DOWDEN (Edward), Studies in Literature: Transcendental Movement and Literature; French Revolution and Literature. GARNETT (Richard), Essays of an Ex-Librarian: Shelley and Lord Beaconsfield. GossE (E.), Questions at Issue. HUTTON (R. H.), Literary Essays. LANG (Andrew), Letters to Dead Authors. MACDONALD (George), Imagination and Other Essays. MASSON (David), Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays. NENCIONI (E.), Letteratura inglese. ROSSETTI (W. M.), In Encyclopædia Britannica. ROSSETTI (W. M.), Lives of Famous Poets. SCUDDER (V. D.), The Greek Spirit in Shelley and Browning. SHAIRP (J. C.), Aspects of Poetry. STEPHEN (Leslie), Hours in a Library, Vol. III: Shelley and Godwin. THOMSON (James), Biographical and Critical Studies. TopHUNTER (John), A Study of Shelley. * TRENT (W. P.), Authority of Criticism: A propos of Shelley. WOODBERRY (G. E.), Studies in Letters * WOODBERRY (G. E.), Makers of Literature. Life. ARNOLD (M.), Essays in Criticism. ADAMS (Francis), Essays in Modernity. BROOKS (S. W.), English Poets. CHORLEY (II. F.), Authors of England. CAINE (T. Hall), Cobwebs of Criticism. CHIARINI (Giuseppe), Ombre e Figure. COURTHOPE (William J.), The Liberal Movement in English Literature. DAWSON (W. J.), Makers of Modern English. DY (J. A.), Comparative Estimate of Modern English Poetry. DE VERE (AUbrey), Essays, chiefly on Poetry. DIXON (W. M.), English Poetry. HANCOCK (A. E.), The French Revolution and the English Poets. JOHNSON (C. F.), Three Americans and Three Englishmen. MOIR (D. M.), Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half Century, 1851. NOEL (R.), Essays on Poetry and Poets. PATMORE (C.), Principle in Art. SCHUYLER (E.), Italian Influences. SHARP (R. F.), Architects of English Literature. TUCKERMAN (H. T.), Thoughts on the Poets. TRIBUTES IN VERSE * BROWNING, Memorabilia; Pauline, etc. BOURGET (Paul), Sur un Volume de Shelley. AGANOOR, Leggenda Eterna. FORMAN (Alfred), Sonnets: Two Sonnets to Shelley. JAPP (A. II.), in Stedman's Victorian Anthology. LANG (A.), Lines on the Inaugural Meeting of the Shelley Society. THOMSON (James), Shelley, a Poem. * ROSSETTI, (D. G.), Five English Poets: Percy Bysshe Shelley. * Rossetti (W. M.), Shelley's Heart. DE VERE (Aubrey), Lines composed at Lerici. HUNT (Leigh), Sonnet to Shelley. LANGFORD (J. A.), Shelley. * TABB (J. B.) Shelley, a Sonnet. * WOODBERRY (G. E.), Poems: Shelley, a Sonnet; Shelley's House. * * WATSON (William), Shelley's Centenary; To Edward Dowden on his Life of Shelley; Quatrain to Harriet Shelley. BIBLIOGRAPHY *FORMAN (H. B.), The Shelley Library; an Essay in Bibliography. SALEM PUBLIC LIBRARY, Special Reading List. ANDERSON (J. P.), Aƒ.. pendix to Sharp's Life of Shelley. SHELLEY STANZAS-April, 1814 1 AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even: Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, Away! Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude. Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep. Thou in the grave shalt rest-yet till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and gar den made dear to thee erewhile, Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile. 1814. 1816. TO COLERIDGE 1 ΔΑΚΡΥΣΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ̓ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ OH! THERE are spirits of the air, Away, away! to thy sad and silent Such lovely ministers to meet home; hearth; Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of mel- The leaves of wasted autumn woods But thy soul or this world must fade in The cloud shadows of midnight possess For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep: Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet. With mountain winds, and babbling springs, And moonlight seas, that are the voice Of these inexplicable things Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away. And thou hast sought in starry eyes Beams that were never meant for thine, 1 The poem beginning “Oh, there are spirits in the air" was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through his writings, and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well. He regarded his change of opinions as rather an act of will than conviction, and believed that in his inner heart Some respite to its turbulence unresting he would be haunted by what Shelley considered ocean knows; 1 See Dowden's Life of Shelley, Vol. I., pp. 410-411. the better and holier aspirations of his youth. (From Mrs. Shelley's Note on the Early Poems.) See also Dowden's Life of Shelley, Vol. I., p. 472 and note. THE 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 magniticence 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 de sires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and selfpossessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse He imwith an intelligence similar to itself. Conages to himself the Being whom he loves versant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginaties 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 vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disag pointment, 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 influ ences, 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 tenderhearted 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 who constitute, tounforeseeing multitudes gether 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. And cherished these my kindred; then forgive This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw No portion of your wonted favor now! Mother of this unfathomable world! Favor my solemn song, for I have loved Thee 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 bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, Hoping to still these obstinate questionings Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost, Thy 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 alchy mist Staking 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, made Such magic as compels the charmed night To render up thy charge: . . and, though ne'er yet Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, Enough from incommunicable dream, And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, Has shone within me, that serenely now And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre Suspended in the solitary dome Of some mysterious and deserted fane, I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air, And motions of the forests and the sea, And voice of living beings, and woven hymns Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued, where'er The red volcano overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes On black bare pointed islets ever beat With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves Rugged and dark, winding among the springs Of fire and poison, inaccessible To avarice or pride, their starry domes Of diamond and of gold expand above Numberless and immeasurable halls, Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrys olite. Nor had that scene of ampler majesty Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven And the green earth lost in his heart its claims To love and wonder; he would linger long In lonesome vales, making the wild his home. Until the doves and squirrels would partake From his innocuous hand his bloodless food, Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend Her timid steps to gaze upon a form More graceful than her own. His wandering step Obedient 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 towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, Or jasper tomb, or mutilated sphynx, Dark Ethiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble demons watch |