WORKSHOPTHE ROMANTIC POETS

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Márcio José Coutinho

The view of poet and poetry

For Shelley, Poetry was to be a substitute for religion. As he craved for the dissolution of Christianity, he believed Poetry would take its place and the poet would be the guide of humanity. For him, Poetry was a great spiritual force far more divine than religion. It was the center of all knowledge.

Shelley’s works

Prometheus Unbound Queen Mab Hellas Alastor: Or the Spirit of Solitude Julian and Madallo Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni Hymn to the Intellectual Beauty Mutability To Wordsworth To a Sky-Lark Ode to the West Wind The Triumph of Life A Defence of Poetry

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTESShelley was born on August 4th, 1792, at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex. His father, Timothy Shelley, was a member of the Parliament, and his grandfather, Bysshe Shelley, was a wealthy landowner, entitled baronet in 1806. In 1798, he studued with his clergyman, Reverend Evan Edwards.From 1802 to 1804 he attended Sion House academy, at Ilseworth, near London.From 1804 to 1810 studied at Eton.In 1808, he began corresponding with his cousin Harriet Grove. Their engagement ended in 1810.In October 1810, he enters University College Oxford, and meets Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a college classmate.In January 1811, he met Harriet Westbrook. On February, he publishes The Necessity of Atheism, which costed him and Hogg the expulsion from Oxford on March 25th. Later he elopes with Harriet Westbrook, the daughter of a London inn-keeper, and married her in Edinburgh on August 29th. At York Hogg tried to seduce Harriet. The Shelleys moved to Keswick.

In 1812, he moved to Dublin and took part on political activiies. In February, he published two panphlets: Address to the Irish People and Proposals for an Association. He went to Wales on April 6th. Moved to Lynmouth, Devon. Went to North Wales in September. And meets William Godwin in London in October.

In 1813, he passes Tremadoc, Wales; goes to Ireland and returns to London on April 5th. He issued Queen Mab in May. His daughter Ianthe was born on June 23rd. He settles in Bracknell in July.

In 1814, he elopes with Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin on July 27th. Together with Mary’s stepsister Jane Claire Clairmont, they tour the continent, returning on September 13th. His first son, Charles, was born to Harriet on November 30th.

Clare Clairmont

Reginald Easton's miniature of Mary Shelley is allegedly drawn from herdeath mask (c. 1857).

Mary Wollstonecraft

In 1815, his grandfather, Sir Bysshe Shelley died on January 5th.

Mary’s first child was born on February 22nd and died twoo weeks later. In June Shelley began to receive the annual income ₤1,000 (₤200 paid directly to Harriet). In August he moves with Mary to a cottage near Windsor Great Park.

In 1816, his som William Shelley was born on January 24th. He published Alastor in February. In the same year, from May to August, he visited Switzerland, and lived near Byron. During this period, he wrote Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Mont Blanc. They return to England on September 8th. Mary’s half sister Fanny Imlay committed suicide on October 9th. Harriet Shelley drowned herself on November 9th. As Shelley discovered it on December 10th, he married Mary on December 30th.

In 1817, Shelley developed friendship with Leigh Hunt, the poet and editor of the Examiner. Allegra, Claire’s daughter by Byron, was born on January 12th. In March, the Shelley’s settled at Marlow, near his friend Thomas Love Peackock, a poet and comic novelist. In September, he finished Laon and Cythna and began Rosalind and Helen. Clara Shelley was born on September 2nd. The poem Laon and Cythna was published on December, and reissued as The Revolt of Islam in January 1818.

In 1818, he sails to the continent on March 11th. He sends Allegra to Byron on April 28th. At Leghorns he met John and Maria Gisborne (from May through June). At Baths of Lucca he finished Rosalind and Helen in July – the poem was published in the spring 1819. From August to September, he stayed in Venice. First he went to Venice with Claire, Mary followed with the children after. His daughtr Clara died on September 24th. At Este, he began Julian and Maddalo and the Euganean Hills’ poem; He also started writing Prometheus Unbound, Act I. Then, visited Rom and settled at Naples in December.

In 1819, Shelley left Naples on February 28th. He wrote Prometheus Unbound, Acts II-III in Rome in March and April. William Sheley died on June 7th. Shelley moved to Leghorn. There he wrote The Cenci in the summer, and published it in the spring of 1820. He wrote The Mask of Anarchy in Sptember. Moved to to Florence on October 2nd. His son Percy Florence was born onNovember 12th. In Florence, he wrote Peter Bell the Third, the Ode to the West Wind and his essay Philosophical View of Reform. He finished his poem Julian and Maddalo (published in 1824) and Prometheus Unbound (published in August 1820).In 1820, he moved to Pisa on January 26th. There he wrote A Sensitive Plant in March. At Leghorn from June through August he wrote the Ode to Liberty, To a Sky-lark, and Letter to Maria Gisborne. From August to October, he wrote The Witch of Atlas and Ode to Naples and The Swellfoot of te Tyrant at Baths of San Giuliano and returned to Pisa on October 31.

In 1821, he visited Teresa Viviani in a convent and wrote Epypsychidion in January and February. Which he published anonimously in May. He met Edward and Jane Williams on January 13th. He wrote A Defence of Poetry from February to March. On April 11th he heard the news of Keats’ death in Rome on February 23rd. Then he wrote his elegy Adonais in May and June, which was printed in July.He visited Byron in Ravenna in August and convinced him to live in Pisa. Byron arrived on November 1st. He wrote the drama Hellas in October and published it in February, 1822.

In 1822 he worked on Charles the First. Edward Trelawney arrived on January 14th. He wrote the poems To Jane.Allegra Byron died on April 2oth. The Shelleys ans Williamses moved to San Terenzo on April 20th. Helley received his boat, the Don Juan, on May 12th. In My and June he wrote The Triumph of Life. He and Williams sailed to Leghorn to meet Leigh Hunt and died, drowned on the return voyage on July 8th.

On 26 June 1814, Mary Godwin declared her love for Percy Shelley at Mary Wollstonecraft's graveside in the cemetery of St Pancras Old Church (shown here in 1815).

THE DEATH OF SHELLEY

Caught under a sudden storm, Shelley’s boat sank in the Golph of La Spezia. Lord Byron, his protector Trelauny and Leigh Hunt burnt Shelley’s corpse on the shore.

The Funeral of Sheley, by Louis Edouard Fournier (1888). pictured in the centre are, from left, Trelawny, Hunt, and Byron. (As a matter of fact Hunt was not standing before the fire, he remained in his coach the entire time.)

Cwm Elan Estate, containing the Elan Valley Mansion, purchased by Mr. Thomas Grove, Harriet Grove’s father. In 1792. The house was lost with the later flooding of the Elan Valley.

Cwm Elan Mansion

LINMOUTH Shelley honeymooned here in the summer of 1812.

