moon, thy crystal accents pierce 
 The caverns of my pride's deep universe, 500 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 143 
 
 Charming the tiger joy, whose tramplings fierce 
 Made wounds which need thy balm. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 I rise as from a bath of sparkling water, 
 A bath of azure light, among dark rocks, 
 Out of the stream of sound. 
 
 lONE 
 
 Ah mje ! sweet sister, 505 
 The stream of sound has ebbed away from us, 
 And you pretend to rise out of its wave. 
 Because your words fall like the clear, soft dew 
 Shaken from a bathing wood-nymph's limbs and hair. 
 
 Panthea 
 
 Peace ! peace ! A mighty Power, which is as dark- 
 ness, 510 
 Is rising out of Earth, and from the sky 
 Is showered like night, and from within the air 
 Bursts, like eclipse which had been gathered up 
 Into the pores of sunlight : the bright visions. 
 Wherein the singing spirits rode and shone, 515 
 Gleam like pale meteors through a watery night. 
 
 lONE 
 
 There is a sense of words upon mine ear. 
 
 Panthea 
 An universal sound like words : Oh, list ! 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Thou, Earth, calm empire of a happy soul. 
 
 Sphere of divinest shapes and harmonies, 520 
 
144 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Beautiful orb ! gathering as thou dost roll 
 
 The love which paves thy path along the skies : 
 
 The Earth 
 I hear : I am as a drop of dew that dies. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Thou, Moon, which gazest on the nightly Earth 
 
 With wonder, as it gazes upon thee ; 525 
 
 Whilst each to men, and beasts, and the swift 
 birth 
 Of birds, is beauty, love, calm, harmony : 
 
 The Moon 
 I hear : I am a leaf shaken by thee ! 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Ye kings of suns and stars ! Daemons and Gods, 
 Ethereal Dominations ! who possess 530 
 
 Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes 
 
 Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness : 
 
 A Voice from above 
 Our great Republic hears ; we are blest, and bless. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Ye happy dead ! whom beams of brightest verse 
 Are clouds to hide, not colours to portray, 535 
 
 Whether your nature is that universe 
 Which once ye saw and suffered — 
 
 A Voice from beneath 
 
 Or as they 
 Whom we have left, we change and pass away. 
 
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 146 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Ye elemental Genii, who have homes 
 
 From man's high mind even to the central stone 540 
 Of sullen lead ; from Heaven's star-fretted domes 
 
 To the dull weed some sea-worm battens on : 
 
 A Confused Voice 
 We hear : thy words waken Oblivion. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Spirits, whose homes are flesh: ye beasts and birds, 
 Ye worms, and fish ; ye living leaves and buds ; 545 
 
 Lightning and wind ; and ye untameable herds. 
 Meteors and mists, which throng air's solitudes : 
 
 A Voice 
 Thy voice to us is wind among still woods. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 Man, who wert once a despot and a slave ; 
 
 A dupe and a deceiver ; a decay ; 550 
 
 A traveller from the cradle to the grave 
 
 Through the dim night of this immortal day : 
 
 All 
 Speak ! thy strong words may never pass away. 
 
 Demogorgon 
 
 This is the day, which down the void abysm 
 At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despot- 
 ism, 555 
 And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep: 
 Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
 Li the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 
 
146 PROMETHEUS UNBOUND 
 
 Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, 
 And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 560 
 
 And folds over the world its healing wings. 
 
 Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
 These are the seals of that most firm assurance 
 
 Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; 
 And if, with infirm hand. Eternity, 565 
 
 Mother of many acts and hours, should free 
 
 The serpent that would clasp her with his length, 
 These are the spells by which to re-assume 
 An empire o'er the disentangled doom. 
 
 To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; 570 
 
 To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 
 
 To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; 
 To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates 
 From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 
 
 Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; 575 
 
 This, like thy glory. Titan, is to be 
 Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ; 
 This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory ! 
 
TO THE MOON 147 
 
 THE WORLD'S WANDERERS 
 
 Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light 
 Speed thee in thy fiery flight. 
 In what cavern of the night 
 
 Will thy pinions close now? 
 
 Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray 5 
 
 Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way. 
 In what depth of night or day 
 Seekest thou repose now? 
 
 Weary wind, who wanderest 
 Like the world's rejected guest, 10 
 
 Hast thou still some secret nest 
 On the tree or billow? 
 
 1820. 
 
 THE WANING MOON 
 
 And like a dying lady, lean and pale. 
 Who totters forth, wrapt 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, 5 
 
 A white and shapeless mass. 
 1820. 
 
 TO THE MOON 
 
 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 5 
 
 That finds no object worth its constancy? 
 1820. 
 
148 SONG 
 
 GOOD NIGHT 
 
 Good night? ah, no ; the hour is ill 
 Which severs those it should unite ; 
 Let us remain together still, 
 Then it will be good night. 
 
 How can I call the lone night good, 5 
 
 Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ? 
 Be it not said, thought, understood. 
 Then it will be good night. 
 
 To hearts which near each other move 
 
 From evening close to morning light 10 
 
 The night is good ; because, my love. 
 They never say good night. 
 
 1820. 
 
 SONG 
 
 Rarely, rarely, comest thou. 
 
 Spirit of Delight ! 
 Wherefore hast thou left me now 
 
 Many a day and night ? 
 Many a weary night and day 5 
 
 'T is since thou art fled away. 
 
 How shall ever one like me 
 
 Win thee back again ? 
 With the joyous and the free 
 
 Thou wilt scoff at pain. 10 
 
 Spirit false ! thou hast forgot 
 All but those who need thee not. 
 
SONG 149 
 
 As a lizard with the shade 
 
 Of a trembling leaf, 
 Thou with sorrow art dismayed ; 15 
 
 Even the sighs of grief 
 Reproach thee, that thou art not near. 
 And reproach thou wilt not hear. 
 
 Let me set my mournful ditty 
 
 To a merry measure : 20 
 
 Thou wilt never come for pity, 
 
 Thou wilt come for pleasure ; 
 Pity then will cut away 
 Those cruel wings, and thou wilt stay. 
 
 I love all that thou lovest, 25 
 
 Spirit of Delight ! 
 The fresh Earth in new leaves drest, 
 
 And the starry night ; 
 Autumn evening, and the morn 
 When the golden mists are born. 30 
 
 I love snow, and all the forms 
 
 Of the radiant frost ; 
 I love waves, and winds, and storms, 
 
 Everything almost 
 Which is Nature's, and may be 35 
 
 Untainted by man's misery. 
 
 I love tranquil solitude. 
 
 And such society 
 As is quiet, wise, and good ; 
 
 Between thee and me 40 
 
 What difference ? But thou dost possess 
 The things I seek, not love them less. 
 
150 SONG OF PROSERPINE 
 
 I love Love — though he has wings, 
 
 And like light can flee, 
 But, above all other things, 45 
 
 Spirit, I love thee — 
 Thou art love and life ! O come, 
 Make once more my heart thy home! 
 
 1820. 
 
 TO 
 
 I FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden, — 
 
 Thou needest not fear mine ; 
 My spirit is too deeply laden 
 
 Ever to burthen thine. 
 
 I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion, — 5 
 
 Thou needest not fear mine; 
 Innocent is the heart's devotion 
 
 With which I worship thine. 
 
 1820. 
 
 SONG OF PROSERPINE 
 
 WHILST GATHERING FLOWERS ON THE PLAIN OF ENNA 
 
 Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, 
 Thou from whose immortal bosom 
 
 Gods, and men, and beasts have birth. 
 Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom. 
 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 
 If with mists of evening dew 
 
 Thou dost nourish these young flowers 
 
AUTUMN 151 
 
 Till they grow, in scent and hue 
 
 Fairest children of the Hours, 10 
 
 Breathe thine influence most divine 
 On thine own child, Proserpine. 
 1820. 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 A DIRGE 
 
 The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing. 
 The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying ; 
 
 And the year 
 On the earth, her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, 
 Is lying. 5 
 
 Come, months, come away, 
 
 From November to May, 
 
 In your saddest array ; 
 
 Follow the bier 
 
 Of the dead cold year, 10 
 
 And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 
 
 The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling, 
 The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 
 
 For the year ; 
 The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each 
 gone 15 
 
 To his dwelling. 
 Come, months, come away ; 
 Put on white, black, and gray ; 
 Let your light sisters play — 
 Ye, follow the bier 20 
 
 Of the dead cold year, 
 And make her grave green with tear on tear. 
 1820. 
 
152 THE QUESTION 
 
 THE QUESTION 
 
 I DREAMED that, as I wandered by the way, 
 Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring, 
 
 And gentle odours led my steps astray, 
 Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring 
 
 Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay 5 
 
 Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling 
 
 Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, 
 
 But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream. 
 
 There grew pied wind-flowers and violets ; 
 
 Daisies, those pearled Arcturi of the earth ; 10 
 
 The constellated flower that never sets ; 
 
 Faint oxlips ; tender bluebells, at whose birth 
 The sod scarce heaved ; and that tall flower that wets — 
 
 Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth — 
 Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears, 15 
 
 When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears. 
 
 And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine, 
 
 Green cowbind and the moonlight-coloured may. 
 
 And cherry-blossoms, and white cups, whose wine 
 Was the bright dew yet drained not by the Day ; 20 
 
 And wild roses, and ivy serpentine, 
 
 With its dark buds and leaves, wandering astray ; 
 
 And flowers azure, black, and streaked with gold, 
 
 Fairer than any wakened eyes behold. 
 
 And nearer to the river's trembling edge 25 
 
 There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prankt with 
 white ; 
 
 And starry river-buds among the sedge ; 
 And floating water-lilies, broad and bright, 
 
HYMN OF APOLLO 153 
 
 Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge 
 
 With moonlight beams of their own watery light ; 30 
 And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green 
 As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen. 
 
 Methought that of these visionary flowers 
 
 I made a nosegay, bound in such a way 
 That the same hues, which in their natural bowers 35 
 
 Were mingled or opposed, the like array 
 Kept these imprisoned children of the Hours 
 
 Within my hand, — and then, elate and gay, 
 I hastened to the spot whence I had come. 
 That I might there present it ! — O, to whom ? 40 
 
 1820. 
 
 HYMN OF APOLLO 
 
 The sleepless Hours who watch me, as I lie 
 Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries 
 
 From the broad moonlight of the sky. 
 
 Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes, — 
 
 Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn, 5 
 
 Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone. 
 
 Then I arise, and climbing Heaven's blue dome, 
 I walk over the mountains and the waves, 
 
 Leaving my robe upon the ocean-foam ; 
 
 My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves 10 
 
 Are filled with my bright presence ; and the air 
 
 Leaves the green earth to my embraces bare. 
 
 The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill 
 Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day ; 
 
 All men who do or even imagine ill 16 
 
 Fly me, and from the glory of my ray 
 
154 HYMN OF PAN 
 
 Grood minds and open actions take new might, 
 Until diminished by the reign of night. 
 
 I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers, 
 
 , With their sethereal colours ; the Moon's globe 20 
 And the pure stars in their eternal bowers 
 
 Are cinctured with my power as with a robe ; 
 Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine 
 Are portions of one power, which is mine. 
 
 I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven ; 25 
 
 Then with unwilling steps I wander down 
 
 Into the clouds of the Atlantic even ; 
 
 For grief that I depart they weep and frown : 
 
 What look is more delightful than the smile 
 
 With which I soothe them from the western isle? 30 
 
 I am the eye with which the universe 
 Beholds itself and knows itself divine ; 
 
 All harmony of instrument or verse. 
 All prophecy, all medicine, are mine. 
 
 All light of art or nature ; — to my song 35 
 
 Victory and praise in their own right belong. 
 1820. 
 
 HYMN OF PAN 
 
 From the forests and highlands 
 
 We come, we come ; 
 From the river-girt islands. 
 
 Where loud waves are dumb 
 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 5 
 
 The wind in the reeds and the rushes. 
 
 The bees on the bells of thyme, 
 
HYMN OF PAN 155 
 
 The birds on the myrtle-bushes, 
 The eicale above in the lime, 
 And the lizards below in the grass, 10 
 
 Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was, 
 Listening to my sweet pipings. 
 
 Liquid Peneus was flowing, 
 
 And all dark Tempe lay 
 In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing 15 
 
 The light of the dying day. 
 Speeded by my sweet pipings. 
 The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns, 
 
 And the Nymphs of the woods and waves, 
 To the edge of the moist river-lawns, 20 
 
 And the brink of the dewy caves. 
 And all that did then attend and follow. 
 Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo, 
 With envy of my sweet pipings. 
 
 I sang of the dancing stars, 25 
 
 I sang of the daedal Earth, 
 And of Heaven — and the giant wars, 
 
 And Love, and Death, and Birth ; — 
 And then I changed my pipings, — 
 Singing how down the vale of Maenalus 30 
 
 I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed : 
 Gods and men, we are all deluded thus ! 
 
 It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed : 
 All wept, as I think both ye now would. 
 If envy or age had not frozen your blood, 35 
 
 At the sorrow of my sweet pipings. 
 1820. 
 
156 ABETUUSA 
 
 ARETHUSA 
 
 Arethusa arose 
 
 From her couch of snows 
 In the Acroceraiinian mountains, — 
 
 From cloud and from crag, 
 
 With many a jag, 5 
 
 Shepherding her bright fountains. 
 
 She leapt down the rocks, 
 
 With her rainbow locks 
 Streaming among the streams ; 
 
 Her steps paved with green 10 
 
 The downward ravine 
 Which slopes to the western gleams : 
 
 And gliding and springing. 
 
 She went, ever singing 
 In murmurs as soft as sleep. 15 
 
 The Earth seemed to love her, 
 
 And Heaven smiled above her. 
 As she lingered towards the deep. 
 
 Then Alpheus bold. 
 
 On his glacier cold, 20 
 
 With his trident the mountains strook ; 
 
 And opened a chasm 
 
 In the rocks ; — with the spasm 
 All Erymanthus shook. 
 
 And the black south wind 25 
 
 It concealed behind 
 The urns of the silent snow, 
 
 And earthquake and thunder 
 
 Did render in sunder 
 The bars of the springs below : 30 
 
 The beard and the hair 
 
 Of the river-god were 
 
ARETHUSA 157 
 
 Seen through the torrent's sweep, 
 
 As he followed the light 
 
 Of the fleet nymph's flight 35 
 
 To the brink of the Dorian deep. 
 
 " O save me ! O guide me, 
 
 And bid the deep hide me, 
 For he grasps me now by the hair ! " 
 
 The loud Ocean heard, 40 
 
 To its blue depth stirred. 
 And divided at her prayer ; 
 
 And under the water 
 
 The Earth's white daughter 
 Fled like a sunny beam ; 45 
 
 Behind her descended 
 
 Her billows, unblended 
 With the brackish Dorian stream : 
 
 Like a gloomy stain 
 
 On the emerald main 50 
 
 Alpheus rushed behind, — 
 
 As an eagle pursuing 
 
 A dove to its ruin 
 Down the streams of the cloudy wind. 
 
 Under the bowers 56 
 
 Where the Ocean Powers 
 Sit on their pearled thrones ; 
 
 Through the coral woods 
 
 Of the weltering floods ; 
 Over heaps of unvalued stones ; 60 
 
 Through the dim beams 
 
 Which amid the streams 
 Weave a network of coloured light ; 
 
 And under the caves 
 
 Where the shadowy waves 65 
 
168 THE CLOUD 
 
 Are as green as the forest's night: 
 
 Outspeeding the shark, 
 
 And the sword-fish dark, 
 Under the ocean foam, 
 
 And up through the rifts 70 
 
 Of the mountain -clifts 
 They passed to their Dorian home. 
 
 And now from their fountains 
 
 In Enna's mountains, 
 Down one vale where the morning basks, 75 
 
 Like friends once parted 
 
 Grown single-hearted, 
 They ply their watery tasks. 
 
 At sunrise they leap 
 
 From their cradles steep 80 
 
 In the cave of the shelving hill ; 
 
 At noontide they flow 
 
 Through the woods below. 
 And the meadows of asphodel ; 
 
 And at night they sleep 85 
 
 In the rocking deep 
 Beneath the Ortygian shore ; — 
 
 Like spirits that lie 
 
 In the azure sky 
 When they love but live no more. 90 
 
 1820. 
 
 THE CLOUD 
 
 I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers. 
 
 From the seas and the streams ; 
 I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 
 In their noonday dreams. 
 
THE CLOUD 159 
 
 From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5 
 
 The sweet buds every one, 
 When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, 
 
 As she dances about the sun. 
 I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 
 
 And whiten the green plains under, 10 
 
 And then again I dissolve it in rain, 
 
 And laugh as I pass in thunder. 
 
 I sift the snow on the mountains below. 
 
 And their great pines groan aghast ; 
 And all the night 'tis my pillow white, 15 
 
 While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
 Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers, 
 
 Lightning my pilot sits ; 
 In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, 
 
 It struggles and howls at fits ; 20 
 
 Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 
 
 This pilot is guiding me. 
 Lured by the love of the genii that move 
 
 In the depths of the purple sea ; 
 Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 26 
 
 Over the lakes and the plains. 
 Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 
 
 The Spirit he loves remains ; 
 And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 
 
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30 
 
 The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes, 
 And his burning plumes outspread. 
 
 Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. 
 
 When the morning-star shines dead ; 
 
 As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35 
 
 Which an earthquake rocks and swings. 
 
160 THE CLOUD 
 
 An eagle allt one moment may sit 
 
 In the light of its golden wings. 
 And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, 
 
 Its ardours of rest and of love, 40 
 
 And the crimson pall of eve may fall 
 
 From the depth of heaven above, 
 With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest, 
 
 As still as a brooding dove. 
 
 That orbed maiden, with white fire laden, 45 
 
 Whom mortals call the moon, 
 Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, 
 
 By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
 And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, 
 
 Which only the angels hear, 50 
 
 May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, 
 
 The stars peep behind her and peer ; 
 And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, 
 
 Like a swarm of golden bees, 
 When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55 
 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas, 
 Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 
 
 Are each paved with the moon and these. 
 
 I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone. 
 
 And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 60 
 
 The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, 
 
 When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
 From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, 
 
 Over a torrent sea, 
 Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 65 
 
 The mountains its columns be. 
 The triumphal arch through which I march, 
 
 With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
 
TO A SEYLAEK 161 
 
 When the powers of the air are chained to my chair, 
 Is the million-coloured bow ; 70 
 
 The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, 
 
 While the moist earth was laughing below. 
 
 I am the daughter of earth and water. 
 
 And the nursling of the sky ; 
 I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 75 
 
 I change, but I cannot die. 
 For after the rain, when with never a stain 
 
 The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
 And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams. 
 
 Build up the blue dome of air, 80 
 
 I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, 
 
 And out of the caverns of rain. 
 Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 
 
 I arise and unbuild it again. 
 1820. 
 
 TO A SKYLARK 
 
 Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 
 
 Bird thou never wert. 
 That from heaven, or near it, 
 
 Pourest thy full heart 
 In profuse strains of unpremeditated art^ 6 
 
 Higher still and higher 
 
 From the earth thou springest 
 Like a cloud of fire ; 
 
 The blue deep thou wingest, 9 
 
 And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 
 
 In the golden lightning 
 Of the sunken sun. 
 
) 
 
 162 TO A SKYLARK 
 
 O'er which clouds are bright'ning, 
 Thou dost float and run ; 
 Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun. 15 
 
 The pale purple even 
 
 Melts around thy flight ; 
 Like a star of heaven, 
 
 In the broad daylight 
 Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 20 
 
 Keen as are the arrows 
 Of that silver sphere 
 Whose intense lamp narrows 
 In the white dawn clear. 
 Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 25 
 
 All the earth and air 
 
 With thy voice is loud, 
 As, when night is bare. 
 
 From one lonely cloud 
 The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over- 
 flowed. 30 
 
 What thou art we know not ; 
 
 What is most like thee ? 
 From rainbow clouds there flow not 
 Drops so bright to see. 
 As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 35 
 
 Like a poet hidden 
 
 In the light of thought. 
 Singing hymns unbidden. 
 
 Till the world is wrought 
 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 40 
 
TO A SKYLARK 163 
 
 Like a high-born maiden 
 
 In a palace tower, 
 Soothing her love-laden 
 
 Soul in secret hour 44 
 
 With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 
 
 Like a glow-worm golden 
 
 In a dell of dew. 
 Scattering unbeholden 
 
 Its aerial hue 
 Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from 
 the view : 50 
 
 Like a rose embowered 
 
 In its own green leaves, 
 By warm winds deflowered, 
 
 Till the scent it gives 
 Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
 thieves. 55 
 
 Sound of vernal showers 
 
 On the twinkling grass. 
 Rain-awakened flowers, — 
 
 All that ever was 59 
 
 Joyous, and clear, and fresh, — thy music doth surpass. 
 
 Teach us, sprite or bird. 
 
 What sweet thoughts are thine : 
 I have never heard 
 Praise of love or wine 
 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 65 
 
 Chorus Hymenaeal, 
 Or triumphal chaunt. 
 
164 TO A SKYLARK 
 
 Matched with thine would be all 
 But an empty vaunt, — 
 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 
 
 What objects are the fountains 
 
 Of thy happy strain ? 
 What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
 
 What shapes of sky or plain ? 74 
 
 What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain ? 
 
 With thy clear keen joyance 
 
 Languor cannot be : 
 Shadow of annoyance 
 
 Never came near thee : 
 Thou lovest ; but ne*er knew love's sad satiety. 80 
 
 Waking or asleep, 
 
 Thou of death must deem 
 Things more true and deep 
 
 Than we mortals dream, 84 
 
 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 
 
 We look before and after, 
 
 And pine for what is not : 
 Our sincerest laughter 
 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
 
 thought. 90 
 
 Yet if we could scorn 
 
 Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
 If we were things born 
 
 Not to shed a tear, 
 I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 95 
 
ODE TO LIBERTY 165 
 
 Better than all measures 
 
 Of delightful sound, 
 Better than all treasures 
 
 That in books are found, 
 Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 100 
 
 Teach me half the gladness 
 
 That thy brain must know, 
 Such harmonious madness 
 From my lips would flow, 
 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 105 
 1820. 
 
 ODE TO LIBERTY 
 
 Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but flying. 
 
 Streams like a thunder-storm against the wind. — Btron. 
 
 A GLORIOUS people vibrated again 
 
 The lightning of the nations : Liberty, 
 From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er Spain, 
 
 Scattering contagious fire into the sky. 
 Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 5 
 And, in the rapid plumes of song. 
 Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
 As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 
 Hovering inverse o'er its accustomed prey ; 
 
 Till from its station in the heaven of fame 10 
 The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
 Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
 Which paves the void, was from behind it flung. 
 
