ALASTOE
AND OTHER POEMS
Of this Book
Three Hundred Copies have heen printed
ALASTOE
THE SPIEIT OF SOLITUDE
AND OTHER POEMS
BY
PEECY BYSSHE SHELLEY
A FACSIMILE REPRINT OP THE ORIGINAL EDITION
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1816
t. ^ EDITED BY
•^ ■■ "^^ BERTRAM DOBELL
LONDON
rUBLISHED FOR THE SHELLEY SOCIETY
BY REEVES AND TURNER 196 STRAND
1886
7JO oc
Case
CONTENTS. -^
PAGE
Editor's Preface xi
Mrs. Shelley's Note on Alastor xliii
CONTENTS OF 'ALASTOR AND OTHER POEMS.'
PAGE
Author's Preface iii
Alastor 1
*0! There are spirits of the air' 58
Stanzas. — April, 1814 56
Mutability 59
* The pale, the cold, and the moony smile ' . . 61
A Summer-evening Church- yard 64
To Wordsworth 67
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte 69
Superstition 71
Sonnet from the Italian of Dante 74
Translated from the Greek of Moschus .... 76
The DiBMON of the World 81
[No table of Contents appears in tlie original edition, Shelley
having probably forgotten to provide one.]
102459
EDITOR'S PEEFACE.
EDITOK'S PEEFACE.
To the first edition of this reprint I prefixed
an Introductory Note explaining the reasons
which seemed to render such facsimiles desir-
able and even necessary. But as no one, so far
as I am aware, has seriously disputed the pro-
priety or usefulness of such re-issues, and as it
is certain that no member of the Shelley Society
is likely to do so, it seems quite unnecessary
to reproduce my former note. The publication
of the Society's beautiful reprint of Adonais
would have finally settled the question, if it
had before been in any degree doubtful.
Alastor is, by the general verdict of Shelley's
critics, admitted to be the work in which his
peculiar excellences were first exhibited. Qiceen
xii editor's preface.
Mob indeed, is, in my opinion, a production of
considerably greater merit than many of its
critics are willing to allow ; but one must con-
cede, that with all the audacity of thought,
declamatory force, and enthusiasm for humanity
by which it is characterised, it yet shows few
or no traces of the melody of versification, the
subtlety of conception, and the inexhaustible
wealth of imagination which distinguished the
poet's later works. In Quee^i Mob Shelley treads
in the footsteps of his predecessors and con-
temporaries, so far at least as the structure of
his versification, and the selection of his images
and metaphors are concerned; but in Alastor
he first struck out a pathway of his own on
which he was henceforth to travel, and which
led him to ever fairer regions of splendour
and delight.
Alastor was written during the latter months
of 1815. Mrs. Shelley, in the Note affixed to
that poem in her edition of her husband's
Poetical Works, thus describes the circum-
stances under which Alastor was composed : —
"In the summer of 1815, after a tour along
EDITOR S PREFACE. XIU
the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit
to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopsgate
Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest,
where he enjoyed several months of compar-
ative health and tranquil happiness. The later
summer months were warm and dry. Accom-
panied 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."
One can hardly doubt that in depicting
the unnamed hero of Alastor, Shelley was
delineating himself and his own aspirations,
disappointments, and disenchantments. He too
sought for an unattainable ideal, felt himself a
stranger and an alien among mankind, and
worshipped with unutterable intensity the love-
liness and grandeur of nature. Moreover he
XIV EDITOR S PEEFACE.
had felt just previous to its composition, even
if he did not actually feel whilst writing it,
that he, like his hero, was doomed to a pre-
mature death. He too, he thought, would be
an " inheritor of unfulfilled renown " ; and
hence the poem has an undertone of pathos
which gives it a peculiar interest.
" In Alastor" says Mr. W. M. Rossetti, "we
at last have the genuine, the immortal Shelley.
It may indeed be said that the poem, though
singularly lovely and full-charged with meaning,
j has a certain morbid vagueness of tone, a want
( of firm human body : and this is true enough.
Nevertheless, Alastor is proportionately worthy
of the author of Prometheus Unbound and The
Cenci, the greatest Englishman of his age ;
which cannot fully be said even of Queen MaJb,
and must be peremptorily denied of any pre-
ceding attempts." It may be possible perhaps
to question whether Alastor can truly be des-
cribed as " morbid," but its vagueness of tone,
and want of firm human body can hardly be
denied. Miss Mitford in her "Recollections
of a Literary Life," well illustrates these
editor's preface. XV
characteristics of tlie poem in the following
passage :
" The first time I ever met with any of his
[Shelley's] works, this vagueness brought me
into a ludicrous dilemma. It was in the great
library of Tavistock House that Mr. Perry one
morning put into my hand a splendidly printed
and splendidly bound volume (Alastor, I think),
and desired me to read it, and to give him my
opinion. 'You will at least know,' said he,
* whether it be worth anybody else's reading.'