PROMETHEUS UNBOUNDA LYRICAL DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS

Prometheus Unbound is Shelley’s most ambitious work. It is a romantic drama modeled on Aeschylus’ homonymous tragedy and in the previous piece Prometheus Bound. So, in which sense is it romantic? It deals morally with the problem of political liberty. It preaches resistance against tyranny and oppression. Although the Greek tragedy “supposes the reconciliation of Jupiter with his victim as a price to the disclosure of the danger threatened to his empire” Shelley did not propose to imitate the Greek poet. He “was averse from catastrophe so feeble as that of reconcile the Champion to the Oppressor of humankind” (Preface. In: Reiman, 1977, p. 133).“The moral interest of the fable which is so powerfully sutained by the sufferings and endurance of Prometeus, would be anihilated if we could conceive of him as unsaying his high language and quailing before his successful and perfidious adversary” (Preface. In: Reiman, 1977, p. 133).

WHY TO CHOOSE PROMETHEUS AS A POETIC CHARACTER?

Shelley elected Prometheus for his drama because “he is the type of the highest perfection of the moral and intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and truest motives to the best and noblest ends” (Preface. In: Reiman, 1977, p. 133).Shelley compares Prometheus to Milton’s Satan, but he judges the former a “more poeticsl characer [...] because in addition to courage and majesty and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent force, he is succeptible of being described as exempt from the taints of ambition, envy, revenge, and desire for personal aggrandisement, which in the Hero of Paradise Lost, interfere with the interest” (Preface. In: Reiman, 1977, p. 133).Thus, not the romantic egocentrism, but altruism is the core of this fable.

The Plot: Act I: Prometheus sees the curse of Jupiter repeated to

him. Prometheus repented it but he resists the psychological torments sent by the tyrant and is comforted by human hopes and ideals.

Act II: Panthea communicates to Asia two dreams she has had pressaging the release of Prometheus and the renewal of the world. The two godesses went down to the realm of Demogorgon, the ultimate motive source of the chain of events (philosophically) known as Necessity, i.e. the causal laws of Nature. Asia questions him on the nature of things. Demogorgom takes the chariot of the Hour in which Jupiter is destined to be overthrowned, and leads the Oceanides to the car of the Hour that will redeem Prometheus.

Act III: Jupiter, having married Thetis, is awaiting the offspring of their union. Demogorgon is supposed to defeat Jupiter and drag him down the abyss of chaos. Hercules releases Prometheus. After directing the Spirit of the Hour of Redemption to spread the good news around the world and after knowing the effects of the proclammation, Prometheus and Asia retire to an oracular cave to cultivate the arts.

Act IV: The action itself has come to na end. This act consists in a hymn of rejoicing, first by a chorus by the Spirits of the Hours and by another chorus of the Spirits of the Human Mind; then, by the Spirit of the Earth (male) and the Spirit of the Moon (female). Finally, Demogorgon, addressing the spirits of all creatures in the universe, summarizes the present joy and tells how to regain freedom, in case it should be lost again. (Summarized from Reimann, 1977, p. 130-131).

Literary Structure Prometheus Unbound exhibits a symetrical structure: both ActI and

Act IV consist of a single scene which, according to Donald Reimann, present three clear-cut divisions: Act I, 1-305, 306-634, 635-833; Act IV, 1-184, 185-502, 503-578. These acts form the extremes of two central ones, At II and Act III, both divided into nine scenes. The thematic nucleum of of this work refers to Shelley’s depiction of “the journey and transformation of Asia as she moves backwards through times reversing [...] history to make the ‘world grow young again’” (Reimann, 1777, p. 130).

Prometheus Unbound is typically romantic as it transforms the classical matter of the Greek tragedy to reflect the modern context and an interiorized sensibility; it deals with views on human and universal problems in an idealistic perspective; as it defends freedom against oppression and tyranny in a revolutionist perspective; and as it uses the ressources of romantic imagination to create create spiritual imagery and to express the bonds between the physical world of the senses and the metaphysical world of transcendence, divinity and eternity.

QUEEN MABQueen Mab is Shelley’s first major poem. The poet conceived it in December 1811, and composed it between June 1812 and February 1813. On February 19, he wrote to to his publisher Thomas Hookham that it was finished and transcribed. By May 13th the poem was in press, but Shelley was convinced that it was too radical to be published. Hookham printed 250 copies, of which Shelley distributed 70 copies to individuals who would be sympathetic to is ideals. The poem got some notice in 1817, when its moral quality was considered in the decision of the Chancery Court to deprive him of the custudy of his children by HarrietWestbrook. In 1821, the poem was pirated by William Clark, who edited it and sent it for sale to the radical bookseller Richard Carlile, who discovered and sold the 180 remaining copies of the 1813 edition. Thereafter the poem was reprinted in various editions, and became the Bible of the Chartist movement.

TITLE AND PLOTQueen Mab is the fairies’ midwife and appears in a speech by Mercutio in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, I, iv, 53-94. The description of her mischevous dreammaking was echoed later in The Witch of Atlas. During the eighteenth century, Queen Mab was the central character in several collections of children stories. Shelley chose this innocent sounding name for the main character, an intermediary between the human and the divine, who should teach the human soul the revolutionary lessons of the past, the situation of the present and the hopes for the future.Concerning the form, Shelley himself describes his choice of verse form in a letter to Hogg: “The didactic is in blank heroic verse, & the descriptive in blank lyrical measure” (Reimann, 1777, p. 130).

Atheism and Freedom“All religious nations were founded solely on authority. All

the religions of the world forbid examination and do not want one to reason. Authority wants one to believe in God . This God is himself founded only on the authority of a few men who pretend to know Him [...]. A God made by men undoubtedly has need of men to make himself known to men”.

(The Necessity of Atheism, 1811)

Shelley expressed the opinion that, without proof of the existence of God, it makes no sense to believe in Him.

Free from God and the constraints of religion Shelley could pursue self-knowledge and self-fullfillment, an impulse based on his intensity of feeling.

THE INFLUENCE OF WORDSWORTH: THE ASCENT OF MOUNT SNOWDON

The travel in search of vision; the promise and the vision; the prospect from the mountain summit, the moon light over the vast earth and the image, emblem or symbol of the universal spirit, the great majestic intellect and the cosmic source of thought

THE PRELUDE BOOK FOURTEENTH CONCLUSION

In one of those excursions (may they ne'er Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern

tracts Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend, I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,

And westward took my way, to see the sun Rise, from the top of Snowdon. To the door Of a rude cottage at the mountain's base

We came, and roused the shepherd who attends The adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide; Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth.

10

It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog

Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky; But, undiscouraged, we began to climb

The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, And, after ordinary travellers' talk

With our conductor, pensively we sank Each into commerce with his private thoughts: Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself

Was nothing either seen or heard that checked 20 Those musings or diverted, save that once

The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags, Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased

His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent. This small adventure, for even such it seemed

In that wild place and at the dead of night, Being over and forgotten, on we wound In silence as before. With forehead bent

Earthward, as if in opposition set Against an enemy, I panted up 30

With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.