 As foam from a ship's swiftness ; when there 
 
 came 
 A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. — 
 
166 QBE TO LIBERTY 
 
 II 
 
 " The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth ; 16 
 
 The burning stars of the abyss were hurled 
 Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earthy 
 
 That island in the ocean of the world, 
 Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air ; 20 
 
 But this divinest universe 
 Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
 For thou wert not : but power from worst producing 
 worse. 
 The spirit of the beasts was kindled there. 
 
 And of the birds, and of the watery forms, 25 
 And there was war among them, and despair 
 Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
 The bosom of their violated nurse 
 
 Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms 
 
 on worms. 
 And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of 
 storms. 30 
 
 III 
 
 *' Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 
 
 His generations under the pavilion 
 Of the Sun's throne : palace and pyramid. 
 
 Temple and prison, to many a swarming million 
 Were as to mountain-wolves their ragged caves. 35* 
 This human living multitude 
 Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude. 
 For thou wert not ; but o'er the populous solitude,, 
 Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves^ 
 
 Hung tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 40 
 
 The sister-pest, congregator of slaves ; 
 Into the shadow of her pinions wide, 
 
OBE TO LIBERTY 167 
 
 AnarcBs and priests, who feed on gold and blood, 
 Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 44 
 Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 
 
 IV 
 
 " The nodding promontories, and blue isles. 
 
 And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
 Of Greece basked glorious in the open smiles 
 
 Of favouring heaven ; from their enchanted caves 
 Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 50 
 
 On the unapprehensive wild. 
 The vine, the corn, the olive mild, 
 Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; 
 And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea, 
 
 Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 
 
 Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 56 
 
 Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
 
 Of Parian stone; and, yet a speechless child, 
 
 Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
 
 Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the -^gean 
 
 main 60 
 
 " Athens arose : a city such as vision 
 
 Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
 Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 
 
 Of kingiiest masonry : the ocean-floors 
 Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 65 
 
 Its portals are inhabited 
 By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
 Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded, 
 A divine work I Athens diviner yet 
 
 Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 70 
 Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set ; 
 For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
 
168 ODE TO LIBERTY 
 
 Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
 In marble immortality, that hill 
 Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle. 
 
 VI 
 
 *' Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 76 
 
 Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
 Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
 
 It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
 The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 80 
 
 With an earth- awakening blast 
 Through the caverns of the past ; 
 Religion veils her eyes ; Oppression sinks aghast : 
 A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
 
 Which soars where expectation never flew, 85 
 Rending the veil of space and time asunder I 
 
 One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew ; 
 One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 
 
 With life and love makes chaos ever new, — 89 
 As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 
 
 VII 
 
 *' Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, 
 
 Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmsean Maenad, 
 She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 
 
 From that elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
 And many a deed of terrible uprightness 95 
 
 By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
 And in thy smile, and by thy side. 
 Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died. 
 
 But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness, 
 And gold profaned thy capitolian throne, 100 
 
 Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness, 
 The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 
 
QBE TO LIBERTY 169 
 
 Slaves of one tyrant. Palatinus sighed 
 Faint echoes of Ionian song : that tone 
 Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 105 
 
 VIII 
 
 '' From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill, 
 Or piny promontory of the Arctic main. 
 Or utmost islet inaccessible, 
 
 Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
 Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 110 
 And every Naiad's ice-cold urn. 
 To talk in echoes sad and stern. 
 Of that sublimest lore which man had dared unlearn? 
 For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 
 Of the Scald's dreams, nor haunt the Druid's 
 sleep. 115 
 
 What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
 Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not 
 weep. 
 When from its sea of death to kill and burn. 
 The Galilean serpent forth did creep. 
 And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 
 
 IX 
 
 "A thousand years the Earth cried, Where art thou? 
 
 And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
 On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow : 
 
 And many a warrior-peopled citadel. 
 Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep, 125 
 Arose in sacred Italy, 
 Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
 Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
 majesty ; 
 That multitudinous anarchy did sweep 
 
 And burst around their walls like idle foam, 130 
 
170 ODE TO LIBEBTY 
 
 Whilst from the human spirit's deepest deep, 
 Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
 Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die, 
 With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
 Fit imagery to pave heaven's everlasting dome. 135 
 
 " Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
 Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
 Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 
 
 As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
 In the calm regions of the orient day ! 140 
 
 Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
 Like lightning from his leaden lance 
 Reflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
 
 In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 144 
 
 And England's prophets hailed thee as their 
 queen. 
 In songs whose music cannot pass away. 
 Though it must flow for ever : not unseen 
 Before the spirit-sighted countenance 
 
 Of Milton didst thou pass, from the sad scene 149 
 Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 
 
 XI 
 
 " The eager hours and unreluctant years 
 
 As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood. 
 Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, 
 
 Darkening each other with their multitude. 
 And cried aloud, Liberty ! Indignation 155 
 
 Answered Pity from her cave ; 
 Death grew pale within the grave. 
 And Desolation howled to the destroyer, Save ! 
 When, like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 
 
ODE TO LIBERTY 171 
 
 Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise, 160 
 Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 
 
 Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
 At dreaming midnight o'er the western wave, 
 Men started, staggering with a glad surprise. 
 Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 165 
 
 XII 
 
 " Thou heaven of earth ! what spells could pall thee 
 then. 
 In ominous eclipse ? A thousand years, 
 Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den, 
 
 Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears. 
 Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away ; 170 
 How like Bacchanals of blood, 
 Round France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
 Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood ! 
 When one, like them, but mightier far than they. 
 
 The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers, 175 
 Rose : armies mingled in obscure array, 
 
 Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred 
 bowers 
 Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued. 
 Rests with those dead but unforgotten hours. 
 Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
 towers. 180 
 
 XIII 
 
 " England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 
 
 Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
 Vesuvius wakens ^tna, and the cold 
 
 Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder: 
 O'er the lit waves every JEolian isle 185 
 
 From Pitheciisa to Pelorus 
 Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
 
172 ODE TO LIBERTY 
 
 They cry, Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended 
 o'er us ! 
 Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile 
 And they dissolve ; but Spain's were links of 
 steel, 
 Till bit to dust by virtue's keenest file. 191 
 
 Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
 To the eternal years enthroned before us, 
 In the dim West, impress us from a seal, 
 All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare 
 conceal. 195 
 
 XIV 
 
 " Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead, 
 
 Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
 His soul may stream over the tyrant's head ! 
 
 Thy victory shall be his epitaph ! 
 Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine, 200 
 
 King-deluded Germany, 
 His dead spirit lives in thee. 
 Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
 And thou, lost paradise of this divine 
 
 And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 205 
 Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 
 
 Where desolation, clothed with loveliness. 
 Worships the thing thou wert ! O Italy, 
 
 Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 209 
 
 The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces ! 
 
 XV 
 
 " O that the free would stamp the impious name 
 Of King into the dust ; or write it there. 
 
 So that this blot upon the page of fame 
 
 Were as a serpent's path, which the light air 
 
OLE TO LIBERTY 173 
 
 Erases, and the fiat sands close behind ! 215 
 
 Ye the oracle have heard : 
 Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
 And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word, 
 Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 
 
 Into a mass, irrefragably firm 220 
 
 The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
 The sound has poison in it ; 't is the sperm 
 Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
 Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term, 224 
 
 To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 
 
 XVI 
 
 " O that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 
 
 Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
 That the pale name of Priest might shrink and 
 dwindle 
 Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
 A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure ; 230 
 
 Till human thoughts might kneel alone, 
 Each before the judgment-throne 
 Of its own aweless soul, or of the power unknown ! 
 O that the words which make the thoughts obscure 
 From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering 
 dew 235 
 
 From a white lake blot heaven's blue portraiture. 
 Were stript of their thin masks and various 
 hue. 
 And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own, 
 Till in the nakedness of false and true 
 They stand before their Lord, each to receive its 
 due ! 240 
 
174 ODE TO LIBERTY 
 
 XVII 
 
 " He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 
 
 Can be between the cradle and the grave, 
 Crowned him the King of Life. O vain endeavour ! 
 
 If on his own high will, a willing slave, 244 
 
 He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor! 
 What if earth can clothe and feed 
 Amplest millions at their need, 
 And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
 Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor. 
 
 Driving on fiery wings to Nature's throne, 250 
 Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
 And cries. Give me, thy child, dominion 
 Over all height and depth ! if Life can breed 
 
 New wants, and wealth from those who toil and 
 groan, 254 
 
 Rend, of thy gifts and hers, a thousandfold for 
 one! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 " Come thou, but lead out of the inmost cave 
 
 Of man's deep spirit, as the morning-star 
 Beckons the sun from the Eoan wave, 
 
 Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car 
 Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ; 260 
 
 Comes she not, and come ye not. 
 Rulers of eternal thought. 
 To judge with solemn truth life's ill-apportioned 
 lot,— 
 Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 
 
 Of what has been, the Hope of what will be ? 265 
 O, Liberty ! if such could be thy name 
 
 Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from 
 thee; 
 
TEE SENSITIVE PLANT 175 
 
 If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
 By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
 Wept tears, and blood like tears?" — The solemn 
 harmony 270 
 
 XIX 
 
 Paused, and the spirit of that mighty singing 
 
 To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
 Then as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
 
 Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn, 
 Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 275 
 On the heavy-sounding plain, 
 When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
 As summer clouds dissolve, unburdened of their rain ; 
 As a far taper fades with fading night ; 
 
 As a brief insect dies with dying day, — 280 
 
 My song, its pinions disarrayed of might, 
 Drooped ; o'er it closed the echoes far away 
 Of the great voice which did its flight sustain, 
 As waves which lately paved his watery way 
 Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous 
 play. 285 
 
 1820. 
 
 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 PART I 
 
 A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew, 
 And the young winds fed it with silver dew. 
 And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light. 
 And closed them beneath the kisses of night. 
 
 And the Spring arose on the garden fair, 5 
 
 Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere ; 
 
176 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 And each flower and herb on earth's dark breast 
 Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest. 
 
 But none ever trembled and panted with bliss 
 
 In the garden, the field, or the wilderness, 10 
 
 Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet 
 
 want. 
 As the companionless Sensitive Plant. 
 
 The snowdrop, and then the violet. 
 
 Arose from the ground with warm rain wet, 14 
 
 And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, 
 
 sent 
 From the turf, like the voice and the instrument. 
 
 Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall, 
 And narcissi, the fairest among them all. 
 Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess 
 Till they die of their own dear loveliness, 20 
 
 And the Naiad-like lily of the vale, 
 Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale, 
 That the light of its tremulous bells is seen 
 Through their pavilions of tender green ; 
 
 And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue, 25 
 Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew 
 Of music so delicate, soft, and intense. 
 It was felt like an odour within the sense ; 
 
 And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest, 29 
 Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast, 
 Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air 
 The soul of her beauty and love lay bare ; 
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT 177 
 
 And the wand-like lily, which lifted up, 
 
 As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup, 
 
 Till the fiery star, which is its eye, 35 
 
 Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky ; 
 
 And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose — 
 
 The sweetest flower for scent that blows — 
 
 And all rare blossoms from every clime. 
 
 Grew in that garden in perfect prime. 40 
 
 And on the stream whose inconstant bosom 
 Was prankt, under boughs of embowering blossom, 
 With golden and green light, slanting through 
 Their heaven of many a tangled hue. 
 
 Broad water-lilies lay tremulously, 45 
 
 And starry river-buds glimmered by. 
 
 And around them the soft stream did glide and 
 
 dance 
 With a motion of sweet sound and radiance. 
 
 And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss. 
 Which led through the garden along and across, 50 
 Some open at once to the sun and the breeze. 
 Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees. 
 
 Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells. 
 
 As fair as the famous asphodels, 
 
 And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too, 55 
 
 Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue. 
 
 To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew. 
 
 And from this undefiled Paradise 
 
 The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes 
 
178 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet 60 
 
 Can first luU^ and at last must awaken it), 
 
 When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them 
 
 As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem, 
 
 Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one 
 
 Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun ; 65 
 
 For each one was interpenetrated 
 With the light and the odour its neighbour shed, 
 Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear 
 Wrapt and filled by their mutual atmosphere. 
 
 But the Sensitive Plant, which could give small 
 fruit 70 
 
 Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root. 
 Received more than all, it loved more than ever, 
 Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver ; 
 
 For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower : 
 Radiance and odour are not its dower ; 75 
 
 It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full ; 
 It desires what it has not, the Beautiful ! 
 
 The light winds, which from unsustaining wings 
 Shed the music of many murmurings ; 
 The beams which dart from many a star 80 
 
 Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar ; 
 
 The plumed insects swift and free. 
 
 Like golden boats on a sunny sea. 
 
 Laden with light and odour, which pass 
 
 Over the gleam of the living grass ; 85 
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT 179 
 
 The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie 
 Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high, 
 Then wander like spirits among the spheres, 
 Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears ; 
 
 The quivering vapours of dim noontide, 90 
 
 Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide, 
 In which every sound, and odour, and beam, 
 Move, as reeds in a single stream ; — 
 
 Each and all like ministering angels were 
 For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear, 95 
 
 Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by 
 Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky. 
 
 And when evening descended from Heaven above. 
 And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love. 
 And delight, though less bright, was far more deep. 
 And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep, 101 
 
 And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were 
 
 drowned 
 In an ocean of dreams without a sound. 
 Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress 
 The light sand which paves it, consciousness ; 105 
 
 (Only overhead the sweet nightingale 
 
 Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail, 
 
 And snatches of its Elysian chant 
 
 Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant.) 
 
 The Sensitive Plant was the earliest 110 
 
 Upgathered into the bosom of rest : 
 A sweet child weary of its delight, 
 
180 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 The feeblest and yet the favourite, 
 Cradled within the embrace of night. 
 
 PART II 
 
 There was a Power in this sweet place, 115 
 
 An Eve in this Eden ; a ruling grace 
 Which to the flowers, did they waken or dream, 
 Was as God is to the starry scheme : 
 
 A Lady, the wonder of her kind, 
 
 Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind, 120 
 
 Which, dilating, had moulded her mien and motion 
 Like a sea-flower unfolded beneath the ocean, 
 
 Tended the garden from morn to even : 
 
 And the meteors of that sublunar heaven. 
 
 Like the lamps of the air when night walks forth, 125 
 
 Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth! 
 
 She had no companion of mortal race. 
 
 But her tremulous breath and her flushing face 
 
 Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her 
 
 eyes. 
 That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise : 130 
 
 As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake 
 
 Had deserted heaven while the stars were awake, 
 
 As if yet around her he lingering were, 
 
 Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her. 
 
 Her step seemed to pity the grass it prest; 135 
 
 You might hear, by the heaving of her breast. 
 That the coming and going of the wind 
 Brought pleasure there, and left passion behind. 
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT 181 
 
 And wherever her airy footstep trod, 
 Her trailing hair from the grassy sod 140 
 
 Erased its light vestige, with shadowy sweep, 
 Like a sunny storm o'er the dark green deep. 
 
 I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet 
 Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet ; 
 I doubt not they felt the spirit that came 145 
 
 From her glowing fingers through all their frame. 
 
 She sprinkled bright water from the stream 
 
 On those that were faint with the sunny beam ; 
 
 And out of the cups of the heavy flowers 
 
 She emptied the rain of the thunder-showers. 150 
 
 She lifted their heads with her tender hands, 
 And sustained them with rods and osier bands ; 
 If the flowers had been her own infants, she 
 Could never have nursed them more tenderly. 
 
 And all killing insects and gnawing worms, 155 
 
 And things of obscene and unlovely forms, 
 She bore in a basket of Indian woof. 
 Into the rough woods far aloof, — 
 
 In a basket, of grasses and wild flowers full, 
 The freshest her gentle hands could pull 160 
 
 For the poor banished insects, whose intent. 
 Although they did ill, was innocent. 
 
 But the bee, and the beamlike ephemeris 
 Whose path is the lightning's, and soft moths that kiss 
 The sweet lips of the flowers, and harm not, did she 
 Make her attendant angels be. 166 
 
182 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 And many an antenatal tomb, 
 
 Where butterflies dream of the life to come, 
 
 She left clinging round the smooth and dark 
 
 Edge of the odorous cedar bark. 170 
 
 This fairest creature from earliest spring 
 Thus moved through the garden ministering 
 All the sweet season of summer tide, 
 And ere the first leaf looked brown — she died ! 
 
 PART III 
 
 Three days the flowers of the garden fair, 175 
 
 Like stars when the moon is awakened, were. 
 
 Or the waves of Baise, ere luminous 
 
 She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius. 
 
 And on the fourth, the Sensitive Plant 
 Felt the sound of the funeral chant, 180 
 
 And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow, 
 And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low ; 
 
 The weary sound and the heavy breath, 
 
 And the silent motions of passing death, 
 
 And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank, 185 
 
 Sent through the pores of the cofiin plank. 
 
 The dark grass, and the flowers among the grass, 
 Were bright with tears as the crowd did pass ; 
 From their sighs the wind caught a mournful tone, 
 And sate in the pines, and gave groan for groan. 190 
 
 The garden, once fair, became cold and foul. 
 Like the corpse of her who had been its soul : 
 Which at first was lovely as if in sleep, 
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT 183 
 
 Then slowly changed, till it grew a heap 
 
 To make men tremble who never weep. 195 
 
 Swift summer into the autumn flowed, 
 And frost in the mist of the morning rode, 
 Though the noonday sun looked clear and bright, 
 Mocking the spoil of the secret night. 
 
 The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow, 200 
 
 Paved the turf and the moss below. 
 The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan, 
 Like the head and the skin of a dying man. 
 
 And Indian plants, of scent and hue 
 
 The sweetest that ever were fed on dew, 205 
 
 Leaf after leaf, day after day. 
 
 Were massed into the common clay. 
 
 And the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red. 
 And white with the whiteness of what is dead, 
 Like troops of ghosts on the dry wind past ; 210 
 
 Their whistling noise made the birds aghast. 
 
 And the gusty winds waked the winged seeds 
 
 Out of their birthplace of ugly weeds, 
 
 Till they clung round many a sweet flower's stem, 
 
 Which rotted into the earth with them. 215 
 
 The water-blooms under the rivulet 
 Fell from the stalks on which they were set , 
 And the eddies drove them here and there, 
 As the winds did those of the upper air. 
 
 Then the rain came down, and the broken stalks 220 
 Were bent and tangled across the walks ; 
 
184 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 And the leafless network of parasite bowers 
 Massed into ruin, and all sweet flowers. 
 
 Between the time of the wind and the snow, 
 All loathliest weeds began to grow, 225 
 
 Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck, 
 Like the water-snake's belly and the toad's back. 
 
 And thistles, and nettles, and darnels rank. 
 And the dock, and henbane, and hemlock dank. 
 Stretched out its long and hollow shank, 230 
 
 And stifled the air till the dead wind stank. 
 
 And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath. 
 Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth. 
 Prickly, and pulpous, and blistering, and blue. 
 Livid, and starred with a lurid dew. 235 
 
 And agarics and fungi, with mildew and mould, 
 Started like mist from the wet ground cold ; 
 Pale, fleshy, as if the decaying dead 
 With a spirit of growth had been animated ! 
 
 Their moss rotted off them, flake by flake, 240 
 
 Till the thick stalk stuck like a murderer's stake, 
 Where rags of loose flesh yet tremble on high. 
 Infecting the winds that wander by. 
 
 Spawn, weeds, and filth, a leprous scum, 
 
 Made the running rivulet thick and dumb, 245 
 
 And at its outlet, flags huge as stakes 
 
 Dammed it up with roots knotted like water-snakes. 
 
 And hour by hour, when the air was still, 
 The vapours arose which have strength to kill : 
 
THE SENSITIVE PLANT 185 
 
 At morn they were seen, at noon they were felt, 250 
 At night they were darkness no star could melt. 
 
 And unctuous meteors from spray to spray 
 
 Crept and flitted in broad noonday 
 
 Unseen ; every branch on which they alit 
 
 By a venomous blight was burned and bit. 255 
 
 The Sensitive Plant, like one forbid, 
 Wept, and the tears within each lid 
 Of its folded leaves which together grew, 
 Were changed to a blight of frozen glue. 
 
 For the leaves soon fell, and the branches soon 260 
 By the heavy axe of the blast were hewn ; 
 The sap shrank to the root through every pore, 
 As blood to a heart that will beat no more. 
 
 For Winter came : The wind was his whip ; 
 
 One choppy finger was on his lip ; 265 
 
 He had torn the cataracts from the hills, 
 
 And they clanked at his girdle like manacles ; 
 
 His breath was a chain which without a sound 
 The earth, and the air, and the water bound ; 
 He came, fiercely driven in his chariot-throne 270 
 
 By the tenfold blasts of the Arctic zone. 
 
 Then the weeds which were forms of living death 
 
 Fled from the frost to the earth beneath ; 
 
 Their decay and sudden flight from frost 
 
 Was but like the vanishing of a ghost ! 275 
 
 And under the roots of the Sensitive Plant 
 The moles and the dormice died for want : 
 
186 THE SENSITIVE PLANT 
 
 The birds dropped stiff from the frozen air, 
 
 And were caught in the branches naked and bare. 
 
 First there came down a thawing rain 280 
 
 And its dull drops froze on the boughs again ; 
 Then there steamed up a freezing dew 
 Which to the drops of the thaw-rain grew ; 
 
 And a northern whirlwind, wandering about 
 Like a wolf that had smelt a dead child out, 285 
 
 Shook the boughs, thus laden, and heavy and stiff, 
 And snapped them off with his rigid grift\ 
 
 When winter had gone and spring came back, 
 The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck ; 
 But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and 
 darnels, 290 
 
 Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels. 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
 
 Which within its boughs like a spirit sat 
 
 Ere its outward form had known decay, 
 
 Now felt this change, I cannot say. 295 
 
 Whether that lady's gentle mind. 
 No longer with the form combined 
 Which scattered love, as stars do light. 
 Found sadness, where it left delight, 
 
 I dare not guess ; but in this life 300 
 
 Of error, ignorance, and strife. 
 Where nothing is, but all things seem. 
 And we the shadows of the dream, 
 
BIEGE FOR THE YEAR 187 
 
 It is a modest creed, and yet 
 
 Pleasant, if one considers it^ 305 
 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
 That garden sweet, that lady fair, 
 
 And all sweet shapes and odours there, 
 
 In truth have never past away : 310 
 
 'T is we, 't is ours, are changed ; not they. 
 
 For love, and beauty, and delight, 
 
 There is no death nor change ; their might 
 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 
 No light, being themselves obscure. 315 
 
 1820. 
 
 DIRGE FOR THE YEAR 
 
 Orphan hours, the year is dead, 
 
 Come and sigh, come and weep ! 
 Merry hours, smile instead, 
 
 For the year is but asleep : 
 See, it smiles as it is sleeping, 5 
 
 Mocking your untimely weeping. 
 