" Accordingly, I took up the magnificent pre-
sentation copy, and read conscientiously until
visitors came in. I had no marker, and the
richly-bound volume closed as if instinctively ;
so that when I resumed my task, on the de-
parture of the company, not being able to find
my place, I was obliged to begin the book at
the first line. More visitors came and went,
and still the same calamity befell me; again,
and again, and again, I had to search in vain
amongst a succession of melodious lines, as like
each other as the waves of the sea, for buoy or
landmark, and had always to put back to shore
xvi editor's preface.
and begin my voyage anew. I do not remem*
ber having been ever in my life more ashamed
of my own stupidity, than when obliged to say
to Mr. Perry, in answer to his questions as to
the result of my morning's studies, that, doubt-
less, it was a very fine poem — only that I never
could tell, when I took up the book, where I
had left off half an hour before — an unintended
criticism, which, as characteristic both of author
and reader, very much amused my kind and
clever host."^
As regards the bibliographical history of
Alastor, I can add little or nothing to what is
said by Mr. Forman in The Shelley Library, and
therefore much of what follows is quoted or
^ As, judging merely from the above passage, the reader
might form a wrong opinion about Miss Mitford's apprecia-
tion of Shelley, I quote here the conclusion of her notice of
him : —
"Now, could such a calamity befall even the stupidest of
young girls, in reading that perfection of clearness and
dramatic construction, The Cenci t Ah ! what a tragic poet
was lost in that boat-wreck ! Could it have happened with
the Ode to tJie Skylark, an ode as melodious, as various, and
as brilliant as the song of the bird it celebrates 1 Both seem
soaring upward to heaven, and pouring forth an unconscions
hymn of praise and thanksgiving."
EDITOE S PREFACE. XVU
adapted from that work. The first edition is
a well-printed and tastefully " got np " volume.
It is printed upon an excellent quality of hand-
made "wove" paper, manufactured by Whatman
in 1812. It was first issued in drab boards
with a printed back-label which reads " Shel-
ley's / Poems." When first published, it appears
to have attracted little or no attention. I have
never met with any contemporary review or
notice of it. Shelley, in an unpublished letter
to Mr. C. Oilier, dated the 8th of August, 1817,
informs him of the issue of Alastor " some
time since," and says that the sale was
" scarcely anything." He adds that the pub-
lisher " had no interest in the work, nor do I
know that any one else had." In another
letter he writes that Alastor ought to be
advertized at the end of the advertizement of
Laon and Cythna, adding that in the event of
a demand for a second edition of Alastor he
would reprint it " with many others " in his
possession. No demand for a second edition
of Alastor arose during the lifetime of Shelley,
but in 1824 it had run out of print, and had
h
XVlil EDITORS PREFACE.
become scarce. Mrs. Shelley, in her Preface
to the Posthumous Poems (first issued in that
year) says, " I have added a reprint of 'Alastor,
or the Spirit of Solitude ' — the difficulty with
which a copy can be obtained is the cause of
its republication."
In 1876 was issued a private reprint, in
octavo, of the Alastor volume, edited, with
notes, by H. Buxton Forman. The issue
consisted of 50 copies on ordinary paper, 25
on Whatman's hand-made paper, and 5 on
Vellum.
In May, 1885, appeared the first edition
of the present reprint. It consisted of 350
copies, printed on a slightly-toned paper, 50
on Whatman's hand-made paper, and 4 on
Vellum. Of this Mr. Forman says : — " This is
a page-for-page reprint, pretty, useful, and
accurate in essentials, but not a fac-simile.
The Athenccum (8 August, 1885), points out
some minute variations and one misprint — mth
for within at page 34, line 4 from the foot." ^ I
* This misprint appears in only a few of the copies, a
cancel leaf having been printed in order to correct the error.