Thus might we wear a midnight hour away, Ascending at loose distance each from each, And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;

When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten, And with a step or two seemed brighter still; Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,

For instantly a light upon the turf Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,

The Moon hung naked in a firmament 40 Of azure without cloud, and at my feet

Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved

All over this still ocean; and beyond, Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,

In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, Into the main Atlantic, that appeared To dwindle, and give up his majesty,

Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.

Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none 50 Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light

In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon, Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed

Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay All meek and silent, save that through a rift–

Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place–

Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams Innumerable, roaring with one voice! 60

Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour, For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.

When into air had partially dissolved That vision, given to spirits of the night

And three chance human wanderers, in calm thought Reflected, it appeared to me the type

Of a majestic intellect, its acts And its possessions, what it has and craves,

What in itself it is, and would become. There I beheld the emblem of a mind 70

That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light

In one continuous stream; a mind sustained By recognitions of transcendent power,

In sense conducting to ideal form, In soul of more than mortal privilege.

One function, above all, of such a mind Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,

'Mid circumstances awful and sublime, 80 That mutual domination which she loves To exert upon the face of outward things,

So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed With interchangeable supremacy,

That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive, And cannot choose but feel. The power, which all

Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus To bodily sense exhibits, is the express Resemblance of that glorious faculty

That higher minds bear with them as their own. 90 This is the very spirit in which they deal With the whole compass of the universe:

They from their native selves can send abroad Kindred mutations; for themselves create A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns Created for them, catch it, or are caught

By its inevitable mastery, Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.

Them the enduring and the transient both 100Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things From least suggestions; ever on the watch,

Willing to work and to be wrought upon, They need not extraordinary calls

To rouse them; in a world of life they live, By sensible impressions not enthralled,

But by their quickening impulse made more prompt

To hold fit converse with the spiritual world, And with the generations of mankind

Spread over time, past, present, and to come, 110

Age after age, till Time shall be no more.

Such minds are truly from the Deity, For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss That flesh can know is theirs--the consciousness

Of Whom they are, habitually infused Through every image and through every thought,

And all affections by communion raised From earth to heaven, from human to divine;

Hence endless occupation for the Soul, Whether discursive or intuitive; 120

Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life, Emotions which best foresight need not fear, Most worthy then of trust when most intense.

Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush Our hearts--if here the words of Holy Writ

May with fit reverence be applied--that peace Which passeth understanding, that repose

In moral judgments which from this pure source Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.

Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long 130 Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?

For this alone is genuine liberty: Where is the favoured being who hath held

That course unchecked, unerring, and untired, In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?–

A humbler destiny have we retraced, And told of lapse and hesitating choice,

And backward wanderings along thorny ways: Yet--compassed round by mountain solitudes, Within whose solemn temple I received 140

My earliest visitations, careless then Of what was given me; and which now I range,

A meditative, oft a suffering, man– Do I declare--in accents which, from truth Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend

Their modulation with these vocal streams– That, whatsoever falls my better mind,

Revolving with the accidents of life, May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled, Never did I, in quest of right and wrong, 150

Tamper with conscience from a private aim; Nor was in any public hope the dupe Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits, But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy

From every combination which might aid The tendency, too potent in itself,

Of use and custom to bow down the soul Under a growing weight of vulgar sense, And substitute a universe of death 160

For that which moves with light and life informed, Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,

To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends, Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,

In presence of sublime or beautiful forms, With the adverse principles of pain and joy–

Evil as one is rashly named by men Who know not what they speak. By love subsists

All lasting grandeur, by pervading love; That gone, we are as dust.--Behold the fields 170

In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways

Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love, And not inaptly so, for love it is,

Far as it carries thee. In some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world: There linger, listening, gazing, with delight Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! 180

Unless this love by a still higher love Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;

Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer, By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,

Lifted, in union with the purest, best, Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise

Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.

This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist Without Imagination, which, in truth,

Is but another name for absolute power 190 And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And Reason in her most exalted mood.

This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labour: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard

Its natal murmur; followed it to light And open day; accompanied its course Among the ways of Nature, for a time

Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed; Then given it greeting as it rose once more 200

In strength, reflecting from its placid breast The works of man and face of human life;

And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought

Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that intellectual Love,

For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually.--Here must thou be, O Man!

Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; 210 Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: No other can divide with thee this work:

No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,

The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far

From any reach of outward fellowship, Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,

Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid Here, the foundation of his future years! 220 For all that friendship, all that love can do,

All that a darling countenance can look Or dear voice utter, to complete the man, Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,

All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen Up to the height of feeling intellect

Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart Be tender as a nursing mother's heart; Of female softness shall his life be full,

Of humble cares and delicate desires, 230 Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of

ChamouniIThe everlasting universe of thingsFlows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,Now dark—now glittering—now reflecting gloom—Now lending splendour, where from secret springsThe source of human thought its tribute bringsOf 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 riverOver its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.

The Chamonix valley seen from la Flégère

The Poem, entitled "Mont Blanc," is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate 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 untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.(History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and HollandWith Letters Descriptive of A Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of The Glaciers of Chamouni, BY Mary Shelley. Preface, 1817).

Mont Blanc, seen from Chamouni

IIThus thou, Ravine of Arve—dark, deep Ravine—Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale,Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sailFast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes downFrom the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,Bursting through these dark mountains like the flameOf lightning through the tempest;—thou dost lie,Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,Children of elder time, in whose devotionThe chainless winds still come and ever cameTo drink their odours, and their mighty swingingTo hear—an old and solemn harmony;Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweepOf the aethereal waterfall, whose veilRobes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleepWhich when the voices of the desert failWraps all in its own deep eternity;

Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,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 theeI seem as in a trance sublime and strangeTo muse on my own separate fantasy,My own, my human mind, which passivelyNow renders and receives fast influencings,Holding an unremitting interchangeWith the clear universe of things around;One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wingsNow float above thy darkness, and now restWhere that or thou art no unbidden guest,In the still cave of the witch Poesy,Seeking among the shadows that pass byGhosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,Some phantom, some faint image; till the breastFrom which they fled recalls them, thou art there!

IIISome say that gleams of a remoter worldVisit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumberOf those who wake and live.—I look on high;Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'dThe veil of life and death? or do I lieIn dream, and does the mightier world of sleepSpread far around and inaccessiblyIts circles? For the very spirit fails,Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steepThat vanishes among the viewless gales!Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,Mont Blanc appears—still, snowy, and serene;Its subject mountains their unearthly formsPile around it, ice and rock; broad vales betweenOf frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spreadAnd 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 hideouslyIts shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.—Is this the sceneWhere the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young

Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a seaOf fire envelop once this silent snow?None can reply—all seems eternal now.The wilderness has a mysterious tongueWhich teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,So solemn, so serene, that man may be,But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd;Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repealLarge codes of fraud and woe; not understoodBy all, but which the wise, and great, and goodInterpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.