 As an earthquake rocks a corse 
 
 In its coffin in the clay. 
 So white Winter, that rough nurse, 
 
 Rocks the death-cold year to-day ; 10 
 
 Solemn hours ! wail aloud 
 For your mother in her shroud. 
 
 As the wild air stirs and sways 
 The tree-swung cradle of a child, 
 
188 TO NIGHT 
 
 So the breath of these rude days 15 
 
 Rocks the year : — be calm and mild, 
 Trembling hours ; she will arise 
 With new love within her eyes. 
 
 January gray is here. 
 
 Like a sexton by her grave ; 20 
 
 February bears the bier, 
 
 March with grief doth howl and rave, 
 And April weeps — but, O ye hours ! 
 Follow with May's fairest flowers. 
 
 January 1, 1821. 
 
 TO NIGHT 
 
 Swiftly walk over the western wave. 
 
 Spirit of Night ! 
 Out of the misty eastern cave, 
 . Where all the long and lone daylight 
 Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, 5 
 
 Which make thee terrible and dear, — 
 
 Swift be thy flight ! 
 
 Wrap thy form in a mantle gray. 
 
 Star-inwrought! 
 Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day, 10 
 
 Kiss her until she be wearied out, 
 Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land, 
 Touching all with thine opiate wand — 
 
 Come, long-sought ! 
 
 When I arose and saw the dawn, 15 
 
 I sighed for thee ; 
 When light rode high, and the dew was gone, 
 
SONNET TO BYRON 189 
 
 And noon lay heavy on flower and tree, 
 And the weary Day turned to his rest, 
 Lingering like an unloved guest, 20 
 
 I sighed for thee. 
 
 Thy brother Death came, and cried : 
 
 Wouldst thou me ? 
 Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed, 
 Murmured like a noontide bee : 25 
 
 Shall I nestle near thy side ? 
 Wouldst thou me ? — And I replied : 
 
 No, not thee ! 
 
 Death will come when thou art dead. 
 
 Soon, too soon — 30 
 
 Sleep will come when thou art fled ; 
 
 Of neither would I ask the boon 
 
 I ask of thee, beloved Night — 
 
 Swift be thine approaching flight. 
 
 Come soon, soon ! 35 
 
 1821. 
 
 SONNET TO BYRON 
 
 [I AM afraid these verses will not please you, but] 
 If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill 
 
 Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair 
 The ministration of the thoughts that fill 
 
 The mind which, like a worm whose life may share 
 A portion of the unapproachable, 5 
 
 Marks your creations rise as fast and fair 
 As perfect worlds at the Creator's will. 
 But such is my regard that nor your power 
 
 To soar above the heights where others [climb], 
 
190 TO EMILIA VIVIANI 
 
 Nor fame, that shadow of the unborn hour 10 
 
 Cast from the envious future on the time, 
 Move one regret for his unhonoured name 
 
 Who dares these words : — the worm beneath the sod 
 
 May lift itself in homage of the God. 
 1821. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Far, far away, O ye 
 
 Halycons of memory! 
 Seek some far calmer nest 
 Than this abandoned breast ; 
 No news of your false spring 5 
 
 To my heart's winter bring ; 
 Once having gone, in vain 
 
 Ye come again. 
 
 II 
 
 Vultures, who build your bowers 
 
 High in the future's towers! 10 
 
 Withered hopes on hopes are spread ; 
 
 Dying joys, choked by the dead. 
 
 Will serve your beaks for prey 
 
 Many a day. 
 1821. 
 
 TO EMILIA VIVIANI 
 
 Madonna, wherefore hast thou sent to me 
 
 Sweet-basil and mignonette ? 
 Embleming love and health, which never yet 
 In the same wreath might be. 
 
 Alas, and they are wet I 5 
 
TO 191 
 
 Is it with thy kisses or thy tears? 
 
 For never rain nor dew 
 
 Such fragrance drew 
 From plant or flower — ^ the very doubt endears 
 
 My sadness ever new, 10 
 
 The sighs I breathe, the tears I shed, for thee. 
 
 Send the stars light, but send not love to me, 
 
 In whom love ever made 
 Health like a heap of embers soon to fade. 
 March, 1821. 
 
 TO 
 
 Music, when soft voices die. 
 Vibrates in the memory ; 
 Odours, when sweet violets sicken, 
 Live within the sense they quicken ; 
 
 Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead. 
 Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
 And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
 Love itself shall slumber on. 
 1821. 
 
 TO 
 
 One word is too often profaned 
 
 For me to profane it. 
 One feeling too falsely disdained 
 
 For thee to disdain it ; 
 One hope is too like despair 
 
 For prudence to smother. 
 And Pity from thee more dear 
 
 Than that from another. 
 
192 TO 
 
 I can give not what men call love, 
 
 But wilt thou accept not 10 
 
 The worship the heart lifts above 
 
 And the Heavens reject not, — 
 The desire of the moth for the star. 
 
 Of the night for the morrow, 
 The devotion to something afar 15 
 
 From the sphere of our sorrow ? 
 1821. 
 
 TO 
 
 When passion's trance is overpast, 
 
 If tenderness and truth could last 
 
 Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep 
 
 Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, 
 
 I should not weep, I should not weep ! 5 
 
 It were enough to feel, to see 
 
 Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly. 
 
 And dream the rest — and burn and be 
 
 The secret food of fires unseen. 
 
 Could st thou but be as thou hast been. 10 
 
 After the slumber of the year 
 The woodland violets reappear ; 
 All things revive in field or grove 
 And sky and sea, but two, which move 
 And form all others, life and love. 15 
 
 1821. 
 
MUTABILITY 193 
 
 BRIDAL SONG 
 
 The golden gates of sleep unbar 
 
 Where strength and beauty, met together, 
 Kindle their image like a star 
 
 In a sea of glassy weather ! 
 Night, with all thy stars look down ; 6 
 
 Darkness, weep thy holiest dew ; — 
 Never smiled the inconstant moon 
 
 On a pair so true. 
 Let eyes not see their own delight ; 
 Haste, swift hour, and thy flight 10 
 
 Oft renew. 
 
 II 
 
 Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her ! 
 
 Holy stars, permit no wrong I 
 And return to wake the sleeper, 
 
 Dawn, — ere it be long. 15 
 
 O joy ! O fear ! what will be done 
 In the absence of the sun I 
 Come along ! 
 1821. 
 
 MUTABILITY 
 
 The flower that smiles to-day 
 
 To-morrow dies ; 
 All that we wish to stay. 
 
 Tempts and then flies. 
 What is this world's delight ? 5 
 
 Lightning that mocks the night. 
 Brief even as bright. 
 
194 SONNET 
 
 Virtue, how frail it is ! 
 
 Friendship, how rare ! 
 Love, how it sells poor bliss 10 
 
 For proud despair ! 
 But we, though soon they fall, 
 Survive their joy and all 
 Which ours we call. 
 
 Whilst skies are blue and bright, 15 
 
 Whilst flowers are gay. 
 Whilst eyes that change ere night 
 
 Make glad the day. 
 Whilst yet the calm hours creep. 
 Dream thou — and from thy sleep 20 
 
 Then wake to weep. 
 1821. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 POLITICAL GREATNESS 
 
 Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame, 
 
 Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts, 
 Shepherd those herds whom tyranny makes tame : — 
 
 Verse echoes not one beating of their hearts ; 
 History is but the shadow of their shame ; 5 
 
 Art veils her glass, or from the pageant starts. 
 As to oblivion their blind millions fleet. 
 
 Staining that Heaven with obscene imagery 
 Of their own likeness. What are numbers, knit 
 
 By force or custom ? Man who man would be, 10 
 Must rule the empire of himself ! in it 
 Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
 
 On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
 Of hopes and fears, being himself alone. 
 
 1821. 
 
A LAMENT 195 
 
 TO-MORROW 
 
 Where art thou, beloved To-morrow ? 
 
 When young and old, and strong and weak, 
 Rich and poor, through joy and sorrow, 
 
 Thy sweet smiles we ever seek, — 
 In thy place — ah ! well-a-day ! 5 
 
 We find the thing we fled — To-day. 
 
 1821. 
 
 A LAMENT 
 
 O World ! O Life ! O Time ! 
 On whose last steps I climb. 
 
 Trembling at that where I had stood before ; 
 When will return the glory of your prime ? 
 
 No more — oh, never more ! 5 
 
 Out of the day and night 
 A joy has taken flight ; 
 
 Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, 
 Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight 
 No more — oh, never more ! 10 
 
 1821. 
 
 A LAMENT 
 
 Swifter far than summer's flight. 
 Swifter far than youth's delight, 
 Swifter far than happy night, 
 
 Art thou come and gone : 
 As the earth when leaves are dead, 6 
 
 As the night when sleep is sped, 
 As the heart when joy is fled, 
 
 I am left alone, alone. 
 
196 A LAMENT 
 
 The swallow Summer comes again, 
 
 The owlet Night resumes her reign, 10 
 
 But the wild swan Youth is fain 
 
 To fly with thee, false as thou : 
 My heart each day desires the morrow. 
 Sleep itself is turned to sorrow ; 
 Vainly would my winter borrow 15 
 
 Sunny leaves from any bough. 
 
 Lilies for a bridal bed, 
 Roses for a matron's head, 
 Violets for a maiden dead ; 
 
 Pansies let my flowers be : 20 
 
 On the living grave I bear, 
 Scatter them without a tear ; 
 Let no friend, however dear, 
 
 Waste one hope, one fear for me. 
 1821. 
 
ADONAIS 
 
 AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS 
 PREFACE 
 
 ^dpfJLaKOV ^A0e, BtW, totI (TOv (XTOfxa, ^dpfiaKcv elSe? 
 IIw? rev TOts x^^^^^^*- TToreSpa/ae, kouk eykvKdvdrj ; 
 Tts 6e ^poTOS TocrcrovTOi/ avafxepo^, r} Kepdaai rot, 
 \ *H fiovi/at AaAeoi'Tt to <pa.pp.aKOv ; e/c^uyej/ wfiav. 
 
 MoscHUS, Epitaph. Bion. 
 
 It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this poem 
 a criticism upon the claims of its lamented object to be classed 
 among the writers of the highest genius who have adorned our 
 age. My known repugnance to the narrow principles of taste on 
 which several of his earlier compositions were modelled, proves, 
 at least, that I am an impartial judge. I consider the fragment 
 of Hyperion as second to nothing that was ever produced by a 
 writer of the same years. 
 
 John Keats died at Rome of a consumption, in his twenty- 
 fourth year, on the 23d of February, 1821 ; and was buried in 
 the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, 
 under the pyramid which is the tomb of Cestius, and the massy 
 walls and towers, now mouldering and desolate, which formed 
 the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery is an open space 
 among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It 
 might make one in love with death, to think that one should be 
 buried in so sweet a place. 
 
 The genius of the lamented person to whose memory I have 
 dedicated these unworthy verses, was not less delicate and fragile 
 than it was beautiful ; and, where canker-worms abound, what 
 wonder if its young flower was blighted in the bud ? The savage 
 criticism on his Endymioriy which appeared in the Quarterly Re- 
 view, produced the most violent effect on his susceptible mind; 
 the agitation thus originated ended in the rupture of a blood- 
 vessel in the lungs ; a rapid consumption ensued ; and the suc- 
 ceeding acknowledgments from more candid critics, of the true 
 greatness of his powers, were ineffectual to heal the wound thus 
 wantonly inflicted. 
 
198 ADONAIS 
 
 It may be well said that these wretched men know not what 
 they do. They scatter their insults and their slanders without 
 heed as to whether the poisoned shaft lights on a heart made 
 callous by many blows, or one, like Keats's, composed of more 
 penetrable stuff. One of their associates is, to my knowledge, a 
 most base and unprincipled calumniator. As to Endymion, was 
 it a poem, whatever might be its defects, to be treated contemptu- 
 ously by those who had celebrated with various degrees of com- 
 placency and panegyric, Paris, and Woman, and A Syrian Tale, 
 and Mrs. Lefanu, and Mr. Barrett, and Mr. Howard Payne, and 
 a long list of the illustrious obscure? Are these the men who, 
 in their venal good-nature, presumed to draw a parallel between 
 the Rev. Mr. Milman and Lord Byron? What gnat did they 
 strain at here, after having swallowed all those camels? Against 
 what woman taken in adultery dares the foremost of these literary 
 prostitutes to cast his opprobrious stone ? Miserable man ! you, 
 one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest 
 specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your ex- 
 cuse, that, murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but 
 used none. 
 
 The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats's life 
 were not made known to me until the Elegy was ready for the 
 press. I am given to understand that the wound which his sen- 
 sitive spirit had received from the criticism of Endymion was 
 exasperated by the bitter sense of unrequited benefits ; the poor 
 fellow seems to have been hooted from the stage of life, no 
 less by those on whom he had wasted the promise of his genius, 
 than those on whom he had lavished his fortune and his care. He 
 was accompanied to Rome, and attended in his last illness by Mr. 
 Severn, a young artist of the highest promise, who, I have been 
 informed, " almost risked his own life, and sacrificed every pros- 
 pect to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend." Had I 
 known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, 
 I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause 
 to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in 
 the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense 
 with a reward from "such stuff as dreams are made of." His 
 conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career — 
 may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the 
 creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name I 
 
ADONAIS 199 
 
 'Ao"Tr7p irplv fikv eAa/XTre? ivi ^^oktlv ewo?. 
 NOi/ Se davoiv Aa/Airets eo-Trepo? ev (/>di/u,eVoi9. 
 
 Plato. 
 
 I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! 
 Oh, weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
 Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
 And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
 To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5 
 And teach them thine own sorrow! Say : " With me 
 Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
 Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
 An echo and a light unto eternity ! " 
 
 II 
 
 Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10 
 When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
 In darkness ? Where was lorn Urania 
 When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
 'Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
 She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15 
 Rekindled all the fading melodies 
 With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
 He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Oh, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
 Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 20 
 
 Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
 Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep. 
 Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
 For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
 Descend : — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
 Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 26 
 
 Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair. 
 
200 ADONAIS 
 
 ,j0^ IV 
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
 Lament anew, Urania ! — He died. 
 Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30 
 
 Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
 The priest, the slave, and the liberticide. 
 Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
 Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified, 
 Into the gulf of death ; but his clear Sprite 35 
 
 Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons of 
 light. 
 
 Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
 Not all to that bright station dared to climb : 
 And happier they their happiness who knew, 
 Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40 
 In which suns perished ; others more sublime. 
 Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
 Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
 And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
 Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene 
 abode. 45 
 
 VI 
 
 But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished. 
 The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew. 
 Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished. 
 And fed with true-love tears instead of dew ; 
 Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 50 
 
 Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last. 
 The bloom, whose petals, nipt before they blew, 
 Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 
 The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. 
 
ADONAIS 201 
 
 VII 
 
 To that high capital, where kingly Death 55 
 
 Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, 
 He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, 
 A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
 Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 
 Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still 60 
 
 He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay ; 
 Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 
 Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. 
 
 VIII 
 
 He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 
 Within the twilight chamber spreads apace . 65 
 
 The shadow of white Death, and at the door 
 Invisible Corruption waits to trace 
 His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; 
 The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe 
 Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface 70 
 So fair a prey, till darkness and the law 
 Of change, shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain 
 draw. 
 
 IX 
 
 Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 
 The passion-winged ministers of thought. 
 Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 75 
 Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught 
 The love which was its music, wander not, — 
 Wander no more, from kindling brain to brain. 
 But droop there, whence they sprung; and mourn 
 their lot 79 
 
 Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain. 
 They ne'er will gather strength, or find a home again. 
 
202 ADONAIS 
 
 , X 
 
 And one with trembling hands clasps his cold 
 
 head, 
 And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries : 
 " Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; 
 See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, 85 
 
 Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies 
 A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." 
 Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! 
 She knew not 't was her own ; as with no stain 
 She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. 90 
 
 XI 
 
 One from a lucid urn of starry dew 
 Washed his light limbs, as if embalming them ; 
 Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
 The wreath upon him, like an anadem 
 Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 95 
 Another in her wilful grief would break 
 Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
 A greater loss with one which was more weak ; 
 And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 
 
 XII 
 
 Another Splendour on his mouth alit, 100 
 
 That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath 
 Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, 
 And pass into the panting heart beneath 
 With lightning and with music : the damp death 
 Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; 105 
 
 And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath 
 Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips. 
 It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its 
 eclipse. 
 
ADONAIS 203 
 
 XIII 
 
 And others came : Desires and Adorations, 
 Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 110 
 
 Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering incarna- 
 tions 
 Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Fantasies, 
 And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, 
 And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam 
 Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, 115 
 
 Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem 
 Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 
 
 XIV 
 
 All he had loved and moulded into thought 
 From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound. 
 Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 120 
 
 Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, 
 Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, 
 Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 
 Afar the melancholy thunder moaned, 
 Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 125 
 
 And the wild winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 
 
 XV 
 
 Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains. 
 And feeds her grief with his remembered lay. 
 And will no more reply to winds or fountains. 
 Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, 
 Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day ; 131 
 
 Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear 
 Than those for whose disdain she pined away 
 Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear 
 Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen 
 hear. 135 
 
( 
 
 204 ADONAIS 
 
 XVI 
 
 Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw 
 
 down 
 Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, 
 Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, 
 For whom should she have waked the sullen year ? 
 To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, 140 
 
 Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both 
 Thou, Ad6nais : wan they stand and sere 
 Amid the faint companions of their youth. 
 With dew all turned to tears ; odour, to sighing ruth. 
 
 XVII ^^.,- 
 
 Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 145 
 
 Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
 Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
 Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
 Her mighty youth with morning, doth complain, 
 Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 150 
 As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
 Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, 
 And scared the angel soul that wa^Jts earthly guest ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
 But grief returns with the revolving year; 155 
 
 The airs and streams renew their joyous tone ; 
 The ants, the bees, the swallows, reappear ; 
 Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; 
 The amorous birds now pair in every brake, 
 And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 160 
 And the green lizard, and the golden snake. 
 Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 
 
ADONAIS 205 
 
 XIX 
 
 Through wood and stream and field and hill and 
 
 Ocean 
 A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst, 
 As it has ever done, with change and motion, 165 
 From the great morning of the world when first 
 God dawned on Chaos : in its steam immersed, 
 The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
 All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst, 
 Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight 170 
 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 
 
 XX 
 
 The leprous corpse, touched by this spirit tender. 
 Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
 Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
 Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 175 
 And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 
 Naught we know, dies. Shall that alone which 
 
 knows 
 Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
 By sightless lightning ? — th' intense atom glows 
 A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 180 
 
 XXI 
 
 Alas ! that all we loved of him should be. 
 But for our grief, as if it had not been. 
 And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
 Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene 
 The actors or spectators? Great and mean 185 
 
 Meet massed in death, who lends what life must 
 
 borrow. 
 As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, 
 
206 ADONAIS 
 
 Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
 Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to 
 sorrow. 
 
 XXII 
 
 He will awake no more, oh, never more ! 190 
 
 "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mother, 
 
 rise 
 Out of thy sleep, and slake, in thy heart's core, 
 A wound more fierce than his, with tears and 
 
 sighs." 
 And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
 And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 195 
 Had held in holy silence, cried : " Arise ! '' 
 Swift as a thought by the snake Memory stung. 
 From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
 Out of the East, and follows wild and drear 200 
 The golden Day, which, on eternal wings. 
 Even as a ghost abandoning a bier. 
 Had left the Earth a corpse ; — sorrow and fear 
 So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania ; 
 So saddened round her like an atmosphere 205 
 
 Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way, 
 Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 
 
 Through camps and cities rough with stone, and 
 
 steel. 
 And human hearts, which, to her aery tread 210 
 Yielding not, wounded the invisible 
 
ADONAIS 207 
 
 Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell ; 
 
 And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 
 
 they, 
 Rent the soft Form they never could repel, 214 
 
 Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 
 Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 
 
 XXV 
 
 In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
 Shamed by the presence of that living Might, 
 Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
 Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 220 
 
 Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear de- 
 light. 
 " Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
 As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 
 Leave me not ! " cried Urania : her distress 
 Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
 vain caress. 225 
 
 XXVI 
 
 " Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ; 
 Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 
 And in my heartless breast and burning brain 
 That word, that kiss, shall all thoughts else survive. 
 With food of saddest memory kept alive, 230 
 
 Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
 Of thee, my Adonais! I would give 
 All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
 But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 
 
 XXVII 
 
 ^'O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, 235 
 
 Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
 
208 ADONAIS 
 
 Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty 
 
 heart 
 Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
 Defenceless as thou wert, oh, where was then 239 
 Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear? 
 Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
 Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
 The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 
 
 deer. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 " The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 
 
 The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead ; 245 
 
 The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, 
 
 Who feed where Desolation first has fed. 
 
 And whose wings rain contagion ; — how they fled, 
 
 When, like Apollo from his golden bow. 
 
 The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 250 
 
 And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second 
 
 blow. 
 They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying 
 
 low. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 " The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
 He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
 Is gathered into death without a dawn, 255 
 
 And the immortal stars awake again. 
 So is it in the world of living men : 
 A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
 Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
 It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its 
 light 260 
 
 Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 
 
ADONAIS 209 
 
 XXX 
 
 Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds came, 
 Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
 The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
 Over his living head like Heaven is bent, 265 
 
 An early but enduring monument. 
 Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
 In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
 The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
 And love taught grief to fall like music from his 
 tongue. 270 
 
 XXXI 
 
 'Midst others of less note, came one frail Form, 
 A phantom among men, companionless 
 As the last cloud of an expiring storm. 
 Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess. 
 Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, 275 
 
 Actseon-like, and now he fled astray 
 With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness. 
 And his own thoughts, along that rugged way. 
 Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey. 
 
 XXXII 
 
 A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift — 280 
 
 A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 
 Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
 The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
 It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, 
 A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 285 
 Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
 The killing sun smiles brightly ; on a cheek 
 The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may 
 break. 
 
210 ADONAIS 
 
 XXXIII 
 
 His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
 And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue ; 290 
 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew 
 Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, 
 Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
 Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 
 He came the last, neglected and apart ; 296 
 
 A herd-abandoned deer, struck by the hunter's dart. 
 
 XXXIV 
 
 All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
 
 Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle 
 
 band 
 Who in another's fate now wept his own; 300 
 
 As in the accents of an unknown land 
 He sang new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
 The Stranger's mien, and murmured : " Who art 
 
 thou?" 
 He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
 Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 305 
 Which was like Cain's or Christ's. — Oh ! that it should 
 
 be so ! 
 
 XXXV 
 
 What softer voice is hushed over the dead? 
 Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
 What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
 In mockery of monumental stone, 310 
 
 The heavy heart heaving without a moan? 
 If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise. 
 Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one ; 
 Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs. 
 The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 315 
 
ADONAIS 211 
 
 XXXVI 
 
 Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh, 
 What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
 Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
 The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
 It felt, yet could escape the magic tone 320 
 
 Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 
 But what was howling in one breast alone. 
 Silent with expectation of the song. 
 Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre un- 
 strung. 
 
 XXXVII 
 
 Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 325 
 
 Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 
 Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
 But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
 And ever at thy season be thou free 
 To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : 330 
 Remorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
 Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
 And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 
 
 XXXVIII 
 
 Nor let us Weep that our delight is fled 
 Far from these carrion-kites that scream below ; 335 
 He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
 Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
 Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
 Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
 A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 340 
 
 Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
 Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of 
 shame. 
 
212 ADONAIS 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
 He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
 'T is we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 345 
 
 With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
 And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
 Invulnerable nothings. — We decay- 
 Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
 Convulse us and consume us day by day, 350 
 
 And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 
 clay. 
 
 XL 
 
 He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
 Envy and calumny, and hate and pain. 
 And that unrest which men miscall delight. 
 Can touch him not and torture not again ; 355 
 
 From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
 He is secure, and now can never mourn 
 A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain ; 
 Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn, 
 With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 360 
 
 XLI 
 
 He lives, he wakes — 't is Death is dead, not he ; 
 Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, 
 Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
 The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ! 
 Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 365 
 
 Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou 
 
 Air, 
 Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
 O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
 Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 
 
ADONAIS 218 
 
 XLII 
 
 He is made one with Nature : there is heard 370 
 His voice in all her music, from the moan 
 Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird ; 
 He is a presence to be felt and known 
 In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, 
 Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 375 
 Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
 Which wields the world with never-wearied love. 
 Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 
 
 XLIII 
 
 He is a portion of the loveliness 
 Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 380 
 His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress 
 Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling 
 
 there 
 All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
 Torturing the unwilling dross that checks its flight 
 To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 385 
 And bursting in its beauty and its might 
 From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven's light. 
 
 XLIV 
 
 The splendours of the firmament of time 
 May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
 Like stars to their appointed height they climb, 390 
 And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
 The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
 Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair. 
 And love and life contend in it, for what 
 Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, 395 
 And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 
 
214 ADONAIS 
 
 XLV 
 
 The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
 Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
 Far in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
 Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 400 
 
 Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
 And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
 Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, 
 Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : 
 Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. 405 
 
 XLVI 
 
 And many more, whose names on earth are dark, 
 But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
 So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
 Rose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
 " Thou art become as one of us," they cry ; 410 
 
 " It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
 Swung blind in unascended majesty. 
 Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
 Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng ! " 
 
 XLVII 
 
 Who mourns for Adonais? Oh, come forth, 415 
 Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
 Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous Earth ; 
 As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
 Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
 Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 420 
 Even to a point within our day and night ; 
 And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink 
 When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
 brink. 
 
ADONAIS 215 
 
 XLVIII 
 
 Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 
 Oh, not of him, but of our joy ; 't is nought 425 
 That ages, empires, and religions, there 
 Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
 For such as he can lend, — they borrow not 
 Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
 And he is gathered to the kings of thought 430 
 
 Who waged contention with their time's decay, 
 And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 
 
 XLIX 
 
 Go thou to Rome, — at once the Paradise, 
 The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 434 
 
 And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise, 
 And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
 The bones of Desolation's nakedness. 
 Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
 Thy footsteps to a slope of green access. 
 Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 440 
 A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread ; 
 
 And gray walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
 Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
 And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime. 
 Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 445 
 
 This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
 Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath 
 A field is spread, on which a newer band 
 Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, 
 Welcoming him we lose with scarce-extinguished 
 breath. 450 
 
216 ADONAIS 
 
 LI 
 Here pause : these graves are all too young as yet 
 To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
 Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set, 
 Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. 
 Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 455 
 Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
 Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
 Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
 What Adonais is, why fear we to become? 
 
 LII 
 
 The One remains, the many change and pass ; 460 
 Heaven's light for ever shines. Earth's shadows 
 
 fly; 
 
 Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass. 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
 Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 464 
 If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
 Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky. 
 Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak 
 The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 
 
 LIII 
 
 Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart ? 
 Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 470 
 They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
 A light is past from the revolving year. 
 And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
 Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
 The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near : 475 
 'T IS Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither ! 
 No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 
 
ADONAIS 217 
 
 LIV 
 
 That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, 
 That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
 That Benediction which the eclipsing curse 480 
 
 Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
 Which, through the web of being blindly wove 
 By man and beast and earth and air and sea. 
 Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
 The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 485 
 Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 
 
 LV 
 
 The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
 Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
 Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
 Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 490 
 The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! 
 I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar : 
 Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
 The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
 Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 495 
 1821. 
 
218 LINES 
 
 A DIRGE 
 
 Rough wind, that meanest loud 
 
 Grief too sad for song ; 
 Wild wind, when sullen cloud 
 
 Knells all the night long ; 
 Sad storm, whose tears are vain, 5 
 
 Bare woods, whose branches strain. 
 Deep caves and dreary main, 
 
 Wail for the world's wrong ! 
 1822. 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 These are two friends whose lives were undivided : 
 So let their memory be, now they have glided 
 Under the grave ; let not their bones be parted. 
 For their two hearts in life were single-hearted. 
 1822. 
 
 LINES 
 
 When the lamp is shattered. 
 The light in the dust lies dead ; 
 
 When the cloud is scattered, 
 The rainbow's glory is shed ; 
 
 When the lute is broken, 5 
 
 Sweet tones are remembered not ; 
 
 When the lips have spoken, 
 Loved accents are soon forgot. 
 
 As music and splendour 
 Survive not the lamp and the lute, 10 
 
SONG 219 
 
 The heart's echoes render 
 No song when the spirit is mute, — 
 
 No song but sad dirges, 
 Like the wind through a ruined cell. 
 
 Or the mournful surges 15 
 
 That ring the dead seaman's knell. 
 
 When hearts have once mingled, 
 Love first leaves the well-built nest ; 
 
 The weak one is singled 
 To endure what it once possest. 20 
 
 O Love ! who bewailest 
 The frailty of all things here, 
 
 Why choose you the frailest 
 For your cradle, your home, and your bier? 
 
 Its passions will rock thee, 25 
 
 As the storms rock the ravens on high : 
 
 Bright reason will mock thee. 
 Like the sun from a wintry sky. 
 
 From thy nest every rafter 
 Will rot, and thine eagle home 30 
 
 Leave thee naked to laughter, 
 When leaves fall and cold winds come. 
 
 1822. 
 
 SONG 
 
 FROM " CHARLES THE FIRST " 
 
 A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her love 
 
 Upon a wintry bough ; 
 The frozen wind crept on above. 
 
 The freezing stream below. 
 
 ) 
 
220 TO JANE 
 
 There was no leaf upon the forest bare, 5 
 
 No flower upon the ground, 
 And little motion in the air 
 
 Except the mill-wheel's sound. 
 
 1822. 
 
 TO JANE 
 
 THE INVITATION 
 
 Best and brightest, come away, 
 
 Fairer far than this fair day. 
 
 Which, like thee, to those in sorrow, 
 
 Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 
 
 To the rough Year just awake 5 
 
 In its cradle on the brake. 
 
 The brightest hour of unborn Spring, 
 
 Through the winter wandering, 
 
 Found, it seems, the halcyon morn 
 
 To hoar February born ; 10 
 
 Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth. 
 
 It kissed the forehead of the earth. 
 
 And smiled upon the silent sea, 
 
 And bade the frozen streams be free. 
 
 And waked to music all their fountains, 15 
 
 And breathed upon the frozen mountains. 
 
 And like a prophetess of May 
 
 Strewed flowers upon the barren way. 
 
 Making the wintry world appear 
 
 Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 20 
 
 Away, away, from men and towns. 
 To the wild wood and the downs ; 
 To the silent wilderness 
 Where the soul need not repress 
 
TO JANE 221 
 
 Its music, lest it should not find 25 
 
 An echo in another's mind, 
 
 While the touch of Nature's art 
 
 Harmonizes heart to heart. 
 
 I leave this notice on my door 
 
 For each accustomed visitor : — 30 
 
 " I am gone into the fields 
 
 To take what this sweet hour yields. 
 
 Reflection, you may come to-morrow, 
 
 Sit by the fireside of Sorrow. 
 
 You with the unpaid bill. Despair, 35 
 
 You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care, 
 
 I will pay you in the grave. 
 
 Death will listen to your stave. 
 
 Expectation, too, be off ! 
 
 To-day is for itself enough. 40 
 
 Hope, in pity, mock not Woe 
 
 With smiles, nor follow where I go ; 
 
 Long having lived on thy sweet food, 
 
 At length I find one moment good 
 
 After long pain — with all your love, 45 
 
 This you never told me of." 
 
 Radiant Sister of the Day, 
 
 Awake, arise, and come away ! 
 
 To the wild woods and the plains, 
 
 And the pools where winter rains 50 
 
 Image all their roof of leaves. 
 
 Where the pine its garland weaves 
 
 Of sapless green, and ivy dun. 
 
 Round stems that never kiss the sun. 
 
 Where the lawns and pastures be 55 
 
 And the sandhills of the sea. 
 
 Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
 
 The daisy-star that never sets, 
 
222 TO JANE 
 
 And wind-flowers, and violets, 
 
 Which yet join not scent to hue, 60 
 
 Crown the pale year weak and new; 
 
 When the night is left behind 
 
 In the deep east, dun and blind, 
 
 And the blue noon is over us, 
 
 And the multitudinous 65 
 
 Billows murmur at our feet. 
 
 Where the earth and ocean meet, 
 
 And all things seem only one, 
 
 In the universal Sun. 
 
 February, 1822. 
 
 TO JANE 
 
 THE RECOLLECTION 
 
 Now the last day of many days. 
 All beautiful and bright as thou, 
 The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
 Rise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
 Up, do thy wonted work ! come, trace 5 
 
 The epitaph of glory fled. 
 For now the Earth has changed its face, 
 A frown is on the Heaven's brow. 
 
 II 
 
 We wandered to the Pine Forest 
 
 That skirts the Ocean's foam, 10 
 
 The lightest wind was in its nest, 
 
 The tempest in its home. 
 The whispering waves were half asleep, 
 
 The clouds were gone to play, 
 
TO JANE 223 
 
 And on the bosom of the deep 15 
 
 The smile of Heaven lay ; 
 It seemed as if the hour were one 
 
 Sent from beyond the skies, 
 Which scattered from above the sun 
 
 A light of Paradise. 20 
 
 III 
 
 We paused amid the pines that stood 
 
 The giants of the waste, 
 Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 
 
 As serpents interlaced. 
 And soothed by every azure breath 25 
 
 That under heaven is blown, 
 To harmonies and hues beneath, 
 
 As tender as its own ; 
 Now all the tree-tops lay asleep. 
 
 Like green waves on the sea, 30 
 
 As still as in the silent deep 
 
 The ocean-woods may be. 
 
 IV 
 
 How calm it was ! — the silence there 
 
 By such a chain was bound. 
 That even the busy woodpecker 35 
 
 Made stiller by her sound 
 The inviolable quietness ; 
 
 The breath of peace we drew 
 With its soft motion made not less 
 
 The calm that round us grew. 40 
 
 There seemed from the remotest seat 
 
 Of the wide mountain waste. 
 To the soft flower beneath our feet, 
 
 A magic circle traced ; 
 
224 TO JANE 
 
 A spirit interfused around, 45 
 
 A thrilling silent life, 
 To momentary peace it bound 
 
 Our mortal nature's strife ; — 
 And still I felt the centre of 
 
 The magic circle there 50 
 
 Was one fair Form that filled with love 
 
 The lifeless atmosphere. 
 
 We paused beside the pools that lie 
 
 Under the forest bough ; 
 Each seemed as 't were a little sky 55 
 
 Gulfed in a world below ; 
 A firmament of purple light. 
 
 Which in the dark earth lay. 
 More boundless than the depth of night, 
 
 And purer than the day ; 60 
 
 In which the lovely forests grew. 
 
 As in the upper air, 
 More perfect both in shape and hue 
 
 Than any spreading there. 
 There lay the glade, the neighbouring lawn, 65 
 
 And through the dark green wood 
 The white sun twinkling like the dawn 
 
 Out of a speckled cloud. 
 Sweet views which in our world above 
 
 Can never well be seen, 70 
 
 Were imaged by the water's love 
 
 Of that fair forest green. 
 And all was interfused beneath 
 
 With an Elysian glow, 
 An atmosphere without a breath, 75 
 
 A softer day below. 
 
WITH A GUITAR 225 
 
 Like one beloved, the scene had lent 
 
 To the dark water's breast 
 Its every leaf and lineament 
 
 With more than truth exprest, 80 
 
 Until an envious wind crept by, 
 
 Like an unwelcome thought, 
 Which from the mind's too faithful eye 
 
 Blots one dear image out. 
 Though Thou art ever fair and kind, 85 
 
 And forests ever green. 
 Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind. 
 
 Than calm in waters seen. 
 February, 1822. 
 
 WITH A GUITAR 
 
 TO JANE 
 
 Ariel to Miranda : — Take 
 
 This slave of Music, for the sake 
 
 Of him, who is the slave of thee; 
 
 And teach it all the harmony 
 
 In which thou canst, and only thou, 5 
 
 Make the delighted spirit glow, 
 
 Till joy denies itself again, 
 
 And, too intense, is turned to pain. 
 
 For by permission and command 
 
 Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 10 
 
 Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
 
 Of more than ever can be spoken ; 
 
 Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who 
 
 From life to life must still pursue 
 
 Your happiness, for thus alone 15 
 
 Can Ariel ever find his own. 
 
226 WITH A GUITAR 
 
 From Prospero's enchanted cell, 
 
 As the mighty verses tell, 
 
 To the throne of Naples he 
 
 Lit you o'er the trackless sea, 20 
 
 Flitting on, your prow before. 
 
 Like a living meteor. 
 
 When you die, the silent Moon, 
 
 In her interlunar swoon. 
 
 Is not sadder in her cell 25 
 
 Than deserted Ariel ; 
 
 When you live again on earth, 
 
 Like an unseen star of birth, 
 
 Ariel guides you o'er the sea 
 
 Of life from your nativity. 30 
 
 Many changes have been run 
 
 Since Ferdinand and you begun 
 
 Your course of love, and Ariel still 
 
 Has tracked your steps and served your will. 
 
 Now in humbler, happier lot, 35 
 
 This is all remembered not ; 
 
 And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 
 
 Imprisoned for some fault of his 
 
 In a body like a grave ; — 
 
 From you he only dares to crave, 40 
 
 For his service and his sorrow, 
 
 A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 
 
 The artist who this idol wrought 
 
 To echo all harmonious thought. 
 
 Felled a tree, while on the steep 45 
 
 The woods were in their winter sleep. 
 
 Rocked in that repose divine 
 
 On the wind-swept Apennine ; 
 
 And dreaming, some of autumn past. 
 
WITH A GUITAR 227 
 
 And some of spring approaching fast, 50 
 
 And some of April buds and showers, 
 
 And some of songs in July bowers, 
 
 And all of love ; and so this tree, — 
 
 O that such our death may be ! — 
 
 Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 55 
 
 To live in happier form again : 
 
 From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star. 
 
 The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 
 
 And taught it justly to reply. 
 
 To all who question skilfully, 60 
 
 In language gentle as thine own ; 
 
 Whispering in enamoured tone 
 
 Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 
 
 And summer winds in sylvan cells ; 
 
 For it had learnt all harmonies 65 
 
 Of the plains and of the skies. 
 
 Of the forests and the mountains, 
 
 And the many-voiced fountains; 
 
 The clearest echoes of the hills. 
 
 The softest notes of falling rills, 70 
 
 The melodies of birds and bees, 
 
 The murmuring of summer seas. 
 
 And pattering rain, and breathing dew. 
 
 And airs of evening ; and it knew 
 
 That seldom-heard mysterious sound 75 
 
 Which, driven on its diurnal round, 
 
 As it floats through boundless day. 
 
 Our world enkindles on its way. 
 
 All this it knows, but will not tell 
 
 To those who cannot question well 80 
 
 The spirit that inhabits it ; 
 
 It talks according to the wit 
 
 Of its companions ; and no more 
 
228 WITH A GUITAR 
 
 Is heard than has been felt before 
 By those who tempt it to betray 85 
 
 These secrets of an elder day. 
 But, sweetly as its answers will 
 Flatter hands of perfect skill, 
 It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
 For our beloved Friend alone. 90 
 
 1822. 
 
NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 Stanzas — April, 1814. 
 
 See Introduction, page xxxi. ''The beautiful 'Stanzas/ 
 dated 'April, 1814,' read like a fantasia of sorrow, the 
 motives of which are supplied by Shelley's anticipated 
 farewell to Bracknell, and his return, at the call of duty, to* a 
 loveless home. ... It is moonless and starless night in the 
 poem — night with its melancholy ebb of life and strength ; 
 and at such an hour the lover is summoned to bid fare- 
 well to a refuge as dear as this at Bracknell was to Shelley, 
 and to loved ones as gentle and delicate in sympathy as he 
 had found in Harriet Boinville and Cornelia Turner." — 
 Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 411. 
 
 2 To Coleridge. 
 
 ''The poem beginning, 'O, there are spirits in the air/ 
 was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; 
 and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, 
 through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from 
 some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opin- 
 ions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed 
 that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley 
 considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth.'^ 
 — Mrs. Shelley's note. "I have often questioned whether 
 the poem . . . has reference (as Mrs. Shelley declares it 
 has) to Coleridge, or whether it was not rather addressed 
 in a despondent mood by Shelley to his own spirit." — 
 Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 472. 
 
 3 25-30. Note the references in this stanza to Coleridge's 
 Rime of the Ancient Mariner, — ''glory of the moon," 
 "Night's ghosts and dreams," "foul fiend." These seem to 
 me opposed to Professor Dowden's conjecture. 
 
 To Wordsworth. 
 
 Shelley's early regard for Wordsworth slowly lessened. 
 The elder poet, at first eloquently liberal in his political 
 utterance, became conservative with years, and seemed to 
 Shelley to be betraying his noblest human impulses. In 
 1819 Shelley wrote his satire en Wordsworth, Peter Bell 
 the Third. Cf. Browning's The Lost Leader. 
 
 4 A Summer Evening Churchyard. 
 
 See Introduction, page xxxv. " The summer evening that 
 suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of 
 Lechlade, occurred during his voyage up the Thames, in 
 the autumn of 1815. He had been advised by a physician 
 to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight 
 of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to, 
 its source." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 
 
230 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4 3, 4. Cf. To Night, 11. 10, 11. 
 
 5 • 25 sq. Note the poet's frequent premonitions of early 
 death. See Introduction, pp. xxvi and xlix. 
 
 5 Lines ("The cold earth slept below ")• 
 
 "There can be no great rashness/' says Forman, "in 
 suggesting that the subject of the poem is the death of 
 Harriet Shelley, who drowned herself on the 9th of No- 
 vember, 1816. In that case, 1815 and raven hair were used 
 as a disguise, Harriet's hair having been a light brown." 
 
 8 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. 
 
 Based on the Platonic doctrine of supreme beauty. See 
 the speech of Diotima in Plato's Symposium. " The Hymn 
 to Intellectual Beauty was conceived during his voyage 
 round the lake with Lord Byron." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 
 " A Presence, or its radiant yet awful shadow, haunts and 
 startles and waylays us in all that is beautiful, sublime, or 
 heroic in the world without us or in the world within; to 
 this we dedicate our powers in all high moments of joy or 
 aspiration; and when the ecstasy has sunk and the joy 
 has faded, still in a calmer, purer temper, it may become 
 the habit of our soul to follow upon the track of this ideal 
 LoveHness, until in a measure we partake of its image." 
 
 — Dowden's Life, II, 31. 
 
 9 32-36. " The beauty of holiness and the holiness of 
 beauty," said Sidney Lanier, "mean one thing, burn as one 
 fire, shine as one light." 
 
 49-52. Cf. Alastor, 11. 18-49. 
 
 51. "pursuing." The final "g" is slurred, a common 
 practice both in England and the Southern States. Cf. 
 Arethusa, 11. 52, 53; Mont Blanc, 11. 107, 109; Prometheus 
 Unbound, I, 1, 103, 4. 
 
 10 59. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 453. 
 
 11 Mont Blanc. 
 
 This poem, like the Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and 
 Lines Written among the Euganean Hills, — indeed, like all 
 of Shelley's poems that touch the subject even remotely, — 
 witnesses the unity of all nature, and its ideal significance. 
 Sensible nature is but a world of symbols governed always 
 by a Nature behind nature, by a Mind and Power 
 "Remote, serene and inaccessible." 
 
 *' Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain 
 and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the 
 Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni." 
 
 — Mrs. Shelley's note. " It was composed under the imme- 
 diate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited 
 by the objects which it attempts to describe; and as an 
 undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to 
 approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable 
 wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those 
 
NOTES 231 
 
 PAGE 
 
 feelings sprang/' — Shelley's note. Cf. Coleridge's Hymn 
 before Sunrise in the Vale of Chamouni. 
 
 12 49 sq. The student will note the frequency with which 
 Shelley and other romantic poets touch the idea of sleep. 
 See Introduction, pp. Ix, Ixi. 
 
 13 80. Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, England and Switzerland, 
 1802, 
 
 14 86. "dsedal." Curiously made; complex; intricate. Note 
 Shelley's fondness for the phrase "daedal earth." Ct. Ode 
 to Liberty, 1. 18; Hymn of Pan, 1. 26; Prometheus Unboundy 
 III, i, 26; IV, 116, 416. 
 
 16 To Constantia, Singing. 
 
 This poem was addressed to Clara Jane Clairmont, 
 Godwin's stepdaughter, and friend of the Shelleys. She 
 had an excellent voice, and was fond of musical instrimients, 
 though her sense of tune is said to have been deficient. 
 The lyric testifies to Shelley's appreciation of the soul of 
 music. 
 
 17 30, 31. Cf. Epipsychidion, 11. 445-456. 
 
 17 Sonnet — Ozymandias. 
 
 Structurally uncanonical. See Introduction, p. Ixiv. 
 
 Diodorus, the Greek historian, tells us that the statue of 
 Ozymandias was the largest in all Egypt, and bore the in- 
 scription: "I am Ozymandias, king of kings; if any one 
 wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass 
 me in some of my exploits." 
 
 8. "hand." The sculptor's, "heart." The king's. 
 
 18 Lines to a Critic. 
 
 This remonstrance was doubtless provoked by certain 
 attacks upon the unre vised Laon and Cythna, of which a 
 few copies were issued late in 1817. In a letter of December 
 11, Shelley wrote to his publisher Oilier, who was disposed to 
 withdraw from the undertaking: "I beseech you to re- 
 consider the matter, for your sake no less than for my 
 own. Assume the high and the secure ground of courage. 
 The people who visit your shop, and the wretched bigot 
 who gave his worthless custom to some other bookseller, 
 are not the public." 
 