IVThe fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,Ocean, and all the living things that dwellWithin the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,The torpor of the year when feeble dreamsVisit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleepHolds every future leaf and flower; the boundWith 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 soundAre born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,Remote, serene, and inaccessible:And this, the naked countenance of earth,On which I gaze, even these primeval mountainsTeach the adverting mind. The glaciers creepLike snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,Slow rolling on; there, many a precipiceFrost and the Sun in scorn of mortal powerHave pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,A city of death, distinct with many a towerAnd wall impregnable of beaming ice.

Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin

Is there, that from the boundaries of the skyRolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewingIts destin'd path, or in the mangled soilBranchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn downFrom yon remotest waste, have overthrownThe limits of the dead and living world,Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-placeOf insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;Their food and their retreat for ever gone,So much of life and joy is lost. The raceOf man flies far in dread; his work and dwellingVanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,And their place is not known. Below, vast cavesShine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,Which from those secret chasms in tumult wellingMeet in the vale, and one majestic River,The breath and blood of distant lands, for everRolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

VMont 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,In the lone glare of day, the snows descendUpon that Mountain; none beholds them there,Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contendSilently there, and heap the snow with breathRapid and strong, but silently! Its homeThe voiceless lightning in these solitudesKeeps innocently, and like vapour broodsOver the snow. The secret Strength of thingsWhich governs thought, and to the infinite domeOf Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,If to the human mind's imaginingsSilence and solitude were vacancy?

MARY SHELLEY DESCRIBES THEIR TRAVEL

“The prospect around, however, was sufficiently sublime to command our attention -- never was scene more awfully desolate. The trees in these regions are incredibly large, and stand in scattered clumps over the white wilderness; the vast expanse of snow was chequered only by these gigantic pines, and the poles that marked our road: no river or rock-encircled lawn relieved the eye, by adding the picturesque to the sublime. The natural silence of that uninhabited desert contrasted strangely with the voices of the men who conducted us, who, with animated tones and gestures, called to one another in a patois composed of French and Italian, creating disturbance, where but for them, there was none.To what a different scene are we now arrived! To the warm sunshine and to the humming of sun-loving insects. From the windows of our hotel we see the lovely lake, blue as the heavens which it reflects, and sparkling with golden beams. The opposite shore is sloping, and covered with vines, which however do not so early in the season add to the beauty of the prospect. Gentlemens' seats are scattered over these banks, behind which rise the various ridges of black mountains, and towering far above, in the midst of its snowy Alps, the majestic Mont Blanc, highest and queen of all. Such is the view reflected by the lake; it is a bright summer scene without any of that sacred solitude and deep seclusion that delighted us at Lucerne”.

(History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and HollandWith Letters Descriptive of A Sail Round the Lake of Geneva, and of The Glaciers of Chamouni, BY Mary

Shelley. Preface, 1817).

COMPOSITION AND MATTERThe poem was composed between 22 July 1816 and 29 August 1816 during Percy Shelley's journey to the Chamonix Valley, and intended to reflect the scenery through which he travelled. "Mont Blanc" was first published in 1817 in Percy Shelley and Mary Sheley’s History of a Six Weeks' Tour Through a Part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. Percy Shelley compares the power of the mountain against the power of the human imagination. Although he emphasized the ability of the human imagination to uncover truth through a study of nature, he questions the notion of religious certainty. The poet concludes that only a privileged few can see nature as it really is, and are able to express its benevolence and malevolence through the device of poetry. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc_(poem))

COMPARE TO WORDSWORTH’S DESCRIPTION OF MONT BLANC That very day,From a bare ridge we also first beheldUnveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grievedTo have a soulless image on the eyeThat had usurped upon a living thoughtThat never more could be. The wondrous ValeOf Chamouny stretched far below, and soonWith its dumb cataracts and streams of ice,A motionless array of mighty waves,Five rivers broad and vast, made rich amends,And reconciled us to realities;There small birds warble from the leafy trees,The eagle soars high in the element,There doth the reaper bind the yellow sheaf,The maiden spread the haycock in the sun,While Winter like a well-tamed lion walks,Descending from the mountain to make sportAmong the cottages by beds of flowers.(The Prelude, Book VI)

IMAGINATIONImagination— here the Power so calledThrough sad incompetence of human speech,That awful Power rose from the mind's abyssLike an unfathered vapour that enwraps,At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;Halted without an effort to break through;But to my conscious soul I now can say—"I recognise thy glory:" in such strengthOf usurpation, when the light of senseGoes out, but with a flash that has revealedThe invisible world, doth greatness make abode,There harbours; whether we be young or old,Our destiny, our being's heart and home,Is with infinitude, and only there;With hope it is, hope that can never die,Effort, and expectation, and desire,And something evermore about to be.(The Prelude, Book VI)

The melancholy slackening that ensued Upon those tidings by the peasant given Was soon dislodged. Downwards we hurried fast, And, with the half-shaped road which we had missed, 620 Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait, And with them did we journey several hours At a slow pace. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent at every turn Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn, The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, 630 Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream, The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light– Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree; Characters of the great Apocalypse, The types and symbols of Eternity, Of first, and last, and midst, and without end. 640 (The Prelude, Book VI)

HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTYIThe awful shadow of some unseen PowerFloats through unseen among us,-visitingThis various world with as inconstant wingAs summer winds that creep from flower to flower,-Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,It visits with inconstant glanceEach human heart and countenance;Like hues and harmonies of evening,-Like clouds in starlight widely spread,-Like memory of music fled,-Like aught that for its grace may beDear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

IISpirit of Beauty, that dost consecrateWith thine own hues all thou dost shine uponOf human thought or form,-where art thou gone?Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?Ask why the sunlight not for everWeaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,

Why fear and dream and death and birthCast on the daylight of this earthSuch gloom,-why man has such a scopeFor love and hate, despondency and hope?

IIINo voice from some sublimer world hath everTo 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,Doubt, chance, and mutability.Thy light alone-like mist oe'er the mountains driven,Or music by the night-wind sentThrough strings of some still instrument,Or moonlight on a midnight stream,Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

IVLove, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds departAnd come, for some uncertain moments lent.Man were immortal, and omnipotent,Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.Thou messgenger of sympathies,That wax and wane in lovers' eyes-Thou-that to human thought art nourishment,Like darkness to a dying flame!Depart not as thy shadow came,Depart not-lest the grave should be,Like life and fear, a dark reality.

VWhile yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and spedThrough many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuingHopes 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 lotOf life, at that sweet time when winds are wooingAll vital things that wake to bringNews of birds and blossoming,-Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!

VII vowed that I would dedicate my powersTo thee and thine-have I not kept the vow?With beating heart and streaming eyes, even nowI call the phantoms of a thousand hoursEach from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowersOf studious zeal or love's delightOutwatched with me the envious night-They know that never joy illumed my browUnlinked with hope that thou wouldst freeThis world from its dark slavery,That thou-O awful Loveliness,Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.