 19 Passage of the Apennines. 
 
 Written probably in the lonely inn at Pietra Mala, high 
 in the Apennines. Miss Clairmont's journal, touching this 
 experience of the travellers, remarks: " The wind is always 
 high, and it howls dismally." 
 
 9. "lay." Used, of course, for "lie," owing to the con- 
 straint of rhyme. 
 
 20 Lines Written among the Euganean Hills. 
 
 The poem "was written," said Shelley, "after a day's 
 excursion among those lovely mountains which surround 
 what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, 
 of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion 
 
232 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden 
 relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions 
 disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in 
 autumn, on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, 
 I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at 
 the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of 
 intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and 
 who would have had more right than any one to complain, 
 that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very 
 power of delineating sadness." The poem was written in 
 large part at Este, and, according to Med win, finished at 
 Naples. Mrs. Shelley wrote of Este: ''We looked from the 
 garden over the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the 
 west by the far Apennines, while to the east, the horizon 
 was lost in mist}^ distance." 
 
 20 16. A fine example of artistic repetition. 
 
 18. ''Weltering." Moving vaguely, without direction; 
 tossing. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 12-14: — 
 
 " He must not float upon his watery bier 
 Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, 
 Without the meed of some melodious tear." 
 
 21 43. "are." Note the error in syntax. 
 
 23 97. Amphitrite was the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, 
 and wife of Neptune. 
 
 100 sq. Comment on this splendid picture is superfluous, 
 yet attention may be called to the "romantic" incor- 
 porating into nature of man-built structures. Cf. Words- 
 worth's Sonnet on Westminster Bridge, and Emerson's 
 The Problem, 11. 25-62. 
 
 100. The "time" of the poem is a single day. See also 
 11. 71-73, 206, 285, 320-326. Cf . Browning's Colombe's Birth- 
 day and Pippa Passes. 
 
 116. "his queen." Probably a reference to the custom 
 of "wedding the Adriatic," originated in 1177, by Pope 
 Alexander III. After the victory of the Venetian galleys 
 over the Ghibellines, led by Otho, the Pope presented the 
 Doge Ziani with a ring, commanding him to wed the Adri- 
 atic therewith, thus testifying the sea's subjection to Venice 
 as her lord and master. 
 
 118. "his prey." A reference to the apparently slow 
 sinking of Venice. The student will recall the fall of the 
 Campanile in 1902. Professor Marinelli, however, declares 
 that the northern Adriatic is slowly drying up, and that 
 the entire Gulf of Venice will eventually disappear, the 
 mean annual increase in the delta of the River Po being 
 three tenths of a mile. 
 
 24 123. "the slave of slaves." Austria, then ruling Venice 
 and virtually all of Italy. 
 
 152. "Celtic Anarch's." Probably another reference to 
 
NOTES 233 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Austria, the term Celt long being applied to the northern 
 barbarians as distinguished from the Romans. 
 
 25 167-205. Shelley added this passage to the original manu- 
 script. The reference is, of course, to Byron, who was then 
 at Venice. 
 
 178-183. Cf. Tvdth these lines Shelley's remark in a letter 
 to Peacock: "That he is a great poet, I think the address 
 to ocean proves." 
 
 26 195. "Scamander." An ancient river near Troy. 
 
 196. ''divinest Shakespeare's." Shelley was more at- 
 tracted by Shakespeare than by any other English writer. 
 
 27 223. '^brutal Celt." See note on 1. 152. 
 
 239. "Ezzelin." Ezzelino da Romano, a Ghibelline 
 leader. 
 
 240. Cf . Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 11. 195- 
 198; Milton's Paradise Lost, 11. 648 sq. 
 
 28 285-319. Cf. with this commingling of the human spirit 
 with natural phenomena — an imaginative habit of the ro- 
 manticists — Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, 11. 95-104, and 
 Emerson's Each and All. Cf. also Adonais, U. 370-378. 
 
 30 335-373. See Introduction, p. xliv. 
 
 31 Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples. 
 
 " At this time Shelley suffered greatly in health. He put 
 himself under the care of a medical man, who promised 
 great things, and made him endure severe bodily pain, 
 without any good results. Constant and poignant physical 
 suffering exhausted him; and though he preserved the 
 appearance of cheerfulness, and often greatly enjoyed our 
 wanderings in the en^drons of Naples, and our excursions 
 on its suimy sea, yet many hours were passed when his 
 thoughts, shadowed by illness, became gloomy, and then he 
 escaped to soHtude, and in verses, which he hid from fear 
 of wounding me, poured forth morbid but too natural 
 bursts of discontent and sadness." — Mrs. Shelley's note. 
 See Introduction, p. xli. 
 
 32 33. Cf. Queen Mab, U. 1, 2 ; To Night, 11. 22, 24; Tenny- 
 son's In Memoriam, Lyric 68, stanza 1. 
 
 33 Lines to an Indian Air. 
 
 A manuscript copy of tliis lyric was found on Shelley's 
 body after his death. 
 
 11. "champak." Probably jasmine. 
 18. Cf. Epipsychidion, 1. 591. 
 
 34 Love's Philosophy. 
 
 In N'otes and Queries (January, 1868) Mr. J. H. Dixon 
 relates this poem to a short French song, — " Les vents 
 baisent les nuages." — Forman. 
 Song — To the Men of England. 
 
 At an open-air Reform meeting held in St. Peter's Field, 
 Manchester, August 16, 1819, and dispersed by the militia, 
 several casualties had occurred. Alarmist reports reached 
 
234 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Shelley at Leghorn, and he at first anticipated a general 
 English revolution. ^'It was," says Dowden, ''the hard- 
 ships and sufferings of the industrious poor that especially 
 claimed his sympathy, and he thought of publishing for them 
 a series of popular songs which should inspire them with 
 heart and hope, and perhaps awaken and direct the imagina- 
 tion of the reformers. . . . The Songs and Poems for the Men 
 of England, written in 1819, remained unpublished until 
 several years after Shelley ^s death, when the first great 
 battle for reform had been fought and won.'^ — II, 285-6. 
 
 35 9-12. In his willingness to become, for the moment, 
 a "popular" poet, Shelley has let his metaphors shift for 
 themselves. 
 
 36 England in 1819. 
 
 1. George III reigned from 1760 to 1820. During the 
 last ten years he was blind, deaf, and insane, his eldest son, 
 afterward George IV, serving as Prince Regent. 
 36 Ode to the West Wind. 
 
 '* This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood 
 that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that 
 tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and 
 animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the 
 autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset, with 
 a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magni- 
 ficent thunder and hghtning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. 
 
 "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the 
 third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation 
 at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes 
 with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is con- 
 sequently influenced by the winds which announce it." — ■ 
 Shelley's note. 
 
 '' Harmonizing under a common idea the forces of ex- 
 ternal nature and the passion of the writer's individual 
 heart, the stanzas, with all the penetrating power of a 
 lyric, have something almost of epic largeness and grand- 
 eur." — Dowden's Life, II, 299. 
 
 Says Professor W. J. Alexander: "The terza rima (aba, 
 bcb, cdc, etc.) employed in this poem is but little used in 
 English poetry. The suitability here of the stanza form to 
 the theme should be noted. The series of sustained waves 
 of feeling, each closing in an invocation, corresponds to the 
 suspended rhyme of each triplet, resolved at the close of 
 each fourth stanza by the couplet, with its sense of com- 
 pleteness." 
 
 It will be noted that in the first three sections of this 
 impassioned cry, the poet pursues the West Wind — so to 
 speak — as it blows over land (i), and "'mid the steep 
 sky's commotion" (ii), and upon the sea (iii), while in 
 the two concluding sections he' passes through momentary 
 
NOTES 235 
 
 PAGE 
 
 longings to be himself resolved into each of these (iv, 
 43-45) into an appeal not for translation, but for union, 
 eagerly adventuring even into identification as based on 
 the truth of his own spirit's oneness (^'one too like thee") 
 with that of the West Wind: — 
 
 "... Be thou, spirit fierce, 
 My spiriti Be thou me, impetuous one! " 
 
 Perhaps the words of his well-loved Ariel, sprite of air and 
 fire, were haunting his memory {The Tempest j I, 2, 198, 
 199; 211,212): — 
 
 *II flam'd amazement: sometime I'd divide, 
 And burn in many places." 
 
 *• . . . the vessel, 
 Then all afire with me." 
 
 37 21. "Msenad." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 
 
 38 32. Baise was an ancient Roman city and watering-place 
 near Naples. 
 
 43. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 528. 
 40 Prometheus Unbound. 
 
 See Introduction, pp. xli, Ivii, Iviii, lix, Ixiii, Ixiv, and 
 Ixvi. ''The prominent feature of Shelley's theory of the 
 destiny of the human species was that evil is not inherent 
 in the system of the creation, but an accident that might 
 be expelled. This also forms a portion of Christianity : God 
 made earth and man perfect, till he, by his fall, 
 
 * Brought death into the world and all our woe.* 
 
 Shelley believed that mankind had only to will that there 
 should be no evil, and there would be none. It is not my 
 part in these Notes to notice the arguments that have been 
 urged against this opinion, but to mention the fact that he 
 entertained it, and was indeed attached to it with fervent 
 enthusiasm. That man could be so perfectionized as to be 
 able to expel evil from his own nature, and from the greater 
 part of the creation, was the cardinal point of his system. 
 And the subject he loved best to dwell on was the image 
 of one warring with the Evil Principle, oppressed not onlv 
 by it, but by all — even the good, who were deluded into 
 considering evil a necessary portion of humanity ; a victim 
 full of fortitude and hope arid the spirit of triumph, emanat- 
 ing from a reliance in the ultimate omnipotence of Good. 
 Such he had depicted in his last poem, when he made Laon 
 the enemy and the victim of tyrants. He now took a more 
 idealized image of the same subject. He followed certain 
 classical authorities in figuring Saturn as the good principle, 
 Jupiter the usurping evil one, and Prometheus as the re- 
 generator, who, unable to bring mankind back to prim- 
 
236 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 itive innocence, used knowledge as a weapon to defeat 
 evil, by leading mankind, beyond the state wherein they 
 are sinless through ignorance, to that in which they are 
 virtuous through wisdom. Jupiter punished the temerity 
 of the Titan by chaining him to a rock of Caucasus, and 
 causing a vulture to devour his still-renewed heart. There 
 was a prophecy afloat in heaven portending the fall of 
 Jove, the secret of averting which was known only to 
 Prometheus; and the god offered freedom from torture 
 on condition of its being communicated to him. Accord- 
 ing to the mythological story, this referred to the offspring 
 of Thetis, who was destined to be greater than his father. 
 Prometheus at last bought pardon for his crime of enrich- 
 ing mankind with his gifts, by revealing the prophecy. 
 Hercules killed the vulture, and set him free; and Thetis 
 was married to Peleus, the father of Achilles. 
 
 ^'Shelley adapted the catastrophe of this story to his 
 peculiar views. The son greater than his father, born of the 
 nuptials of Jupiter and Thetis, was to dethrone Evil, and 
 bring back a happier reign than that of Saturn. Prometheus 
 defies the power of his enemy, and endures centuries of 
 torture; till the hour arrives when Jove, blind to the real 
 event, but darkly guessing that some great good to himself 
 will flow, espouses Thetis. At the moment, the Primal Power 
 of the world drives him from his usurped throne, and 
 Strength, in the person of Hercules, liberates Humanity, 
 typified in Prometheus, from the tortures generated by evil 
 done or suffered. Asia, one of the Oceanides, is the wife 
 of Prometheus — she was, according to other mythological 
 interpretations, the same as Venus and Nature. When the 
 benefactor of mankind is liberated, Nature resumes the 
 beauty of her prime, and is united to her husband, the em- 
 blem of the human race, in perfect and happy union. In the 
 fourth Act, the poet gives further scope to his imagination, 
 and idealizes the forms of creation — such as we know 
 them, instead of such as they appeared to the Greeks. 
 Maternal Earth, the mighty parent, is superseded by the 
 Spirit of the Earth, the guide of our planet through the 
 realms of sky ; while his fair and weaker companion and 
 attendant, the Spirit of the Moon, receives bliss from the 
 annihilation of Evil in the superior sphere. 
 
 "Shelley develops more particularly in the lyrics of this 
 drama his abstruse and imaginative theories with regard 
 to the creation. It requires a mind as subtle and penetrat- 
 ing as his own to understand the mystic meanings scattered 
 throughout the poem. They elude the ordinary reader 
 by their abstraction and delicacy of distinction, but they 
 are far from vague. It was his desi^in to write prose meta- 
 physical essays on the nature of Man, which would have 
 served to explain much of what is obscure in his poetry; 
 
NOTES 237 
 
 PAGE 
 
 a few scattered fragments of observations and remarks 
 alone remain. He considered these philosophical views of 
 JVIind and Nature to be instinct ^dth the intensest spirit 
 of poetry." — From Mrs. Shelley's Note. 
 
 ''The martyrdom of a heroic lover and saviour of man- 
 kind was a theme around which Shelley's highest and 
 purest feelings and imaginings must gather; and for him 
 such a martyrdom must needs be the pledge of the final 
 victory of joy and wisdom and love." — Dowden's Life, 
 II, 239. 
 
 '' The essential thought of Shelley's creed was that the 
 universe is penetrated, vitahzed, made real by a spirit, 
 which he sometimes called the Spirit of Nature, but which 
 is always conceived as more than Life, as that which gives 
 its actuality to Life, and lastly as Love and Beauty. To 
 adore this spirit, to clasp it with affection, and to blend 
 with it, is, he thought, the true object of man. Therefore, 
 the final union of Prometheus with Asia is the consum- 
 mation of human destinies. Love was the only law Shelley 
 recognized. Un terrified by the grim realities of pain and 
 crime revealed in nature and society, he held fast to the 
 belief that, if we could but pierce to the core of things, if 
 we could but be what we might be, the world and man 
 would both attain to their perfection in eternal love. What 
 resolution through some transcendental harmony was ex- 
 pected by Shelley for the palpable discords in the struc- 
 ture of the universe, we hardly know. He did not give his 
 philosophy systematic form: and his new science of love 
 remains a luminous poetic vision — nowhere more bril- 
 liantly set forth than in the 'sevenfold hallelujahs and 
 harping symphonies' of this, the final triumph of his lyrical 
 poetry." — John Adding ton Symonds's Shelley. 
 
 "A genuine liking for Prometheus Unbound may be 
 reckoned the touchstone of a man's capacity for under- 
 standing lyric poetry. The world in which the action is 
 supposed to move, rings with spirit voices; and what these 
 spirits sing is melody more purged of mortal dross than any 
 other poet's ear has caught, while listening to his own 
 heart's song, or to the rhythms of the world. There are 
 hymns in Prometheus, which seem to realize the miracle of 
 making words, detached from meaning, the substance of a 
 new ethereal music; and yet althougli their verbal har- 
 mony is such, they are never devoid of definite significance 
 for those who understand." — John Addington Symonds's 
 Shelley. 
 
 "Shelley came to this subject naturally and through 
 years of unconscious preparation; and when the moment 
 of creation came, he felt the Titanic quality ... in the 
 Revolution, felt the Promethean security of victory it 
 contained — felt, too, the Promethean suffering which 
 
238 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 was the heart of mankind as he saw it, surveying Europe 
 in his day, and knew it in his own bosom as well. He con- 
 ceived of Prometheus as mankind, of his history and fate 
 as the destiny of man; and being full of that far sight of 
 Prometheus which saw the victorious end — being as full 
 of it as the wheel of Ezekiel was full of eyes — he saw, as 
 the centre of all vision, Prometheus Unbound — the mil- 
 lennium of mankind. He imagined the process of that great 
 liberation and its crowning prosperities. This is his poem. 
 In this poem the Revolution as a moral idea reached its 
 height; that is what makes it, from the social point of 
 view, the race point of view, the greatest work of the last 
 century in creative imagination — for it is the summary 
 and centre, in the world of art, of the greatest power in 
 that century — the power of the idea of humanity." — 
 George Edward Woodberry's The Torch. 
 
 Prometheus Unbound is Shelley's greatest drama and his 
 greatest poem, fit subject at once for the philosophizings 
 of a Hegel or the musical genius of a Wagner. Though it 
 is possible to question some of its structural ideas in truth 
 of detail, the truth of its movement and aspiration is 
 beyond question. Its political value is no doubt less than 
 its social value, and that again less than its spiritual value. 
 It offers no sure method for the renovation of life, but it 
 impresses us all with the assurance and reality of renova- 
 tion. Having said this, however, we must caution the student 
 against a too docile acceptance of the dicta of those critics 
 who can see no vitality in Shelley's social and political 
 views. The truth would seem to be that although the 
 poet, as a student of affairs, remained steadily faithful to the 
 teachings of William Godwin, yet his matter of belief in this 
 regard was far less important to him — and ought to be 
 so to us — than the energy and enthusiasm of his belief, 
 its spirit and its power. If he placed too little stress on the 
 effortful co-operation of men in the working out of their 
 long salvation, we must remember that Shelley was a 
 Romantic poet and that his own experience had actually 
 given him more occasion for believing in the beneficent 
 dynamic of Nature than in that of his fellows. In Man, as 
 the great member and expression of Nature, he believed; of 
 the mental and spiritual inertia of men he was but too 
 keenly aware. Nor is it by any means certain that Shelley's 
 social philosophy, more particularly examined, is as in- 
 adequate as it sometimes appears. It is not to be inter- 
 preted as postulating a purely external impulse, but rather 
 an inclusive one. Shelley's mankind, though given fluctu-r 
 ating place in a vast Nature-organization, is not by any 
 means a mechanicized conception. He saw and felt the 
 importance of arousing humanity to active enterprise in 
 
NOTES 239 
 
 PAGE 
 
 its own hehalf , and sounded peal after peal of warning and 
 entreaty in pamphlet and poem; but his eyes were habit- 
 ually fixed on the great principles of Love and Wisdom and 
 Virtue, abstractions which became so keenly and glowingly 
 realized in his own thought that of their inherent activity 
 he could entertain no doubt. Shelley's great myth-poem, 
 indeed, before and between its rapid, insatiate flights, 
 rests back upon a basis of ultimate and immutable law, 
 that stern yet kind rightness of things of which we have 
 spoken in the Introduction. There is in it the Greek sense 
 of Fate, the Renaissance sense of hope, the Revolution 
 sense of freedom, the Romantic sense of love, the modern 
 sense of science. It completes JEschylus as England com- 
 pletes Greece, and if it is not as sensitive to current know- 
 ledge as some have wished, it is yet a poem of astonishingly 
 self -renewing modernity, filled with the spirit of justice, 
 of liberty, and of truth, — in a word, of enfranchised being. 
 Jupiter is the symbol of Hindrance, Custom, Tradition; 
 Prometheus, of Wisdom, Fortitude, Humanity; Asia, of 
 Love and Beauty in Nature; Demogorgon, of Eternal Fate. 
 Prometheus and Jupiter — protagonist and antagonist — 
 are as sharply opposed as, in more concrete drama, are 
 Hamlet and Claudius, Othello and lago, Beatrice and Count 
 Cenci, and the opposition is far more important here be- 
 cause its issues are felt to be decisive. Yet the dramatic 
 structure of the poem is of less value than its emotional 
 power, — the truth of its instinct, the pure lyric fervour 
 of its utterance, the credible triumph of its great finale. 
 
 In the Notes that follow the comparisons with the 
 Prometheus Vinctus of iEschylus refer to Mrs. Browning's 
 . translation, which is, perhaps, the one most easily access- 
 ible to the average student. The original text and the 
 admirable versions by J. S. Blackie and by E. H. Plumptre 
 should be consulted, whenever possible. 
 
 ACT I 
 
 44 Scene. The time references here and in general through- 
 out the poem are not without their symbolic value. 
 
 2. ^^One." The speaker. Cf. 11. 265, 274, 493. 
 
 45 9. ^'Eyeless in hate." Blinded by bitterness. Cf. King 
 Lear, III, 1,8. The phrase modifies '' thou'' in 1. 10. It is a 
 Promethean taunt of the dramatic moment quite in keeping 
 with the words ^schylus makes his hero speak to lo con- 
 cerning Zeus, his persecutor and her lover: 
 
 "/o. By whom shall his imperial sceptred hand 
 Be emptied so? 
 
 Prometheufi, Himself shall spoil himself. 
 Through his idiotic counsels." 
 
 — Mrs. Browning's translation, Prometheus Bound, 11. 886- 
 888. 
 
240 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 45 24-43. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 99-127. 
 
 34. "Heaven's winged hound." The vulture. An 
 ^schylean phrase. 
 
 46 40. "When the rocks spht.'' Cf. Prometheus Bound, 
 11. 1205-09: 
 
 "... For at first 
 The Father will split up this jut of rock 
 With the great thunder and the bolted flame. 
 And hide thy body where a hinge of stone 
 Shall catch it like an arm." 
 
 50-52. For similar force in invective, cf. Gray's The 
 Bard, 11. 1, 6, 25, 97-99. 
 
 53. This line contains the first suggestion of the character 
 of the Shelleyan Prometheus as excelling that of the 
 ^schylean. The hero of the Prometheus Vinctus endures 
 and defies. Shelley's Prometheus adds to the just and 
 suffering spirit of his prototype a modern sympathy and 
 magnanimity gained through long discipline, and wins no 
 higher tribute than that of Jupiter himself. — Act III, Sc. 1, 
 11. 64-69. 
 
 54. Forman recommends the omission of "the'' as a 
 metrical improvement. It seems, however, that the crowd- 
 ing haste of the line accords happily with its meaning. 
 
 63. "vibrated." Note the nervous effect induced by the 
 accent-shifting. 
 
 47 74-106. The responses are made by each Voice as ad- 
 jured by Prometheus. All the Voices are in sympathy 
 with the Titan, like the iEschylean chorus, but their na- 
 ture-equilibrium is shudderingiy disturbed by the conflict 
 between Jupiter and his victim, as brought to focus in. the 
 memory of the awful curse, of which they are silently 
 unforgetful. 
 
 95-98. Cf. Coleridge's Rime oj the Ancient Mariner, 
 11. 560-569. 
 
 48 112-113. Prometheus again refers to the curse he uttered 
 against Jupiter, which the Voices dare not repeat. 
 
 49 137. "love." The subject is the "thou" of 1. 136, in the 
 present editor's judgment, not "I." In 11. 113 sq. Prome- 
 theus accuses his mother Earth of scorning him. Her 
 nearer movement and dimly compassionate voice now 
 reassure him, and he acknowledges her love. Forman, 
 however, prefers "I" as the subject. 
 