VIIThe day becomes more solemn and sereneWhen noon is past-there is a harmonyIn autumn, and a lustre in its sky,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 truthOf nature on my passive youthDescended, to my onward life supplyIts calm-to one who worships thee,And every form containing thee,Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bindTo fear himself, and love all human kind.

COMPARE WITH WORDSWORTH “Ere we retired, The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky 320 Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse And open field, through which the pathway wound, And homeward led my steps. Magnificent The morning rose, in memorable pomp, Glorious as e'er I had beheld--in front, The sea lay laughing at a distance; near, The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light; And in the meadows and the lower grounds Was all the sweetness of a common dawn-- 330 Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, And labourers going forth to till the fields. Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness, which yet survives.“(The Prelude, lV , ll.319-338)

TO WORDSWORTHPoet of Nature, thou hast wept to knowThat things depart which never may return:Childhood and youth, friendship, and love's first glow,Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.These common woes I feel. One loss is mineWhich thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.Thou wert as a lone star whose light did shineOn some frail bark in winter's midnight roar:Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stoodAbove the blind and battling multitude:In honoured poverty thy voice did weaveSongs consecrate to truth and liberty.Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve,Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.

MUTABILITY, BY SHELLEY                                         I.

We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;    How restlessly they speed and gleam and quiver,Streaking the darkness radiantly! yet soonNight closes round, and they are lost for ever:—                                         II.

Or like forgotten lyres whose dissonant strings    Give various response to each varying blast,To whose frail frame no second motion brings    One mood or modulation like the last.                                        III.

We rest—a dream  has power to poison sleep;    We rise—one wandering thought pollutes the day;We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep,Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:—                                       IV.

It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,    The path of its departure still is free;Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;    Nought may endure but Mutability.

MUTABILITY, BY WORDSWORTHFrom low to high doth dissolution climb,And sink from high to low, along a scaleOf awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;A musical but melancholy chime,Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bearThe longest date do melt like frosty rime,That in the morning whitened hill and plainAnd is no more; drop like the tower sublimeOf yesterday, which royally did wearHis crown of weeds, but could not even sustainSome casual shout that broke the silent air,Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

TO A SKY LARKHail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert-That from heaven or near itPourest thy full heartIn profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springest,Like a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden light'ningOf the sunken sun,O'er which clouds are bright'ning,Thou dost float and run,Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple evenMelts around thy flight;Like a star of heaven,In the broad daylightThou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight-

Keen as are the arrowsOf that silver sphereWhose intense lamp narrowsIn the white dawn clear,Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and airWith thy voice is loud,As when night is bare,From one lonely cloudThe moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;What is most like thee?From rainbow clouds there flow notDrops so bright to see,As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:-

Like a poet hiddenIn the light of thought,Singing hymns unbidden,Till the world is wroughtTo sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maidenIn a palace tower,Soothing her love-ladenSoul in secret hourWith music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm goldenIn a dell of dew,Scattering unbeholdenIts aërial hueAmong the flowers and grass which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'dIn its own green leaves,By warm winds deflower'd,Till the scent it givesMakes faint with too much sweet those heavy-wingèd thieves.

Sound of vernal showersOn the twinkling grass,Rain-awaken'd flowers-All that ever wasJoyous and clear and fresh-thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,What sweet thoughts are thine:I have never heardPraise of love or wineThat panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal,Or triumphal chant,Match'd with thine would be allBut an empty vaunt-A thin wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountainsOf thy happy strain?What fields, or waves, or mountains?What shapes of sky or plain?What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

With thy clear keen joyanceLanguor cannot be:Shadow of annoyanceNever came near thee:Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

Waking or asleep,Thou of death must deemThings more true and deepThan we mortals dream,Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,And pine for what is not:Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scornHate and pride and fear,If we were things bornNot to shed a tear,I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measuresOf delightful sound,Better than all treasuresThat in books are found,Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladnessThat thy brain must know;Such harmonious madnessFrom my lips would flow,The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

TO A SKYLARK, BY WORDSWORTH (1805)

Up with me! up with me into the clouds!      For thy song, Lark, is strong;Up with me, up with me into the clouds!            Singing, singing,With clouds and sky about thee ringing,      Lift me, guide me till I findThat spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses drearyAnd to-day my heart is weary;Had I now the wings of a Faery,Up to thee would I fly.There is madness about thee, and joy divineIn that song of thine;Lift me, guide me high and highTo thy banqueting-place in the sky.

            Joyous as morningThou art laughing and scorning;Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,And, though little troubled with sloth,Drunken Lark! thou would'st be lothTo be such a traveller as I.Happy, happy Liver,With a soul as strong as a mountain riverPouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,      Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind;But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,As full of gladness and as free of heaven,I, with my fate contented, will plod on,And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.

TO A SKYLARK, BY WORDSWORTH (1825)

Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eyeBoth with thy nest upon the dewy ground?Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,Those quivering wings composed, that music still!

Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;A privacy of glorious light is thine;Whence thou dost pour upon the world a floodOf harmony, with instinct more divine;Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!

ODE TO THE WEST WINDThis 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 magnificent thunder and lightning 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 consequently influenced by the winds which announce it.

IO 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, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until

Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 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, oh, hear!

IIThou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,

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 aëry 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, Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

IIIThou who didst waken from his summer dreams

The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, 30 Lulled by the coil of his crystàlline streams,

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 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: oh, hear!

IVIf 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

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 skiey speed 50

Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

VMake 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,

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

THE CLOUDI bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noon-day dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

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, While I sleep in the arms of the blast.

Sublime on the towers of my skiey 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, 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, 30 Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

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, Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle alit 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 äery nest, As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden 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, 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 volcanos 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 – The mountains its columns be!

The triumphal arch, through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow,

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;

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, live a ghost from the

tomb, I arise, and unbuild it again. --

MARY SHELLEY'S INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 1839 EDITIONAlastor is written in a very different tone from Queen Mab. In the latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his youth -- all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny of his fellow-creatures, gave birth. Alastor, on the contrary, contains an individual interest only. A very few years, with their attendant events, had checked the ardour of Shelley's hopes, though he still thought them well grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve.This is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that chequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did, he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward; inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own soul, than to glance abroad, and to make, as in Queen Mab, the whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of 1815 an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state of his health.

As soon as the Peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad. He visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and returned to England from Lucern  by the Reuss and the Rhine. This river-navigation enchanted him. In his favorite poem of [Southey's]Thalaba, his imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In the summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the source of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to Cricklade. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were written on that occasion. Alastor was composed on his return. He spent his days under the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem.None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature, the broodings of a poet's heart in solitude -- the mingling of the exulting joy which the various aspect of the visible universe inspires with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion imparts -- give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during the last months as certain and near he here represented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation of death.

ALASTOR: OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE

PrefaceThe poem entitled "ALASTOR," may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in rain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.

The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that Power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influences, dooms to a slow and poisonous decay those meaner spirits that dare to abjure its dominion. Their destiny is more abject and inglorious as their delinquency is more contemptible and pernicious. They who, deluded by no generous error, instigated by no sacred. thirst of doubtful knowledge, duped by no illustrious superstition, loving nothing on this earth, and cherishing no hopes beyond, yet keep aloof from sympathies with their kind, rejoicing neither in human joy nor mourning with human grief; these, and such as they, have their apportioned curse. They languish, because none feel with them their common nature. They are morally dead. They are neither friends, nor lovers, nor fathers, nor citizens of the world, nor benefactors of their country. Among those who attempt to exist without human sympathy, the pure and tender-hearted perish through the intensity and passion of their search after its communities, when the vacancy of their spirit suddenly makes itself felt. All else, selfish, blind, and torpid, are those unforeseeing multitudes who constitute together with their own, the lasting misery and loneliness of the world. Those who love not their fellow-beings live unfruitful lives, and prepare for their old age a miserable grave: "The good die first, /And those whose hearts are dry as summer dust, /Burn to the socket!"

ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDENondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerebam quid amarem, amans amare.— Confess. St. August.

Earth, ocean, air, belovèd brotherhood!If our great Mother has imbued my soul

With aught of natural piety to feelYour love, and recompense the boon with mine;

If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,

And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,

And winter robing with pure snow and crownsOf starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs;

If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathesHer first sweet kisses, have been dear to me;

If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beastI consciously have injured, but still loved

And cherished these my kindred; then forgiveThis boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw

No portion of your wonted favour now!

         Mother of this unfathomable world!Favour my solemn song, for I have lovedThee ever, and thee only; I have watched

Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,And my heart ever gazes on the depth

Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bedIn charnels and on coffins, where black deathKeeps record of the trophies won from thee,Hoping to still these obstinate questionings

Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghostThy messenger, to render up the tale

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,

Like an inspired and desperate alchymistStaking his very life on some dark hope,Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks

With my most innocent love, until strange tears

Uniting with those breathless kisses, madeSuch magic as compels the charmèd night

To render up thy charge:...and, though ne'er yetThou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,

Enough from incommunicable dream,And twilight phantasms, and deep noon-day thought,

Has shone within me, that serenely nowAnd moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre

Suspended in the solitary domeOf some mysterious and deserted fane,

I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strainMay modulate with murmurs of the air,And motions of the forests and the sea,

And voice of living beings, and woven hymnsOf night and day, and the deep heart of man.

         There was a Poet whose untimely tombNo human hands with pious reverence reared,

But the charmed eddies of autumnal windsBuilt o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid

Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness:—A lovely youth,—no mourning maiden decked

With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath,The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:—

Gentle, and brave, and generous,—no lorn bardBreathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:

He lived, he died, he sung, in solitude.Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes,

And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pinedAnd wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.

The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

         By solemn vision, and bright silver dream,His infancy was nurtured. Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air,Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.

The fountains of divine philosophyFled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past

In truth or fable consecrates, he feltAnd knew. When early youth had past, he left

His cold fireside and alienated homeTo seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness

Has lured his fearless steps; and he has boughtWith his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,

His rest and food. Nature's most secret stepsHe like her shadow has pursued, where'er

The red volcano overcanopiesIts fields of snow and pinnacles of ice

With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakesOn black bare pointed islets ever beat

With sluggish surge, or where the secret cavesRugged and dark, winding among the springs

Of fire and poison, inaccessibleTo avarice or pride, their starry domesOf diamond and of gold expand aboveNumberless and immeasurable halls,

Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrinesOf pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.

Nor had that scene of ampler majestyThan gems or gold, the varying roof of heavenAnd the green earth lost in his heart its claims

To love and wonder; he would linger longIn lonesome vales, making the wild his home,Until the doves and squirrels would partakeFrom his innocuous hand his bloodless food,

Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,And the wild antelope, that starts whene'erThe dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend

Her timid steps to gaze upon a formMore graceful than her own.

                                                His wandering stepObedient to high thoughts, has visited

The awful ruins of the days of old:Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste

Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towersOf Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strangeSculptured on alabaster obelisk,

Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx,Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills

Conceals. Among the ruined temples there,Stupendous columns, and wild images

Of more than man, where marble daemons watchThe Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men

Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around,He lingered, poring on memorials

Of the world's youth, through the long burning dayGazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon

Filled the mysterious halls with floating shadesSuspended he that task, but ever gazed

And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mindFlashed like strong inspiration, and he saw

The thrilling secrets of the birth of time.

Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food,Her daily portion, from her father's tent,

And spread her matting for his couch, and stoleFrom duties and repose to tend his steps:—

Enamoured, yet not daring for deep aweTo speak her love:—and watched his nightly

sleep,Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips

Parted in slumber, whence the regular breathOf innocent dreams arose: then, when red morn

Made paler the pale moon, to her cold homeWildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.

         The Poet wandering on, through ArabieAnd Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,

And o'er the aërial mountains which pour downIndus and Oxus from their icy caves,In joy and exultation held his way;

Till in the vale of Cashmire, far withinIts loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine

Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretchedHis languid limbs. A vision on his sleep

There came, a dream of hopes that never yetHad flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid

Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.Her voice was like the voice of his own soulHeard in the calm of thought; its music long,

Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, heldHis inmost sense suspended in its web

Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,

Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,

And lofty hopes of divine liberty,Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood

Of her pure mind kindled through all her frameA permeating fire: wild numbers then

She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobsSubdued by its own pathos: her fair hands

Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harpStrange symphony, and in their branching veins

The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.The beating of her heart was heard to fillThe pauses of her music, and her breath

Tumultuously accorded with those fitsOf intermitted song. Sudden she rose,

As if her heart impatiently endured

Its bursting burthen: at the sound he turned,And saw by the warm light of their own lifeHer glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil

Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare,Her dark locks floating in the breath of night,

Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lipsOutstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess

Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelledHis gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet

Her panting bosom:...she drew back a while,Then, yielding to the irresistible joy,

With frantic gesture and short breathless cryFolded his frame in her dissolving arms.

Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and nightInvolved and swallowed up the vision; sleep,

Like a dark flood suspended in its courseRolled back its impulse on his vacant brain.

         Roused by the shock he started from his trance—The cold white light of morning, the blue moon

Low in the west, the clear and garish hills,The distinct valley and the vacant woods,

Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fledThe hues of heaven that canopied his bower

Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep,The mystery and the majesty of Earth,The joy, the exultation? His wan eyesGaze on the empty scene as vacantly

As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.The spirit of sweet human love has sentA vision to the sleep of him who spurned

Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursuesBeyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade;

He overleaps the bounds. Alas! Alas!Were limbs and breath and being intertwinedThus treacherously? Lost, lost, for ever lost,

In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep,That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death

Conduct to thy mysterious paradise,O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds,And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake,

Lead only to a black and watery depth,While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,

Where every shade which the foul grave exhalesHides its dead eye from the detested day,Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms?

This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart,The insatiate hope which it awakened stung

His brain even like despair.