 51 175-177. Cf. The Sensitive Plant, 11. 224-251. 
 191-218. A finely imaginative picture of the fixity of the 
 
 Past in Eternal Memory. The suggestion is Platonic. 
 
 52 212. "Hades." Pluto. "Typhon." A giant resister of 
 Zeus, destroyed by his enemy. 
 
 213. "Evil." Note the allegorical suggestion. Contrast 
 11. 219-222. 
 
NOTES 241 
 
 PAGE 
 
 52 222 sq. The constant presence of lon^ and Panthea, sis- 
 ters of the remote and greater Asia, brings to Prometheus 
 something of the consolation her own presence would 
 assure. These spirits serve the purpose of a chorus, as now, 
 lyrically anticipating the appearance of the Phantasm of 
 Jupiter. 
 
 54 273. Zeus owed his throne to Prometheus. Cf. 11. 382-3; 
 Prometheus Bound, 11. 240-269. Note the allegory here, — 
 all power derives its authority from the spirit of truth and 
 justice. 
 
 56 303. ^'It doth repent me." The operation of the law 
 of necessity expressed in the curse as inevitable is not 
 repented, but rather the spirit of malevolence found in 
 11.286-295. Cf. 1.53 and note. The lyric outbursts of despair 
 that follow suggest the inability of the purely natural 
 mind of antiquity — facing the fact of Prometheus' cap- 
 tivity — to appreciate the meaning and power of unself- 
 ishness. Cf. Matthew Arnold's sonnet, In Harmony with 
 Nature. Cf. also 11. 394-401. 
 
 312-313. Note the extraordinary emotional power of 
 these iterations as prolonging the sense of failure and 
 despair. 
 
 324. ^'serpent-cinctured wand." The caduceus, or wand 
 of Mercury, surmounted by wings and having two serpents 
 twined about it. 
 
 325. Mercury, or Hermes, tempts and taunts the ^Eschy- 
 lean Prometheus. Shelley, however, makes him well dis- 
 posed toward the sufferer. 
 
 57 343. "the Sonof Maia." Mercury. There is a vindictive 
 suggestion here of Jovean vengeance overtaking hesitancy, 
 as in Strength's words to Hephaestus, Prometheus Bound, 
 11. 73-75: 
 
 " Dost thou flinch again. 
 And breathe groans for the enemies of Zeus ? 
 Beware lest thine own pity find thee out." 
 
 58 347. ''Geryon." ''Gorgon." Fabulous monsters. Ger- 
 yon had three heads and three bodies, and was slain by 
 Hercules. The Gorgons were three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, 
 and Medusa. Medusa was slain by Perseus. 
 
 348. "Chimsera." A fire-belching monster, destroyed 
 by Bellerophon. " Sphinx." The Sphinx was sent by Juno 
 to the Thebans, and devoured those of them who tried and 
 failed to solve her enigmas. CEdipus solved one at last, 
 and the Sphinx destroyed herself. 
 
 354. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 21-22: 
 
 '• Thee loath, I loath must rivet fast in chains 
 Against this rocky height unclomb by man," etc. 
 
 59 372. "a secret." The secret is that Jupiter will take a 
 wife — Thetis — whose child — Demogorgon — will cause 
 his sire's downfall. 
 
242 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 59 399. ''the Sicilian's." Damocles, a flattering courtier, 
 over whose banqueting-chair the tyrant Dionysius sus- 
 pended a keen sword by a horsehair, as a symbol of the 
 insecurity of place and power. 
 
 61 427-428. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 1107, 1146 sq. 
 438-439. These lines, witnessing the departure of Mer- 
 cury on his mission (see 11. 366-371), are memorably beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 62 446-447. Cf. Macbeth, Act III, Sc. 4, 11. 106, 107: 
 
 "... Hence, horrible shadow 1 
 Unreal mockery, hence ! " 
 
 455, 456. A favourite figure with Shelley. See note on 
 Adonais, 1. 297. 
 
 63 465. Cf. from Bacon's essay, Of Deformity: "Certainly 
 there is a consent between the body and the mind, and 
 where nature erreth in the one she ventureth in the other.'' 
 Cf. also Shakespeare's Richard III, Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 14-31. 
 
 64 496-521. Note the evil heaviness of the flight and move- 
 ment metrically suggested in this hag chorus. Cf. the Witch 
 scenes in Macbeth, Act I, Scenes 1 and 3; Act IV, Sc. 1; 
 and Faust, Walpurgis Night, Part I, Sc. 21. 
 
 66 540-577. The chants of the Choruses accompany the 
 climax of the spiritual suffering of Prometheus, as he sees 
 into the future tragedy of Christ (11. 547-566), and of the 
 failure of the French Revolution (11. 568-577), both events, 
 as Shelley believed, wrested from the control of Good and 
 perverted to Evil. Prometheus is tempted thus to doubt the 
 ultimate value of his own work for mankind. 
 
 69 598-616. Prometheus addresses the vision of Christ. 
 Shelley's hatred of ecclesiasticism, of formal and legal 
 religion, finds congenial expression here. See Introduc- 
 tion, pp. xix and xx. 
 
 598. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 301-302: 
 
 ** Chorus. And truly for such sins Zeus tortures thee, 
 And will remit no anguish?" 
 
 70 628. Though this is a projected picture, it reflects back 
 also upon the present situation in the drama — Prometheus 
 wanting Asia's aid, and Asia Demogorgon's, to complete 
 their freedom of spirit and of action. 
 
 635. The invincible goodness of the Titan conquers the 
 Fury's power longer to molest him. This great scene in- 
 evitably suggests the Temptation of Christ in the wilder- 
 ness. See Matthew iv, 1-11; Luke iv, 1-13. 
 
 640. A not infrequently recurring mood of Shelley finds 
 brief expression here. 
 
 641. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 1245-1248. 
 
 71 647-656. Another picture of the French Revolution. 
 665-672. The rhyme — not employed in the dialogue 
 
 touching the Furies (11. 440-443 and 522-525) — relieves 
 
NOTES 243 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the verse and sympathetically anticipates the coming of 
 the Spirits. ^' Their beauty gives me voice." (1. 760.) 
 
 73 695 sq. The Spirits have insight into the final triumph 
 of Good, as the Furies into the long-persisting power of 
 Evil. Each Spirit, instancing an action or attitude of high 
 good, seeks to justify the faith of all the Spirits. 
 
 709-715. Cf, The Cloud, 11. 67-72. 
 
 719, 720. Cf. Shakespeare's The Tempest, Act I, Sc. 2, 
 11. 195-212. 
 
 74 738-752. See Introduction, p. Ixiii. 
 
 75 757. Cf. line 672. 
 
 770. Cf. Adonais, 11. 399-401. 
 
 76 786. Cf. Macbeth, Act I, Sc. 2, 11. 11, 12; Sc. 3, 1. 38. 
 
 77 805. ^'responses." Accented on the first syllable. Cf. 
 Act II, 11. 171, 525. 
 
 78 820, 821. The Furies' torments and the Spirits' consola- 
 tion are alike incomplete. The Furies have derided the 
 idea of love, and even the Spirits cannot ignore its apparent 
 failures, yet in it alone lies hope. The memory of Pro- 
 metheus and the words of Panthea both turn his thoughts 
 toward Asia, the principle of that never-wearied Love 
 which animates and sustains the universe. See Adonais, 
 11. 481-486. 
 
 833, 834. Love, if she is to persist, must be united to 
 
 Wisdom. 
 
 ACT II 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 79 12. The short line dwells for a moment with sad intensity 
 upon the idea it expresses. 
 
 31. ''The shadow of that soul." Panthea, messenger 
 between Prometheus and Asia, sits within the shadow of 
 the Titan. To Asia she is the shadow of Prometheus, to 
 Prometheus the shadow of Asia. See 1. 70. 
 
 80 36. Cf. 11. 61-92. 
 
 81 67. Cf. Epipsychidion, 11. 587-591. 
 
 94-106. lone felt what Panthea felt, but more dimly, 
 and did not understand the meaning of her dream. lone 
 represents Hope. Panthea, the more active of the two 
 sisters, symbolizes Faith — the faith that Shelley felt in 
 the ultimate 'Godness' of things. Note the derivation. 
 
 82 113, 120. These two lines again unite Prometheus and 
 Asia through Panthea. See note on 1. 31 above. 
 
 114-117. A beautiful picture of Faith. 
 
 83 131-208. ''Follow! Follow!" The Dream utters the 
 words of progress that all Nature sounds and echoes, the 
 chorus-words that accompany for ever the " eternal process 
 moving on." The beauty of Shelley's idea, or, rather, of 
 its expression here, is extraordinarily moving. 
 
244 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 83 140. See note on Adonais, 1. 140. 
 
 84 156-159. Cf. Ode to the West Wind, 11. 57-61, 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 87 ^' Love and Faith are pursuing their journey through all 
 human experience: and first they pass through the sphere 
 of the Senses, or external life (Semichorus I) ; then through 
 that of the Emotions (Semichorus II); finally, through 
 that of the Reason and the Will (Semichorus III)." — 
 Vida D. Scudder. 
 
 221. ^'anemone." See note on The Question, 1. 9. 
 232 sq. See Adonais, 11. 145, 146. 
 
 88 248. See Act II, Sc. 1,1. 67. 
 
 89 270. A reference, no doubt, to the higher environment 
 of Scene III. 
 
 272-277. An evident reminiscence from The Tempest, 
 always Shelley's admiration. See Act I, Sc. 2, 11. 386-394. 
 
 281 . '' oozy." A favourite word with Shelley, as " odours " 
 also in 1. 294. 
 
 90 298. ''thwart." Perverse; ill-natured. ''Silenus." A 
 prophesying demigod, crowned with flowers, and usually 
 represented as riding on an ass. 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 90 314. ''Maenads." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 
 
 91 326. Note the great beauty of the figure here. 
 
 93 384. This line keys the song of the Spirits. Asia and 
 Panthea are now to descend to the ultimate Source and 
 Ground of all things, to leave sensible Nature and confront 
 the Law of Nature's being. 
 
 SCENE IV 
 
 94 411. Demogorgon's answers have the remoteness and 
 changeless truth of their speaker's character. 
 
 415-421. As the passage stands, ''which" in line 415 
 seems to have no predicate. Shelley, however, surely 
 intended "fills" as the predicate. Rossetti makes "when" 
 (1.415) "at," and Forman suggests "hear" (1. 416) for 
 "or." If "breathe" were adopted for "in" in 1. 416, the 
 original image would perhaps be most apparent, though 
 any of these changes would, of course, be hazardous. 
 
 95 428. Cf. Act I, 11. 511-513; Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 442. 
 435. Note the rising emotional insistence in Asia's repe- 
 titions. She is face to face with the most obstinate of 
 mysteries. 
 
NOTES 245 
 
 PAGE 
 
 96 446-448. These lines admirably express the Promethean 
 character, — wisdom, and friendship for humanity. 
 
 446-461. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 241-277. 
 
 462-503. Cf. Prometheus Bound, 11. 269-300; 512-575. 
 
 464. ''Nepenthe." The Homeric drug of forge tfulness. 
 Cf. Poe's The Raven, 1. 83. ;'Moly.'' A fabled plant given 
 Ulysses by Hermes to save him from Circe's power. See the 
 Odyssey, Book X, 11. 302-306. ''Amaranth.'' An imagin- 
 ary fadeless flower. It appears in Spenser's Faerie Queene^ 
 Book III, Canto 6, stanza 45; and in Milton's Lycidas, 
 
 I. 149, and Paradise Lost, Book III, 1. 353. 
 
 97 489. Cf. Mont Blanc, 1. 49 sq. See Introduction, pp. Ix, Ixi. 
 
 98 515-523. Cf. Act. I, 1. 144. Behind and beyond Zeus, 
 said ^schylus, stands Necessity (cf. Prometheus Bound, 
 
 II. 583-586), which is ultimate Lord of all. Shelley, with 
 modern idealism, makes Love the Lord of Necessity 
 (1. 523). To him, Love is the final idea of power, destiny, 
 and Godhood. Cf . the following interesting passages : — 
 
 " The God of Power, even before we learn quite positively 
 to conceive him as the God of Love, sometimes appears 
 to us, despite his all-real Oneness, as somehow requiring 
 another and higher if much dimmer God beyond him, 
 either to explain his existence-ofTo justify his being. This 
 contradictory and restless search for a God beyond God, 
 this looking for a reality higher still than our highest 
 already defined power, appears in several cases, in our 
 poet's [Browning's] work, as a sort of inner disease, about 
 the very conception of the God of Power, and as the begin- 
 ning of the newer and nobler faith. The God beyond God 
 is in the end what gets defined for us as the God of Love. 
 . . . The God beyond God appears in Caliban's theology, 
 very explicitly, as ' the something over Setebos that made 
 him, or he, maybe, found and fought.' ' There may be some- 
 thing quiet o'er his head.' . . . In far nobler form, Ixion rises 
 from Zeus to the higher law and life beyond him. . . . He 
 [Guido] falls helpless at last, and, even w^hile he wrestles 
 beneath hell's most overwhelming might, still, like Ixion, 
 like Karshish, and like David, he conceives at last the 
 Over-God, afar off, beyond the great gulf fixed; and this 
 Over-God, mentioned in his final cry for help after all the 
 powers, — after Grand Duke, Pope, Cardinal, Christ, 
 Maria, God, — is PompiHa. . . . Euripides, too, in his 
 way, found the Over-God, and found him in the world of 
 love, beyond nature, and yet within man's heart." — 
 Josiah Royce: Browning's Theism (Boston Browning 
 Society Papers, 1886-1897). 
 
 ** There is an Entity, a Soul-Entity, as yet unrecognized 
 . . . it is in addition to the existence of the soul; in addi- 
 tion to immortality ; and beyond the idea of the deity. . . . 
 I conclude that there is an existence, a something higher 
 
246 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 than soul — higher, better, and more perfect than deity. 
 Earnestly I pray to find . . . this Highest Soul, this greater 
 than deity, this better than god." — Richard Jefferies: 
 The Story of My Heart. 
 
 " When we have broken our god of tradition, and ceased 
 from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with 
 his presence." — Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Over-Soul. 
 99 536. Contrast Coleridge 'ws Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 
 11. 446-451. 
 
 545. The Hour of Jupiter's dethronement, whose car 
 Demogorgon now ascends (11. 553-558). 
 100 562. The Hour of Prometheus' restoration. 
 
 566-577. Note the light and confident swiftness of these 
 exquisite lines. As Demogorgon goes to banish Jupiter 
 (Act III, Sc. 1), Asia and Panthea ascend to witness the 
 release of Prometheus (Act III, Sc. 3). 
 
 SCENE V 
 
 101 587, 588. The Sun-God awaits the conclusion of the 
 journey of Love, Child of Light (1. 631), whose own being 
 illumines the cloud about the car (11. 588-591). 
 
 102 597-608. Aphrodite (Venus), the goddess of love, was so 
 created. Asia, its greatest Spirit-Exemplar, absorbs into 
 her own being all other symbols and dispensers of love. 
 
 103 620. Cf. Browning's Christmas Eve, v, 11. 23-25: — 
 
 "For the loving worm within its clod 
 Were diviner than a loveless god 
 Amid his worlds, I will dare to say." 
 
 625-648. The Voice of Prometheus anticipates the com- 
 ing of Asia. 
 
 630. In Hawthorne's Marble Faun, he speaks (Book II, 
 chapter 19) of the lack of frankness in Italian eyes: ^' ' Very 
 strange, indeed, signor,' she replied, meekly, without turn- 
 ing away her eyes in the least, but checking his insight of 
 them at about half an inch below the surface." Shelley 
 wrote to Peacock of what, on the contrary, seemed to him 
 "the mazy depth of colour behind colour with which the 
 intellectual women of England and Germany entangle the 
 heart in soul-inspiring labyrinths." 
 
 104 649-687. The song responds to the song of the Voice 
 of Prometheus. There linger in it some notes of the Spen- 
 serian music. Cf. The Faerie Queene, Book II, Canto 12. 
 Cf., for similar symbolic suggestions — the regaining of 
 "the glory and the freshness" — Wordsworth's Ode on 
 Intimations of Immortality. Cf. also Henry Vaughan's The 
 Retreat, 11. 21-32: 
 
 "O how I long to travel back, 
 And tread again that ancient track I 
 
NOTES 247 
 
 PAGE 
 
 That I might once more reach that plain 
 Where first I left my glorious train ; 
 From whence th' enlightened spirit sees 
 That shady City of palm trees ! 
 But ahl my soul with too much stay 
 Is drunk, and staggers in the way : — 
 Some men a forward motion love, 
 But I by backward steps would move ; 
 And when this dust falls to the urn, 
 In that state I came, return." 
 
 104 674. ''Harmonizing." Accented on the second syllable. 
 
 105 687. The antecedent of ''which" is "shapes." , The 
 thought is that the shapes are so bright — " somewhat 
 like thee" — that one cannot bear to look at them, and 
 yet, once seen, their beauty destroys the beholder's rest. 
 
 ACT III 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 106 25. "Idsean Ganymede." Ganymede was a beautiful 
 Phrygian youth who was carried up from Mount Ida to 
 succeed Hebe as cup-bearer to Jupiter. 
 
 26. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. 
 
 40. "him." The soldier Sabellus. "Numidian seps." 
 Seps is the name of a species of deadly serpents. See 
 Lucan's Pfiarsalia, IX, for the allusion. 
 
 43. Cf. Dry den's Under Mr, Milton's Picture, 11. 5, 6. 
 
 107 61. Note the wrath and growing fear indicated by 
 Jupiter's change of address as contrasted with 1. 51, in 
 which anticipative though as yet undefined dread is sug- 
 gested. 
 
 64-69. In these words, following the eloquent silence of 
 Jupiter's recognition of his doom, "the wheel has come 
 full circle." His appeal to the name of Prometheus is one 
 of the most impressive dramatic moments in the drama. 
 The Evil that opposed and oppressed the Good recognizes 
 explicitly the superior power of its victim, and implores 
 succour therefrom. Cf. Act I, 1. 305. 
 
 108 72-74. Cf. The Revolt of Islam, Canto 1, stanzas 6-14. 
 81. Associate Jupiter's "ever, f»r ever" with the same 
 
 words of Prometheus, Act I, 11. 23, 30, 636. 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 109 94-100. Cf. Matthew Arnold's Sohrah and Rustum, 11. 
 556-572. 
 
 94. As Forman suggests, "sinks" is understood after 
 "eagle." 
 
248 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 109 107. '' Proteus." A famous sea-god, on whom Neptune 
 bestowed the gift of prophecy, and who assumed various 
 and perplexing shapes. 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 110 139. Cf. Act II, Sc. 5, 11. 625, 631. 
 
 111 143 SQ. Shelley's longing for the crystallization — so to 
 speak — of high moments finds frequent expression in both 
 his life and his poetry. He was always on the verge of dis- 
 covering a personal as well as a social Eden. Cf. Epipsychi- 
 dion, 11. 513-591; and the following passage from Dowden's 
 Life, vol. I, p. 127: '"We must stay here,' whispered 
 Shelley — 'stay for ever.' This 'for ever' became after- 
 wards a jest between the friends; for all Shelley's move- 
 ments, sudden and erratic as the starts of a meteor — one 
 of those that 
 
 ' Caper 
 On hill-tops when the moon is in a fit * — 
 
 were to conduct him to some resting-place where he should 
 abide 'for ever.'" 
 
 At the same time, we can hardly agree with Miss Scudder 
 that this passage has a " merely pastoral prettiness," nor 
 accept her stricture on 1. 157 because it seems to be out 
 of harmony with the theory of evolution. " Ourselves un- 
 changed" expresses a common and here justly dramatic 
 longing for peace and rest after long spiritual toil and suf- 
 fering. Cf. 11. 194-196 as completing the meaning. Cf. also 
 III, 4, 501-512. 
 
 148. "frozen tears." Stalactites and stalagmites. 
 
 112 175, 176. "Enna." See note on Song of Proserpine, 
 Enna was a Sicilian town in the "Himera" country. 
 
 198. "Proteus." See note on Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 107. 
 
 113 206, 214. Cf. Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 156-159. 
 
 211. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 1, 
 11. 172, 173; The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1, 11. 44-47; Act V, 
 Sc. 1, 11. 102, 103. 
 
 114 246, 247. See note on Adonais, 11. 348-351. Cf. the 
 sonnet beginning "Lift not the painted veil." See also 
 Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 498. 
 
 115 285. Cf. The Tempest, Act IV, Sc. 1, 1. 184; Act V, Sc. 1, 
 1. 241; A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Sc. 2, 1. 244. 
 
 287. "Nysa." Scene of the worship of Bacchus, who was 
 sometimes called Nysaeus. "Maenad." See note on The 
 Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 
 
 116 298. "Praxitelean." Praxiteles was a peculiarly skilful 
 and sympathetic Greek sculptor living nearly 500 years 
 before Christ. Hawthorne has several interesting refer- 
 ences to him in The Marble Faun. 
 
 305. "the night of life." Cf. Adonais, 1. 344. 
 
NOTES 249 
 
 SCENE IV 
 PAGE 
 
 116 314. ^' the delicate spirit. '^ *' This spirit has been likened 
 to Goethe's Euphorion, in the second part of Faust, al- 
 though of course it has a wider meaning than the poet- 
 child of Faust and Helena. The old, half inorganic Gaia, 
 the crude material earth, is replaced, now that the harmony 
 of man and nature has been restored, by this dainty and 
 more rational spirit, who, childish at first, grows into swift 
 maturity of intelHgence and love by the end of Act IV.'' 
 — VidaD. Scudder. 
 
 117 327. The bite of the dipsas serpent caused intolerable 
 thirst. See Lucan's Pharsalia, IX. 
 
 118 348-351. Of. Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 1, 11. 70-76. 
 
 359. "Well." The rather abrupt use of this colloquial 
 expletive may be dramatically justified by the Spirit's 
 quick, irrepressible boyishness, his eagerness to speak. 
 Cf. 1. 340. 
 
 363. Cf. Act III, Sc. 3, 11. 209-216. 
 
 376-385. Cf. from Browning's Paracelsus, in the last 
 long utterance of Paracelsus, the passage beginning 
 
 "In my own heart love had not been made wise." 
 
 119 381, 382. Cf. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 
 11. 125-126; 238-239; 272-291. 
 
 404. '' darkling." Cf. King Lear, Act I, Sc. 4, 1. 207. 
 
 120 418. The "on" after "pasturing" is supplied at For- 
 man's suggestion. 
 