                                              While daylight heldThe sky, the Poet kept mute conference

With his still soul. At night the passion came,Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream,

And shook him from his rest, and led him forthInto the darkness.—As an eagle grasped

In folds of the green serpent, feels her breastBurn with the poison, and precipitates

Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flightO'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus drivenBy the bright shadow of that lovely dream,

Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night,Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells,

Startling with careless step the moonlight snake,He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight,

Shedding the mockery of its vital huesUpon his cheek of death. He wandered onTill vast Aornos, seen from Petra's steep,Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud;

Through Balk, and where the desolated tombsOf Parthian kings scatter to every wind

Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,Day after day a weary waste of hours, Bearing within his life the brooding care

That ever fed on its decaying flame.And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair

Sered by the autumn of strange sufferingSung dirges in the wind; his listless hand

Hung like dead bone within its withered skin;Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone

As in a furnace burning secretlyFrom his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,

Who ministered with human charityHis human wants, beheld with wondering awe

Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,Encountering on some dizzy precipice

That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of windWith lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet

Disturbing not the drifted snow, had pausedIn its career: the infant would conceal

His troubled visage in his mother's robeIn terror at the glare of those wild eyes,

To remember their strange light in many a dreamOf after-times; but youthful maidens, taught

By nature, would interpret half the woeThat wasted him, would call him with false names

Brother, and friend, would press his pallid handAt parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path

Of his departure from their father's door.

         At length upon the lone Chorasmian shoreHe paused, a wide and melancholy wasteOf putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged

His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.

It rose as he approached, and with strong wingsScaling the upward sky, bent its bright course

High over the immeasurable main.His eyes pursued its flight.—"Thou hast a home,

Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home,Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck

With thine, and welcome thy return with eyesBright in the lustre of their own fond joy.And what am I that I should linger here,

With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes,Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned

To beauty, wasting these surpassing powersIn the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven

That echoes not my thoughts?" A gloomy smileOf desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips.

For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlesslyIts precious charge, and silent death exposed,

Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure,With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms.

         Startled by his own thoughts he looked around.There was no fair fiend near him, not a sightOr sound of awe but in his own deep mind.

A little shallop floating near the shoreCaught the impatient wandering of his gaze.

It had been long abandoned, for its sidesGaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints

Swayed with the undulations of the tide.A restless impulse urged him to embark

And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves

The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

         The day was fair and sunny: sea and skyDrank its inspiring radiance, and the wind

Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves.Following his eager soul, the wanderer

Leaped in the boat, he spread his cloak aloftOn the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea

Like a torn cloud before the hurricane.

         As one that in a silver vision floatsObedient to the sweep of odorous winds

Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidlyAlong the dark and ruffled waters fled

The straining boat.—A whirlwind swept it on,With fierce gusts and precipitating force,

Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea.The waves arose. Higher and higher still

Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourgeLike serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.

Calm and rejoicing in the fearful warOf wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast

Descending, and black flood on whirlpool drivenWith dark obliterating course, he sate:

As if their genii were the ministersAppointed to conduct him to the lightOf those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate

Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,

The beams of sunset hung their rainbow huesHigh 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted sprayThat canopied his path o'er the waste deep;

Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks

O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day;Night followed, clad with stars. On every side

More horribly the multitudinous streamsOf ocean's mountainous waste to mutual warRushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock

The calm and spangled sky. The little boatStill fled before the storm; still fled, like foam

Down the steep cataract of a wintry river;Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave;Now leaving far behind the bursting massThat fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled—As if that frail and wasted human form,

Had been an elemental god.

                                              At midnightThe moon arose: and lo! the ethereal cliffs

Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shoneAmong the stars like sunlight, and around

Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the wavesBursting and eddying irresistibly

Rage and resound for ever.—Who shall save?—The boat fled on,—the boiling torrent drove,—

The crags closed round with black and jaggèd arms,The shattered mountain overhung the sea,And faster still, beyond all human speed,

Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave,The little boat was driven. A cavern there

Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depthsIngulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on

With unrelaxing speed.—"Vision and Love!"The Poet cried aloud, "I have beheld

The path of thy departure. Sleep and deathShall not divide us long!"

                                              The boat pursuedThe windings of the cavern. Daylight shone

At length upon that gloomy river's flow;Now, where the fiercest war among the waves

Is calm, on the unfathomable streamThe boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven,

Exposed those black depths to the azure sky,Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell

Even to the base of Caucasus, with soundThat shook the everlasting rocks, the mass

Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm;Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,

Circling immeasurably fast, and lavedWith alternating dash the gnarlèd roots

Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant armsIn darkness over it. I' the midst was left,

Reflecting, yet distorting every cloud,A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm.Seized by the sway of the ascending stream,

With dizzy swiftness, round, and round, and round,Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose,Till on the verge of the extremest curve,

Where, through an opening of the rocky bank,The waters overflow, and a smooth spotOf glassy quiet mid those battling tides

Is left, the boat paused shuddering.—Shall it sinkDown the abyss? Shall the reverting stress

Of that resistless gulf embosom it?

Now shall it fall?—A wandering stream of wind,Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,

And, lo! with gentle motion, between banksOf mossy slope, and on a placid stream,

Beneath a woven grove it sails, and, hark!The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar,

With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods.Where the embowering trees recede, and leave

A little space of green expanse, the coveIs closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers

For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes,Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave

Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wind,

Or falling spear-grass, or their own decayHad e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed

To deck with their bright hues his withered hair,But on his heart its solitude returned,

And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hidIn those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame

Had yet performed its ministry: it hungUpon his life, as lightning in a cloud

Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floodsOf night close over it.

                                              The noonday sunNow shone upon the forest, one vast mass

Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificenceA narrow vale embosoms. There, huge cavesScooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks

Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.The meeting boughs and implicated leavesWove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led

By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death,He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank

Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More darkAnd dark the shades accumulate. The oak,Expanding its immense and knotty arms,Embraces the light beech. The pyramids

Of the tall cedar overarching, frameMost solemn domes within, and far below,Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,

The ash and the acacia floating hangTremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed

In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow aroundThe grey trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,

With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs

Uniting their close union; the woven leavesMake net-work of the dark blue light of day,And the night's noontide clearness, mutable

As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawnsBeneath these canopies extend their swells,

Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with bloomsMinute yet beautiful. One darkest glen

Sends from its woods of musk-rose, twined with jasmine,A soul-dissolving odour, to invite

To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell,Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep

Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades,Like vaporous shapes half seen; beyond, a well,Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave,

Images all the woven boughs above,And each depending leaf, and every speck

Of azure sky, darting between their chasms;Nor aught else in the liquid mirror lavesIts portraiture, but some inconstant star

Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair,Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon,

Or gorgeous insect floating motionless,Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings

Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.

         Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheldTheir own wan light through the reflected lines

Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depthOf that still fountain; as the human heart,Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,

Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heardThe motion of the leaves, the grass that sprungStartled and glanced and trembled even to feel

An unaccustomed presence, and the soundOf the sweet brook that from the secret springs

Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemedTo stand beside him—clothed in no bright robes

Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,Borrowed from aught the visible world affords

Of grace, or majesty, or mystery;—But, undulating woods, and silent well,And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom

Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,Held commune with him, as if he and it

Were all that was,—only... when his regardWas raised by intense pensiveness,... two eyes,Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought,And seemed with their serene and azure smiles

To beckon him.

                                              Obedient to the lightThat shone within his soul, he went, pursuing

The windings of the dell.—The rivuletWanton and wild, through many a green ravine

Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fellAmong the moss, with hollow harmony

Dark and profound. Now on the polished stonesIt danced; like childhood laughing as it went:

Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,Reflecting every herb and drooping bud

That overhung its quietness.—"O stream!Whose source is inaccessibly profound,Whither do thy mysterious waters tend?

Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness,Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs,Thy searchless fountain, and invisible courseHave each their type in me: and the wide sky,And measureless ocean may declare as soonWhat oozy cavern or what wandering cloud

Contains thy waters, as the universeTell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched

Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall wasteI' the passing wind!"

                                              Beside the grassy shoreOf the small stream he went; he did impress

On the green moss his tremulous step, that caughtStrong shuddering from his burning limbs. As oneRoused by some joyous madness from the couch

Of fever, he did move; yet, not like him,Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame

Of his frail exultation shall be spent,He must descend. With rapid steps he wentBeneath the shade of trees, beside the flow

Of the wild babbling rivulet; and nowThe forest's solemn canopies were changedFor the uniform and lightsome evening sky.

Grey rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmedThe struggling brook: tall spires of windlestrae

Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines

Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping rootsThe unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,

Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,

The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thinAnd white, and where irradiate dewy eyes

Had shone, gleam stony orbs:—so from his stepsBright flowers departed, and the beautiful shadeOf the green groves, with all their odorous winds

And musical motions. Calm, he still pursuedThe stream, that with a larger volume now

Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and thereFretted a path through its descending curvesWith its wintry speed. On every side now rose

Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,Lifted their black and barren pinnaclesIn the light of evening, and its precipiceObscuring the ravine, disclosed above,

Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves,Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues

To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands

Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks,And seems, with its accumulated crags,To overhang the world: for wide expand

Beneath the wan stars and descending moonIslanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom

Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hillsMingling their flames with twilight, on the verge

Of the remote horizon. The near scene,In naked and severe simplicity,

Made contrast with the universe. A pine,Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancyIts swinging boughs, to each inconstant blastYielding one only response, at each pause,

In most familiar cadence, with the howlThe thunder and the hiss of homeless streams

Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river,Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,

Fell into that immeasurable void,Scattering its waters to the passing winds.

         Yet the grey precipice and solemn pineAnd torrent, were not all;—one silent nook

Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain,Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,

It overlooked in its serenityThe dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.

It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smileEven in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped

The fissured stones with its entwining arms,And did embower with leaves for ever green,And berries dark, the smooth and even space

Of its inviolated floor, and hereThe children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,

In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,Red, yellow, or ethereally pale,

Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the hauntOf every gentle wind, whose breath can teach

The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,One human step alone, has ever brokenThe stillness of its solitude:—one voice

Alone inspired its echoes;—even that voiceWhich hither came, floating among the winds,

And led the loveliest among human formsTo make their wild haunts the depositoryOf all the grace and beauty that endued

Its motions, render up its majesty,Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm,

And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould,Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss,

Commit the colours of that varying cheek,That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.

The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and pouredA sea of lustre on the horizon's verge

That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mistFilled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank

Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a starShone, not a sound was heard; the very winds,

Danger's grim playmates, on that precipiceSlept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death!

Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night:And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still

Guiding its irresistible careerIn thy devastating omnipotence,

Art king of this frail world, from the red fieldOf slaughter, from the reeking hospital,

The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bedOf innocence, the scaffold and the throne,

A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin callsHis brother Death. A rare and regal prey

He hath prepared, prowling around the world;Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men

Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms,Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine

The unheeded tribute of a broken heart.

         When on the threshold of the green recessThe wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death

Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled,Did he resign his high and holy soul

To images of the majestic past,That paused within his passive being now,

Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breatheThrough some dim latticed chamber. He did place

His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunkOf the old pine. Upon an ivied stone

Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brinkOf that obscurest chasm;—and thus he lay,

Surrendering to their final impulsesThe hovering powers of life. Hope and despair,

The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fearMarred his repose, the influxes of sense,

And his own being unalloyed by pain,Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed

The stream of thought, till he lay breathing thereAt peace, and faintly smiling:—his last sight

Was the great moon, which o'er the western lineOf the wide world her mighty horn suspended,

With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemedTo mingle. Now upon the jaggèd hillsIt rests, and still as the divided frame

Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood,That ever beat in mystic sympathy

With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still:And when two lessening points of light alone

Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gaspOf his faint respiration scarce did stir

The stagnate night:—till the minutest rayWas quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.It paused—it fluttered. But when heaven remained

Utterly black, the murky shades involvedAn image, silent, cold, and motionless,

As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.Even as a vapour fed with golden beamsThat ministered on sunlight, ere the west

Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame—No sense, no motion, no divinity—

A fragile lute, on whose harmonious stringsThe breath of heaven did wander—a bright stream

Once fed with many-voicèd waves—a dreamOf youth, which night and time have quenched for ever,

Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now.

         O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy,Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam

With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhaleFrom vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God,

Profuse of poisons, would concede the chaliceWhich but one living man has drained, who now,

Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feelsNo proud exemption in the blighting curseHe bears, over the world wanders for ever,Lone as incarnate death! O, that the dream

Of dark magician in his visioned cave,Raking the cinders of a crucible

For life and power, even when his feeble handShakes in its last decay, were the true lawOf this so lovely world! But thou art fled

Like some frail exhalation; which the dawnRobes in its golden beams,—ah! thou hast fled!

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,The child of grace and genius. Heartless things

Are done and said i' the world, and many wormsAnd beasts and men live on, and mighty EarthFrom sea and mountain, city and wilderness,

In vesper low or joyous orison,Lifts still its solemn voice:—but thou art fled—

Thou canst no longer know or love the shapesOf this phantasmal scene, who have to thee

Been purest ministers, who are, alas!Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips

So sweet even in their silence, on those eyesThat image sleep in death, upon that form

Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tearBe shed—not even in thought. Nor, when those hues

Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone

In the frail pauses of this simple strain,Let not high verse, mourning the memoryOf that which is no more, or painting's woe

Or sculpture, speak in feeble imageryTheir own cold powers. Art and eloquence,

And all the shows o' the world are frail and vainTo weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.

It is a woe too "deep for tears," when allIs reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,

Whose light adorned the world around it, leavesThose who remain behind, not sobs or groans,

The passionate tumult of a clinging hope;But pale despair and cold tranquillity,

Nature's vast frame, the web of human things,Birth and the grave, that are not as they were.