 420. " Phidian." Phidias is the most famous of the 
 Greek sculptors. 
 
 427. " amphisbaenic snake." One having a head at each 
 extreme. 
 
 121 432. "As I have said" is a strangely commonplace 
 phrase for so sensitive a master of words as Shelley. 
 
 434-512. A passionately beautiful prophecy of the 
 triumph of Love over Evil in mankind, the passing of the 
 mechanical and tyrannous in law, religion and custom. 
 Cf. , for the philosophical weakness involved, the Introduc- 
 tion, p. Ixvii. Yet Shelley's poetry must not be interpreted 
 as ignoring the value of moral effort. 
 
 442. Cf. Act I, 11. 511-513; Act II, Sc. 4, 1. 428. 
 
 457-460. Shelley's condemnation of social insincerity is 
 a feeling one, as it had cause to be. What success of scheme 
 or manoeuvre, he felt, gained at the expense of one's self- 
 respect and moral integrity, can compare with an unstained 
 freedom of soul? For himself, as man and poet, he believed 
 that honesty of speech and deed is the instinctive attitude 
 and expression of the liberal soul. Cf. Tennyson's In 
 Memoriam, Lyric 110, 11. 4-7. 
 
 122 481. "imaged" is the past tense. 
 
 123 498. See note on Act III, Sc. 3, 11. 246, 247. 
 504, 505. Cf. Act I, 1. 493. 
 
250 NOTES 
 
 ACT IV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 123 ''At first he completed the drama in three acts. It was 
 not till several months after, when at Florence, that he 
 conceived that a fourth act, a sort of hymn of rejoicing 
 in the fulfilment of the prophecies with regard to Prome- 
 theus, ought to be added to complete the composition." 
 — From Mrs. Shelley's note. 
 
 It is strange that Sidney Lanier, a critic so generally 
 discerning, should have written as follows of this fourth 
 act: ''Act IV is the most amazing piece of surplusage in 
 literature; the catastrophe has been reached long ago in the 
 third act, Jove is in eternal duress, Prometheus has been 
 liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to his eternal 
 paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of the 
 reawakening of man and nature under the new regime has 
 closed up the whoie with the effect of a transformation- 
 scene. Yet, upon all this, Shelley drags in Act IV, which 
 is simply leaden in action and color alongside of Act III, 
 and in which the voices of unseen spirits, the chorus of 
 Hours, lone, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the 
 Moon pelt each other Mth endless sweetish speeches that 
 rain like ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness." — • 
 The English Novel, pp. 103, 104. 
 
 William Michael Rossetti, on the other hand, finds it 
 "difficult to speak highly enough of the fourth act so far 
 as lyrical fervour and lambent play of imagination are con- 
 cerned, both of them springing from ethical enthusiasm. 
 It is the combination of these which makes this act the 
 most surprising structure of lyrical faculty, sustained at an 
 almost uniform pitch through a very considerable length 
 of verse, that I know of in any literature. One ought perhaps 
 to except certain passages, taken collectively, in Dante's 
 Paradiso.'' 
 
 Certainly, if Lanier's criticism were to stand, it would 
 become necessary to curtail some of Shakespeare's plays 
 and Thackeray's novels, as concluding with other than 
 structurally necessary passages. Though it is true that 
 the essential dramatic action is ended with the third act 
 of Prometheus, yet the drama itself is incomplete, for the 
 movement has been directed toward a catastrophe so 
 stupendous and revolutionary that the reader instinctively 
 feels — as Shelley felt — the need of another act, both to 
 give reality in celebrant music to the central idea of the 
 entire drama, and to relieve overcharged emotions. If 
 Act III had been allowed to remain as the concluding act, 
 the finale would have been one of ungrateful and almost 
 unconvincing abruptness, and the aesthetic result one of 
 a surprise and joy so unrelieved as to be almost painful. 
 The "silver lining" apparent in the coming of Fortinbras 
 
NOTES 251 
 
 PAGE 
 
 after the catastrophe in Hamlet, hinting at the redemption 
 of the tragic idea, and the exultant strains of Shelley's 
 final act, serve alike one prime purpose, — the making of 
 both creations more artistically credible. 
 
 Panthea and lone here serve the function of an inter- 
 linking and wonderingly interpretative chorus between 
 the Spirit-songs and the duet of Earth and Moon, and 
 again between these and the great injunctions of Demo- 
 gorgon. 
 
 127 73-76. For the figure cf. Act I, Sc. 1, 1. 456; The Cenci, 
 Act I, Sc. 2, 1. 14; Adonais, 1. 297; Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, 
 
 I. 250. 
 
 128 116. "dffidal.'' See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. Cf. 
 Act III, Sc. 1, 1. 26; Act IV, 1. 416. 
 
 121, 122. Contrast Lines Written among the Euganean 
 Hills, 11. 1-8; 66-69. 
 132 192. Cf. Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, 11. 
 267-268: — 
 
 '* His eyen twinkled in his heed aright. 
 As doon the sterres in the frosty night." 
 
 206-235. With this vision of the Moon cf. The Cloud, 
 
 II. 45-58. 
 
 213. "Regard." Are regarded as; appear. 
 
 214-217. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 21-24. 
 134 266-268. Cf. Shakespeare's King Henry V, Act II, Sc. 3, 
 I. 16. 
 
 281. 'Valueless." Invaluable. 
 136 319 sq. This spiritual coming together of Earth and 
 Moon at once indicates the new and rapid grow^th of each 
 under the law of love and satisfies the prediction of Asia 
 in Act III, Sc. 4, 11. 394-398. The speakers are surely the 
 Spirit of the Earth and the Spirit of the Moon. This is the 
 new Earth of Act III, Sc. 4, the freed and rejuvenated 
 spirit of Scene 3, not the old Earth of Act I. In this final 
 act it has become "old enough" in its new life (cf. Asia's 
 words in Act III, Sc. 4, 1. 399) for complete delight and 
 triumph, ^sthetically, this is a valuable study in inter- 
 changed metres, and the student should carefully examine 
 the measures as corresponding to the presences and con- 
 sciousnesses of Earth and Moon. Cf . Addison's famous ode, 
 The Spacious Firmament on High, as exhibiting a brief mo- 
 ment of similar spiritual insight. 
 
 138 370-423. Literature contains no hymn of humanity 
 more inspiring than this. 
 
 378. Cf. 1. 245. 
 
 139 406. Cf. Coleridge's Love, 11. 1-4: 
 
 '• All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 
 Whatever stirs this mortal frame, 
 All are but ministers of Love. 
 And feed his sacred flame." 
 
252 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 141 453. Cf. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, 11. 59, 60. 
 
 142 473. '^ Maenad." See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 
 
 474. '' Agave." Daughter of Cadmus, founder of Thebes. 
 
 475. "Cadmsean." See note on Ode to Liberty, 1. 92. 
 145 554 sq. Demogorgon's great utterance touches the root 
 
 serenity that both conditions and is produced by discipline 
 through Evil. The student will compare the Shakespeare 
 of The Tempest and The Winter's Tale with the Shakespeare 
 of Hamlet and Lear. Both sorrow and joy are now tem- 
 pered and controlled to a music undespairing and unexult- 
 ant, but strong and calm and kind. Shelley's own firmest 
 belief in the manner of Man's redemption is here expressed. 
 
 147 The World's Wanderers. 
 
 In Forman's opinion a stanza is wanting, the last word 
 of which should rhyme with ''billow." 
 
 148 Song (** Rarely, rarely comest thou"). 
 
 ^ Though this lyric is usually grouped with the poems of 
 
 1821, there exists at Harvard an autograph MS. dated 
 "Pisa, May, 1820." 
 
 149 19. Note the metrical means employed to induce the 
 ''merry measure." 
 
 38-9. Shelley disliked the ordinary forms and conven- 
 tions of "society." 
 
 150 48. Cf. " When the lamp is shattered;' IL 21-4. 
 
 150 Song of Proserpine. 
 
 In Greek mythology Persephone (Roman, Proserpine) 
 was the daughter of Zeus (Jupiter) and Demeter (Ceres). 
 While gathering flowers on the plains of.Enna, in Sicily, 
 with Artemis and Athena, she was seized by JPluto, god 
 of the dead, and carried off to become Queen of Hades. 
 She was permitted, however, to return to her mother during 
 a portion of each year, and symbolizes vegetable life. Her 
 story is told by Hesiod and Ovid. Cf . Swinburne's Hymn to 
 Proserpine. 
 
 151 Autumn: A Dirge. 
 10. Cf. Dirge for the Year, 1. 10. 
 
 152 The Question. 
 The sensuous beauty of this poem suggests comparison 
 
 with Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. 
 
 1-8. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 1-12. 
 
 9. "wind-flowers." Anemones. (From ^j/e^tos, wind.) 
 
 10. "Arcturi." So-called because ever-blooming. The 
 constellation of Arcturus never sets. 
 
 9-32. Cf . the famous flower-passages in Spenser's Faerie 
 Queene, Book III, Canto 6, stanza 45; Shakespeare's A 
 Midsummer NigM s Dream, Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 249-252; Keats's 
 Ode to a Nightingale, stanza 5; Milton's Lycidas,\\. 142-151; 
 Bacon's Essay Of Gardens. 
 
 13. "that tall flower." Probably the tulip. 
 
 21. "Our language has no line," says Palgrave, "modu- 
 lated with more subtle sweetness." 
 
 J 
 
NOTES 253 
 
 PAGE 
 
 152 27. *' sedge." Coarse grass or flags growing on the banks 
 of lakes and rivers. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 104. 
 /" 153 Hymn of Apollo. 
 
 This and the succeeding Hymn were intended for use in 
 a drama of Williams's. Apollo and Pan are contending be- 
 fore Tmolus for a prize in music. Apollo was the son of 
 Zeus and Leto, and was the god of the sun, of divination, 
 medicine, music, poetry, etc. (See 11. 30-34.) 
 Vl54 Hymn of Pan. 
 
 The god Pan in Greek mythology was a son of Hermes 
 and Callisto. He controlled the fields and woods, the flocks 
 and the herds, and is traditionally represented as having 
 horns and goat-like legs and feet. He was a master-musician, 
 the inventor of ''Pan's pipes," or the shepherd's flute. 
 For circumstances of composition see note on Hymn of 
 Apollo. Cf. Mrs. Browning's A Musical Instrument. 
 155 11. ''Tmolus." The god of Mount Tmolus, in Lydia, 
 father of Tantalus, and judge in a musical contest between 
 Pan and Apollo. 
 
 13. " Peneus." Or, Salembria, a river in Sicily. 
 
 14. "Tempe." A vale in Thessaly, separating Olympus 
 from Ossa. 
 
 15. "Pelion." A mountain in Thessaly, fabled to have 
 been piled on Ossa, another mountain, by the giants, and 
 directed against Olympus. 
 
 16. "Sileni." Satyrs and followers of Bacchus. "Syl- 
 vans." Wood-spirits. " Fauns." Creatures of Latin myth- 
 ology, resembling the Greek satyrs. 
 
 26. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86. 
 
 30. "Msenalus." A mountain in Arcadia, the original 
 y seat of Pan. 
 \yi56 Arethusa. 
 
 Arethusa was a fountain in Ortygia, near Sicily, and 
 Alpheus a river in the ancient Peloponnesus, whose course 
 was at times subterranean. The legend therefore arose 
 that Alpheus, the river-god, became enamoured of the 
 nymph Arethusa, while she bathed in the stream, and 
 pursued her, whereupon she was changed by Artemis, or 
 Diana, into the Ortygian fountain. Alpheus continued 
 his pursuit under "earth and ocean." Cf. Milton's Arcades, 
 11. 29-31: — 
 
 " . . that renowned flood, so often sung, 
 Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice. 
 Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." 
 
 Cf. also Milton's Lycidas, 11. 85, 132; and Coleridge's Kuhla 
 Khan: — 
 
 *' Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 
 Through caverns measureless to man 
 Down to a sunless sea." 
 
254 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 156 3. '' Acroceraunian/' Acroceraunia was the ancient 
 name of a promontory of Epirus. 
 
 24. ^' Ery man thus." An Arcadian mountain in the 
 Peloponnesus. 
 
 157 60. "unvalued." Invaluable. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 
 L 176: — 
 
 " And hears the unexpressive [inexpressible] nuptial song." 
 
 Cf. also Ode to Liberty, 1. 51; Prometheus Unbound, IV, 
 281, 378. 
 
 158 74. "Enna's." See note on Song of Proserpine. 
 
 158 The Cloud. 
 
 It was natural that Shelley's genius should take delight 
 in things aerial, — birds, balloons, lightning, stars, winds, 
 clouds. The sympathy shown in this familiar lyric with 
 the *' being and becoming" of the cloud testifies to the 
 immediacy of his nature- vision, to his kinship with Blake 
 and Browning rather than with Bryant or even, in general, 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 159 11, 12. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 181-4. 
 
 160 45. Cf. Letter to Maria Gisborne, 11. 69, 70: — 
 
 •♦ . . . when from the moist moon rains 
 The inmost shower of its white fire." 
 
 45 sq. Note the difference in thought between the cloud- 
 drawn picture of the moon and the mortal's melancholy 
 fancy. Cf. To the Moon and The Waning Moon, and cf. 
 also Sidney's admirable sonnet, "With how sad steps, O 
 moon, thou climb'st the skies!" 
 
 52-4. Cf. Coleridge's "star-dogged Moon," Rime of 
 the Ancient Mariner, 1. 212, and Wordsworth's A Night- 
 Piece, 11. 11-20. 
 
 161 81. "cenotaph." An empty tomb, intended as a me- 
 morial rather than as a grave. 
 
 161 To a Skylark. 
 
 See Introduction, pp. xliii, Iviii, and Ixiv. " Here it was 
 [at Casa Ricci], near bustling Leghorn, that Shelley and 
 Mary, wandering on a beautiful summer evening ' 'mong the 
 lanes whose myrtle-hedges were the bowers of fireflies,' heard 
 the carolling of the skylark which inspired that spirit- 
 winged song known to all lovers of English poetry — a song 
 vibrating still with such a keen and pure intensity." — 
 Dowden's Life, II, 331. 
 
 8. Some critics have held that the semicolon at the end 
 of this line should be placed after line 7. This w^ould be not 
 only an unnecessary variation from the early editions but 
 an indefensible one, the genius of the second stanza re- 
 quiring a quick, exultant, ascending movement. The stress 
 is palpably upon line 8 rather than line 7, since, as Pro- 
 fessor Baynes points out, " in the opening verse of the poem 
 the lark ... is already far up in the sky." 
 
NOTES 255 
 
 PAGE 
 
 162 15. For ''unbodied" Professor Craik substituted ''em- 
 bodied." This change also is wholly without warrant. The 
 lark is a "blithe spirit," a "sprite," a "scorner of the 
 ground." It may safely be said that too many corrupt 
 passages in Hterature have become so through editorial 
 blindness and perversity rather than through original 
 creative carelessness. 
 
 32. The succeeding stanzas attempt to answer the 
 question. Cf. Wordsworth's To the Daisy (second poem), 
 stanzas 2-5. 
 
 163 65. Among all of Shelley's conquests over the apathy 
 and heaviness of words there is none more triumphant 
 than this felicitous line. 
 
 164 80. Cf. To (" When passion's trance is overpast ") 
 
 and Lines (" When the lamp is shattered "). 
 
 86 sq. Note the autobiographical value of the stanza. 
 
 165 101 sq. Cf. Poe's Israfel, 11. 45-51. 
 
 165 Ode to Liberty. 
 
 " In the spring of the year [1820], moved by the uprising 
 of the Spaniards, he had written his Ode to Liberty, in 
 which the grave Muse of History is summoned to utter 
 oracles of hope for the cause of freedom." — Dowden's 
 Life, II, 343. 
 
 The motto is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ^ 
 Canto IV, stanza 98. 
 
 15. "a voice." Cf. Wordsworth's sonnet, England and 
 Switzerland, 1802. "the same." A weak phrase, flatting 
 the line. The "voice" reviews the rise of Liberty and ap- 
 peals for her fuller welcome. 
 
 166 18. "daedal." See note on Mont Blanc, 1. 86.^ 
 
 19. "island." A favourite image and idea with Shelley. 
 Cf. 11. 108, 206. Cf. Introduction, p. xliv. 
 
 31. "then." A weak use. 
 
 38. "For thou wert not." Note that this phrasing is 
 iterated in precisely the same place in stanzas 2 and 3. 
 Contrast 1. 72. 
 
 41. " sister-pest." Ecclesiasticism, or traditional religion. 
 Cf. 1. 83. 
 
 167 47. "dividuous." Dividing. 
 
 51. "unapprehensive." Unable to apprehend. See note 
 on Arethusa, 1. 60. 
 
 69-75. Liberty a condition of art. 
 
 168 74. "that hill." The Acropolis. 
 87-90. Cf. Adonais, stanzas 52 and 54. 
 
 92. "Cadmsean Maenad." A Theban worshipper of 
 Bacchus. Euripides makes them nurses of young wolves. 
 See note on The Sensitive Plant, 1. 34. 
 
 93. " thy dearest." Athens. 
 
 98. " Camillus." Marcus Furius Camillus was a renowned 
 Roman hero, who relieved his people when besieged by 
 
256 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 the Gauls. ''Atilius." Or, Regulus, a Roman consul, who, 
 captured by the Carthaginians and sent to Rome to solicit 
 peace, advised the Senate to continue the war. On his 
 return to Carthage he was, as he expected, put to death. 
 169 103. '^Palatinus.'^ One of the seven hills of Rome. 
 
 106. ^' Hyrcanian." Hyrcania was an ancient Persian 
 province, south of the Hyrcanian (Caspian) sea. 
 
 110-113. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 39-43. 
 
 114, 115. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 11. 52-55. 
 
 115. '^ Scald's.'' A Scald was an ancient Scandinavian 
 minstrel. Among the Celts the word equals ' bard.' 
 
 119. ''The Galilean serpent." Christianity. 
 
 171 171-173. A reference to the French Revolution. 
 175. ''Anarch." Napoleon. 
 
 180. Cf. Gray's The Bard, stanzas 2 and 3. 
 186. "Pithecusa." An island in the Bay of Naples. 
 ''Pelorus." A Sicilian headland. 
 
 172 192. "Twins of a single destiny." England and Spain. 
 194. "the dim West." Possibly America; possibly the 
 
 Past, though this latter interpretation would hardly be in 
 accord with Shelley's idea of the youth of Liberty; more 
 probably the ripe Future of humanity, as the West is the 
 day-old sun's glory and solace, "impress us." Mrs. Shelley 
 suggests 'as' for 'us.' 
 
 196. "Arminius." An early German hero, who defeated 
 the Romans. 
 
 204. "thou." Italy. 
 
 212. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, III, 4, 439. 
 
 173 226-240. Cf. Introduction, pp. xix and xx. 
 
 174 248. Cf. 1. 55. 
 
 254-255. Understand 'if Wealth can rend.' 
 258. "Eoanwave." Wave of dawn. 
 266. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode to Duty, 1. 2. 
 
 175 271-285. The student will note the powerful felicity in 
 general of Shelley's finales. See Introduction, p. Ixiv. 
 
 283. "great voice." Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 132. 
 175 The Sensitive Plant. 
 
 I In this lovely allegory Shelley expresses the cardinal 
 ^ truth of idealism and romanticism, that 
 
 "The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
 Heaven's light for ever shines. Earth's shadows fly." 
 
 Though the Spirit of Light and Love is impotent to 
 prevent the apparent material decay of all things beautiful, 
 it is potent in the world of ideas to redeem for ever from 
 death and destruction. Cf. Browning's Aht Vogler, 11. 69 sq. 
 Lady Mountcashell (Mrs. Mason), with whom the Shelleys 
 were very friendly during their stay in Pisa, \*as, accord- 
 ing to Medwin, " a superior and accomplished woman, and 
 a great resource to Shelley, who read with her Greek. He 
 
NOTES 257 
 
 PAGE 
 
 told me that she was the source of the inspiration of his 
 Sensitive Plant, and that the scene of it was laid in her 
 garden, as unpoetical a place as could be well imagined." 
 It will interest the student also to note the following pass- 
 age from a letter of Shelley to Leigh Hunt: "Williams is 
 one of the best fellows in the world; and Jane, his wife, 
 a most delightful person, who, we all agree, is the exact 
 antitype of the lady I described in The Sensitive Plants 
 though this must have been a pure anticipated cognition, 
 as it was written a year before I knew her.'^ 
 
 176 13 sq. Cf. with this series of exquisitely wrought flower- 
 pictures The Question, 11. 9—32, and see note on same. 
 
 17. "wind-flowers.'^ See note on The Question, 1. 9. 
 
 177 34. Maenad. A bacchante, a frenzied female worshipper 
 of Bacchus, bearing the thyrsus, a shght staff crowned with 
 a pine-cone. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 3, 314; III, 3, 
 287; IV, 473. 
 
 54. " asphodel." In Greek mythology a pale and deHcate 
 flower growing in Hades among the dead. 
 
 178 70-73. The last line of this stanza is rather obscure. 
 The passage may be thus re-phrased : ' The Sensitive Plant, 
 unable to reveal its love, like the other flowers, in blossoms 
 of beauty and fragrance, nevertheless on that very account 
 was more richly dowered than they, since the love it so 
 strongly felt but could not express, having no outlet 
 ("where none wanted but it"), struck into the "deep 
 heart" of the plant itself and expended all its power in 
 gracing and purifying that heart.' "could belong to the 
 giver," i. e. the would-be giver; hence, ideally, a giver 
 indeed. 
 
 179 98. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 41-42. 
 
 182 177. "Baise." See note on Ode to the West Wind, 1. 32. 
 189. Cf. A Dirge (" Rough wdnd, that moanest loud.") 
 
 183 210-211. Cf. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 11. 220- 
 223. Shelley was very fond of Coleridge's poem. 
 
 220-221. Cf. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Lyric 72, 11. 9- 
 12. 
 
 184 230, 231. The sense will be apparent if "stretched" is 
 mentally related to "hemlock," and "stifled" to all the 
 baneful weeds. 
 
 232-247. These stanzas show a marked reaction toward 
 Shelley's interest in the horrible and sinister. See Intro- 
 duction, pp. xi and xiv. Coleridge, in revising The Rime of 
 the Ancient Mariner, omitted, after the first edition, the fol- 
 lowing stanza : — 
 
 ".His bones were black with many a crack, 
 All bare and black, I ween; 
 Jet black and bare, save where with rust 
 Of mouldy damp and charnel crust 
 They're patched with purple and green." 
 
258 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Would not The Sensitive Plant have gained in poetic power 
 if Shelley had, similarly, made some modification here? 
 Note the finer art shown in the more austere pictures of 
 11. 264-279. 
 
 185 256. "forbid.^' Accursed. 
 
 186 287. ^' griff." Grip; clutch. 
 
 302-303. Cf. Adonais, 1. 344; Swinburne's sonnet. On 
 the Death of Robert Browning. 
 
 188 To Night. 
 
 Cf. Longfellow's Hymn to the Night. 
 
 189 19. Rossetti uses the feminine pronoun, justifying the 
 change by reference to 11. 10 and 11. It is probable, how- 
 ever, that in this instance '' Day'' and *' the Day" appealed 
 to Shelley's imagination precisely as the gender of the 
 original pronouns indicates. 
 
 34, 35. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, II, 1, 15. 
 
 189 Sonnet to Byron. 
 
 Not technically a legitimate sonnet. The student should 
 consult any work on poetics — such as Gummere's Hand- 
 book — for a discussion of the canonical sonnet fornix. See 
 Introduction, p. Ixiv. 
 
 For remarks concerning the relations of Byron and 
 Shelley, see Introduction, pp. xxxv, xxxvi, xl, xlvii, and 
 xlviii. 
 
 6. "rise as fast and fair." Byron's Cain, Heaven and 
 Earth and The Vision of Judgment were written in rapid 
 succession, about this time. 
 
 190 To Emilia Viviani. 
 
 See Introduction, p. xliv, for an account of this beautiful 
 and unfortunate girl. Cf. also Shelley's Epipsychidion, 
 addressed to her. 
 
 191 To (** Music, when soft voices die "). 
 
 3. "odours." Note Shelley's fondness for this word as 
 inducing sensuous appeal. Cf., with the stanza, Shake- 
 speare's Twelfth Night, Act I, Sc. 1, 11. 1-16. 
 
 192 To ("When passion's trance is overpast"). 
 
 The haunting melancholy of this lyric finely expresses 
 the poet's sense of the mutability of human life and of the 
 incompleteness of human love. Cf. Shelley's remark to 
 Gisborne: "I think one is always in love with something 
 or other; the error . . . consists in seeking in a mortal 
 image the likeness of what is, perhaps, eternal." Cf, also 
 Mutability and Lines ("When the lamp is shattered"). 
 
 10. Cf. Byron's Elegy on Thyrza, stanza 7, and his 
 Youth and Age, stanza 5. 
 , 193 Mutability. 
 / Cf. Robert Herrick's To Daffodils, Spenser's unfinished 
 
 canto to Mutability {The Faerie Queene), and Bacon's 
 last completed Essay, Of Vicissitude of Things. Cf. also 
 Shelley's other Mutability. 
 
NOTES 
 
 259 
 
 PAGE 
 
 194 Sonnet — Political Greatness. 
 
 See note on Sonnet to Byron. 
 
 5. Shelley had slight enthusiasm for historical study as 
 such. 
 
 8. "obscene." Ugly. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, IV, 95. 
 A Lament (" O World! O Life! O Time! ") 
 
 8. Rossetti inserts "autumn" after '' summer," most 
 / improperly, as regards both music and content. 
 V/'197 Adonais. 
 
 See Introduction, pp. xlv, xlvi, Ixi, Ixiii, and Ixiv. 
 
 The most notable personal elegies or elegiac poems in our 
 language may be stated as follows : — 
 
 (X'lgs 
 
 Author. 
 
 Unknown (Anglo-Saxon 
 Period) 
 
 Edmund Spenser 
 
 John Milton 
 
 Percy Bysshe Shelley 
 
 Alfred Tennyson 
 
 Matthew Arnold 
 
 Robert Browning 
 
 Algernon Charles Swin- 
 burne 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson 
 
 Walt Whitman 
 
 Title. 
 
 The Wanderer 
 
 Astrophel 
 
 Lycidas 
 
 Adonais 
 
 In Memoriam 
 
 Thyrsis 
 
 La Saisiaz 
 
 Ave atque Vale 
 
 Threnody 
 
 When Lilacs Last 
 
 in the Dooryard 
 
 Bloomed 
 
 In Memory of 
 
 The singer's patron. 
 Sir Philip Sidney 
 Edward King 
 John Keats 
 Arthur Henry Hallam 
 Arthur Hugh Clough 
 Miss A. Egerton-Smith 
 
 Charles Baudelaire 
 His son 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 
 
 The more canonical and literary — by no means there- 
 fore the less vital — among these elegies, including Adonais, 
 show the influence of the memorial idylls of Theocritus, 
 Bion and Moschus. Shelley, more particularly, is indebted 
 to Bion's Lament for Adonis and to Moschus's Lament for 
 Bion. Keats's death, though the circumstances attending it 
 and its meaning for him and for humanity are treated with 
 poetic energy, is yet made but the occasion of a penetrating 
 glance into the problems of physical decay and spiritual 
 futurity. While Milton's elegy makes its chief burden 
 clerical insincerity and undutifulness, corruption versus 
 incorruption ; Tennyson's, the difficult restoration of the 
 indispensable minimum of faith; and Browning's, the 
 intellectual veracity of the idea of the Soul; Shelley, 
 for his part, wings through palpable darkness his flaming 
 way into the slow sunrise of Eternal Love and Beauty. 
 His own opinions of the poem are given freely in such 
 passages as these : — 
 
 ^'You may announce for publication a poem entitled 
 Adonais. It is a lament on the death of poor Keats, with 
 some interposed stabs on the assassins of his peace and of 
 his fame." {Letter to Oilier.) 
 
 "1 have received the heart-rending account of the clos- 
 
260 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ing scene of the great genius whom envy and ingratitude 
 scourged out of the world. I do not think that if I had 
 seen it before, I could have composed my poem. The enthu- 
 siasm of the imagination would have overpowered the 
 sentiment. 
 
 "As it is, I have finished my Elegy; and this day I send 
 it to the press at Pisa. You shall have a copy the moment 
 it is completed. I think it will please you. I have dipped 
 my pen in consuming fire for his destroyers; otherwise the 
 style is calm and solemn." (Letter to Gisborne.) 
 
 Shelley doubtless uses the name 'Adonais' to indicate 
 his literary debt to Bion. Furnivall says that it is Shelley's 
 variant for 'Adonias,' the women's yearly lamentation for 
 Adonis. 
 • The passage from Moschus, beginning the Preface, is 
 rendered by Andrew Lang thus: ''Poison came, Bion, 
 to thy mouth — thou didst know poison. To such lips as 
 thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal 
 was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could 
 give thee the venom that heard thy voice? Surely he had no 
 music in his soul." 
 
 With the second paragraph of the Preface compare 
 Byron's Don Juan, Canto XI, stanza 60: — 
 
 " Tis very strange the mind, that fiery particle, 
 Should let itself be snuff' d out by an article," 
 
 The student will note, however, that Keats was more virile 
 than these passages indicate. Cf. his own statement: 
 " Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man 
 whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe 
 critic on his own works. My own domestic criticism has 
 k given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood 
 *' or the Quarterly could possibly inflict; and also when I feel 1 
 am right, no external praise can give me such a glow as my 
 own solitary reperception and ratification of what is fine." 
 
 199 1 sq. Cf . the opening of Bion's Lament for Adonis (Lang's 
 translation): "Woe, woe for Adonis, he hath perished, the 
 beauteous Adonis, dead is the beauteous Adonis, the Loves 
 join in the lament. No more in thy purple raiment, Cypris, 
 do thou sleep; arise, thou wretched one, sable-stoled, and 
 beat thy breasts, and say to all, ' He hath perished, the 
 lovely Adonis ! '" 
 
 10. "Where wert thou?" Cf. Milton's Lycidas, I. 50; 
 "mighty Mother." Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, or the 
 spirit of heaven, inspirer of poetry. The Uranian Aphrodite 
 of Shelley corresponds to the Cyprian Aphrodite of Bion. 
 Cf. Tennyson's In Memoriam, Lyric 37. 
 
 15. "one." An Echo. 
 
 18. "he." Adonais. 
 
 200 29. "He." Milton. 
 
NOTES 261 
 
 PAGE 
 
 200 35. ''his clear sprite/' Cf. Milton's Cowws, 11. 381-382 : — 
 
 "He that has h'ght within his own clear breast 
 May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day." 
 
 36. ''the third." Shelley ranks Homer, Dante, and 
 Milton, in his Defence of Poetry, as the three great epic 
 poets. In widening the category, he would almost certainly 
 have given Shakespeare place among the prime three poets. 
 In any case, the passage should not be interpreted too par- 
 ticularly. 
 
 40-41. '* Tapers" and "suns" are, of course, contrasted. 
 
 48-49. Cf. Keats's Isabella, or The Pot of Basil. 
 
 51. "extreme." The stress falls equally on each syllable, 
 as also in 1. 68. 
 
 201 55. "that high capital." Rome. 
 
 65-72. Contrast with this picture the unreserve of the 
 'corruption' passage in The Sensitive Plants 11. 232-247, 
 and see note thereon. 
 
 73. "The quick Dreams." The subtle visions, emotions, 
 imaginings, of the poetic consciousness. Note their ap- 
 pearance in Prometheus Unbound. 
 
 80. "their sweet pain." The sweet pain they cause, — 
 "sweet," because of the joy of the visions; " pain," because 
 their beauty is not capable of adequate expression in 
 words. They are born, yet not born. 
 
 202 83. "moonlight wings." An exquisite touch. For similar 
 associations, cf. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's 
 Dreum, Act II, Sc. 1, 11. 29, 156-158; Act III, Sc. 1, 11. 175- 
 176. 
 
 84. "is not dead." Cf. Lycidas, 1. 166. 
 
 88. "a ruined Paradise." The mind of Adonais. 
 
 91-99. Cf.,from Bion's Lament for Adonis, "He reclines, 
 the delicate Adonis, in his raiment of purple, and around 
 him the Loves are weeping, and groaning aloud, clipping 
 their locks for Adonis. And one upon his shafts, another 
 on his bow is treading, and one hath loosed the sandal of 
 Adonis, and another hath broken his own feathered quiver, 
 and one in a golden vessel bears water, and another laves 
 the wound, and another from behind him with his wings 
 is fanning Adonis." (tr. Lang.) 
 
 104. "with lightning and with music." Symbolizing 
 the irresistible enchantment, the sheer impetus, of sure 
 poetry. Cf . Adonais itself. " the damp death." The cold 
 dews of death. 
 
 105. "its." The antecedent is "Splendour." 
 
 107. "clips." Surrounds or embraces. Anglo-Saxon, 
 clyppan. 
 
 203 116. "pomp." Procession. 
 
 117. Note the melancholy charm of this fine figure. 
 
262 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 203 124. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 19-20. 
 
 127-139. Cf., from Moschus's Lament for Bion, ''And 
 Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no 
 more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the 
 trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded." 
 (tr. Lang.) 
 
 133. "those.'" The lips of Narcissus, with whom the 
 nymph Echo was in love. See note on 1. 141. 
 
 204 140. "Phoebus." Apollo. ''Hyacinth." Hyacinthus 
 was a son of Amyclas and Diomede, and was greatly loved 
 by Apollo, who accidentally slew him. The flower which 
 bears his name sprang from his blood. 
 
 141. "Narcissus." Son of Cephisus and the nymph 
 Liriope. He became enamoured of his own image, con- 
 ceiving it to be a nymph, and killed himself in chagrin at his 
 failure to reach it. 
 
 145. " lorn nightingale." Cf . Keats 's Ode to a Nightingale, 
 
 146. "melodious pain." Cf. Matthew Arnold's PMoweZa ; 
 
 "Hark! from that moonlit cedar what a bursti 
 What triumph! hark! what pain! " 
 
 151—153. A reference to the critical attack upon Keats's 
 Endymion in the Quarterly Review. 
 
 154 sq. Spring is at hand, but its reappearance has no 
 counterpart in the revival of Adonais. Cf. In Memorianif 
 Lyric 38, and also Moschus: "Ah me, when the mallows 
 wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled 
 tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and 
 spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and 
 mighty, or wise, when once we have died, in hollow earth 
 we sleep, gone down into silence; a right long, and endless, 
 and unawakening sleep." (tr. Lang.) 
 
 205 179. "sightless." Unsighted; invisible. 
 
 187-189. Cf. Lines Written among the Euganean Hills y 
 11. 1-16. 
 
 206 190-216. Urania, urged by Misery, Dreams, and Echoes, 
 hastens to Rome, to seek the death-chamber of Adonais. 
 
 195. "their sister's song." See 11. 13-18. 
 
 208-216. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: ". . .but 
 Aphrodite with unbound locks through the glades goes 
 wandering, — wretched, with hair unbraided, with feet 
 unsandalled, and the thorns as she passes wound her and 
 pluck the blossom of her sacred blood." (tr. Lang.) 
 
 207 217-261. Urania's lament. 
 
 227-232. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "Abide with 
 me, Adonis, hapless Adonis, abide. . . . Awake, Adonis, 
 for a little while, and kiss me yet again, the latest kiss! 
 Nay kiss me but a moment, but the lifetime of a kiss. ..." 
 (tr. Lang.) 
 
 228. "heartless." In that Adonais has her heart. 
 
NOTES ' 263 
 
 PAGE 
 
 207 234. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "... while wretched 
 I yet live, being a goddess, and may not follow thee!'' 
 (tr. Lang.) 
 
 235-240. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "For why, ah 
 overbold, didst thou follow the chase, and being so fair, 
 why wert thou thus overhardy to fight with beasts?" 
 (tr. Lang.) 
 
 208 245. "obscene." See note on Sonnet — Political Great- 
 ness, 1. 8. 
 
 250. "Pythian." Byron, who castigated his early 
 critics in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. The Pythian 
 Apollo, slayer of the Python, is referred to. 
 
 209 262-315. The pastoral mourning of the mountain-shep- 
 herds, the fellows of Adonais. 
 
 264. "The Pilgrim of Eternity." Byron. Cf. Childe 
 Harold's Pilgrimage. 
 
 268. "lerne." Ireland. 
 
 269. " sweetest lyrist." Thomas Moore. These references 
 are poetic, not particular. 
 
 271-297. These three stanzas contain Shelley's portrait 
 of himself. 
 
 274-276. Actseon was a hunter who chanced to see 
 Artemis and her maidens bathing, and was on that account 
 changed into a stag and pursued to his death by his own 
 hounds. 
 
 278-279. Cf. Tennyson's The Passing of Arthur ; — 
 
 ".His own thought drove him like a goad." 
 
 210 297. Cf. Prometheus Unbound, I, 456; IV, 73, 74; The 
 Cenci, I, 2, 14; Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act III, Sc. 2, 1. 250. 
 
 306. A reference to the many troubles of Shelley's short 
 life. Cf. the following passage from a letter to Godwin 
 (Feb. 26, 1816): "But he [Turner] is apt to take offence, 
 and I am too generally hated not to feel that the smallest 
 kindness from an old acquaintance is valuable." 
 
 312-315. The reference is to Leigh Hunt, friend and 
 lover of Keats. At Hunt's home the two poets first met. 
 
 211 316-324. Cf. the prefatory passage from Moschus. There 
 is no necessary conflict here with 11. 11 and 193. Precise 
 and unvarying consistency in figurative expression does not 
 enter into Shelley's theory of art. 
 
 316-333. The critic scourged. 
 
 334-396. An imaginative adventuring into the realm of 
 the Eternal. 
 340. Cf. 1. 370, and note thereon. 
 
 212 343. Revert to 11. 19 and 84. Cf. Lycidas, 1. 166. 
 
 344. " the dream of life." A phrase peculiarly character- 
 istic of Shelley's genius and philosophy. See Introduction, 
 pp. Ix and Ixi. Cf. A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act IV, 
 
264 • NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sc. 1, 11. 68-69; Act V, Sc. 1, 11. 208-209; and Swinburne's 
 sonnet, On Robert Browning : — 
 
 "- He held no dream worth waking : so he said, 
 
 He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, 
 Awakened out of life wherein we sleep 
 
 And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead." 
 
 212 346. ''phantoms." Cf. Bry smV s Thanatopsis,\\. 63-6^. 
 348-351. Cf. Walt Whitman's Pensive and Faltering : — 
 
 "Pensive and faltering, 
 The words, the dead, I write ; 
 For living are the dead ; 
 (Haply the only living, only real, 
 And I the apparition — I the spectre.) " 
 
 Cf. also The Sensitive Plant, 11. 304-^15 ; Prometheus Un- 
 bound, III, 3, 247-248. Plato and ^schylus present similar 
 ideas. 
 
 356. Cf. 11. 462-463. 
 
 366. Cf. Bion's Lament for Adonis: "Cease, Cytherea, 
 from thy lamentations, to-day refrain from thy dirges." 
 (tr. Lang.) 
 
 213 370-387. Cf . with this high pantheistic outburst kindred 
 passages in several of the great elegies: Lycidas, 11. 183-185; 
 In Memoriam, Lyrics 46 and 130; Thyrsis, stanzas 18-19; 
 etc. 
 
 214 397-414. The eager welcome of Adonais by those of his 
 spiritual kindred, who, like him, were cut off before matur- 
 ity. 
 
 399. "Chatterton." Thomas Chatterton (1752-70) was 
 a young romantic poet of great promise, who slew himself 
 at eighteen. 
 
 401. ''Sidney." Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was an 
 Elizabethan writer and statesman, who died in the battle 
 of Zutphen, aged thirty-two. 
 
 404. "Lucan." Marcus Annseus Lucanus (a. d. 39-65), 
 a Spaniard by birth and a Roman by citizenship, wrote 
 the epic Pharsalia. Condemned to death for conspiring 
 against Nero, he took his own life at twenty-six. 
 
 415-495. The concluding apostrophe is addressed by 
 the poet largely to his own heart, as affected by the fact 
 of death and the mystery of the future. 
 
 215 438-450. A beautiful picture of the English burying- 
 place at Rome. See Introduction, p. Ixi. 
 
 444. "one keen pyramid." In memory of Caius Ces tins. 
 
 216 451-457. Shelley's three-year-old son William was buried 
 here. 
 
 460-464. This strong, serene passage unlocks the heart 
 of Shelley as poet and thinker. See note on 1. 344. 
 
 217 478-486. The hope and aspiration of all the great ro- 
 
NOTES 265 
 
 PAGE 
 
 man tic poets are in these lines, — Blake, Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge, Emerson, Keats himself. 
 
 217 480-481. Cf. Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Im- 
 mortality, stanzas 5 and 9; cf. also Shelley's Essay, On 
 a Future State. 
 
 218 Lines CWhen the lamp is shattered"). 
 
 Cf. To C* When passion's trance is overpast"). 
 
 219 25. The poet is still addressing Love, who should not 
 choose for his cradle a weak human heart. 
 
 220 To Jane — The Invitation. 
 
 This and the following two poems were written and 
 addressed to Jane Williams, wife of Lieutenant Edward 
 Elliker Williams. See Introduction, pp. xlv and xlviii. 
 
 Parts of this and the succeeding poem were originally 
 published by Mrs. Shelley as a unit of poetry, entitled 
 The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa. 
 
 221 29 sq. Cf. Emerson's April. 
 
 222 To Jane — The Recollection. 
 
 9. The student will note that the metre of the intro- 
 ductory section is modified in the succeeding sections, to 
 give unity of movement to the '^ recollection" proper. Note 
 also the finely vagrant effect of the alhterative first foot 
 in 1. 9, and of the change from iambus to trochee in ^' forest." 
 
 223 24. ^'serpents interlaced." Shelley, and Browning as 
 stimulated by Shelley, were imaginatively much interested 
 in snakes. Byron, indeed, called Shelley '^ the Snake," on 
 account of his ^'bright eyes, slim figure, and noiseless 
 movements." Cf. Alastor, 11. 228, 325, 438; The Revolt 
 of Islam, Canto I, stanzas 8-33; To Edward Williams, 
 stanza 1; Adonais, 1. 197; Mont Blanc, 1. 101; Ode to 
 Liberty, 11. 119, 210; song of Beatrice in The Cenci; Pro- 
 metheus Unbound, I, 633; II, 4, 402; III, 2, 72; III, 4, 
 427; IV, 305, 567; The Assassins, chapter iv. 
 
 35. Note the realistic effect of the conjunction of the 
 iambus, '*sy wood" with the trochee, '* pecker." 
 
 42. The Trelawny MS. has ''white." ''Wide" is pre- 
 ferable as deepening the antithesis between the remote 
 distance and "the soft flower beneath our feet," 
 
 224 55 sq. Cf. The Cloud, 11. 56-58. 
 
 225 With a Guitar, to Jane. 
 
 Trelawny thus describes his discovery of Shelley in the 
 pine forest, where he sat composing the present poem: 
 "The strong Hght streamed through the opening of the 
 trees. One of the pines, undermined by the water, had 
 fallen into it. Under its lee, and nearly hidden, sat the 
 Poet, gazing on the dark mirror beneath, so lost in his 
 bardish reverie that he did not hear my approach. There 
 the trees were stunted and bent, and their crowns were 
 shorn like friars by the sea breezes, excepting a cluster 
 of three, under which Shelley's traps were lying; these 
 
266 NOTES 
 
 PAGE 
 
 overtopped the rest. To avoid startling the Poet out of 
 his dream, I squatted under the lofty trees, and opened his 
 books. One was a volume of his favourite Greek dramatist, 
 Sophocles . . . and the other was a volume of Shakespeare. 
 I then hailed him, and, turning his head, he answered 
 faintly : 
 
 " ' Hollo, come in.' 
 
 '' * Is this your study?' I asked. 
 
 ''*Yes,' he answered, 'and these trees are my books — 
 they tell no lies. You are sitting on the stool of inspiration,' 
 he exclaimed. . . . 'Listen to the solemn music in the 
 pine-tops — don't you hear the mournful murmurings of 
 the sea?'" 
 
 '' Jane, with her grace, and suavity, and bland motions, 
 and soothing words, was conceived by him as the dispenser 
 of an exquisite felicity, to which her husband had a first 
 claim, but the overflow of which might be Shelley's own. 
 How could he adequately express his pleasure in her gentle- 
 ness, her penetrating charity, her ineffable tenderness ? 
 She should be the Queen of Amity and halcyon hours, 
 with Edward WilHams for a fortunate Prince Consort, and 
 he should be her humble troubadour; or call the pair 
 Ferdinand and Miranda, with Shelley for their faithful 
 Ariel." — Dowden's Life, II, 474. 
 
 See Introduction, p. xii, for a comparison of Shelley with 
 Ariel, the sprite of Shakespeare's Tempest. See also note on 
 Ode to the West Wind. 
 228 90. For ''Friend" several editions have "Jane." The 
 former word is not incongruous with the Ariel-Miranda 
 fancy. 
 
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