EDITOR S PREFACE. XlX
am hardly able to agree with the justice of that
part of the first sentence which asserts that it
is " not a fac-simile." If Mr. Forman had
stated that it is " not a 'perfect fac-simile," I
should of course have agreed with him, but
then it would have been only right, I think, to
add, that in this respect it is like all other fac-
similes that have ever been issued. Even a
photographic fac-simile does not perfectly re-
present its original, as any one may see who
puts a fac-simile of one of Shakespeare's plays
by the side of the quarto from which it is
copied. In using type for reproductions it is
practically impossible to avoid minute vari-
ations from the original; but I venture to
think that where the variations are of no
more importance than they are in this re-
print, they do not deprive the latter of its
right to the title of " fac-simile." The Athe-
ncevjun reviewer points out that if some dishonest
dealer desired to pass off the latter on a
collector as a copy of the original, he would
hardly be likely to meet with success in his
knavish design. This is true, and I am glad
h 2
XX EDITOR S PREFACE.
of it, fbr it was certainly not my intention to
aid rascally booksellers in defrauding their
customers. What I aimed at was, (1) to pro-
duce an exact reprint of the original text, and
(2) to reproduce with sufficient fidelity the
typographical and other peculiarities of the
book, so that it might supply the place of the
first edition to (1) textual students, and (2)
collectors, who from its scarcity, or from theii*
limited means, were unable to obtain the
original. I own I should have been glad if
the few variations noted in the Athenceum
could have been avoided ; but since Mr. Forman
allows that the reprint is " useful, and accurate
in essentials,'' no more need be said in its
vindication.
With regard to the present reproduction I
shall only say that no pains have been spared
to render it as complete and trustworthy a fac-
simile of the original as it was possible to
produce.
There are certain passages in Alastor of
which the meaning is obscure, and which have
provoked a good deal of discussion. To save
EDITORS PREFACE. XXl
tlie reader trouble, I add here a few notes on
these disputed passages, and also a few re-
lating to the miscellaneous poems printed with
Alastor; partly compiled from the editions of
Messrs. Rossetti and Forman, and partly from
other sources.
P. 16.—
While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung,
Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
Conduct, 0 Sleep, to thy delightful realms 1
Mr. Rossetti substitutes conducts for con-
duct, holding that the latter word is an obvious
violation of grammar. It seems reasonable to
suppose that Shelley wrote or intended to
write conducts, although Mr. Forman argues
that he may have intentionally written con-
duct ; but the argument by which he suppoits
this opinion seems to me to be more ingenious
than convincing.
P. 84.—
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming —
I venture, with some degree of confidence,
XXll EDITOR'S PREFACE.
to propose the omission of for from this line.
It seems to me to be redundant, if not worse ;
and the line both in sense and sound is better
without it.
P. 38.—
On every side now rose
Eocks, which, in unimaginable forms, —
This passage is so difficult and obscure that I
fear it is unlikely ever to be interpreted in an
altogether satisfactory manner. Perhaps the
best way of dealing with it here will be to give
it as amended or altered by the chief critics
who have attempted to explain or improve it.
Mr. Rossetti in his edition of 1878, prints it
thus : —
On erery side now rose
Rocks which in unimaginable forms
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening ; and its precipice,
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above.
Mid toppling stones, black gulphs, and yawning caves
Whose windings gave ten-thousand various tongues
To the loud stream.
In a note, Mr. Rossetti explains that he reads
the passage with the following sense : — " Rocks
rose, lifting their pinnacles ; and the precipice
editor's preface. xxiii
(precipitous sides or archway) of the ravine,
obscuring the said ravine with its shadow, did
unclose (opened, was rifted), aloft, amid toppling
stones," &c.
Mr. Forman in his text leaves the passage as
in the original, without alteration ; but in a
footnote proposes a reading which he believes
to be the true one : it is as follows : —
On every side now rose
Eocks, which, in unimaginable forms.
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, amidst precipices,
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above.
Mid toppling stones, &c.
" This reading," says Mr. Forman, " leaves
the sense clear and complete, namely that, as
the poet traversed the widening valley or
ravine, on every side rose rocks of unimagin-
able form, in the midst of precipices ; that
these rocks obscured the outline of the ravine,
which, however, was disclosed above, — and that
these rocks rose in the midst, not only of pre-
cipices, but also of
toppling stones, black gulphs, and yawning caves,
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
To the loud stream."
XXIV EDITOR S PREFACE.
In 1876 a correspondent of the Uxaminer
(E. S.) proposed the following reading : —
On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening : and their precipice,
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above
('Mid toppling stones), black gulphs and yawning caves,
"Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
To the loud stream.
This is an ingenious and plausible reading, if
we allow that the substitution of their for its
is not too violent a change.
Another critic is of opinion that the ob-
scurity of the passage arises from the fact that
a line has dropped out of it, and is daring
enough to pro230se to supply it. He would
read ; —
On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening ; and, its precipice
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above
A cataract descending with wild roar
Mid toppling stones, black gulphs and yawning caves,
Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues
To the loud stream.
EDITORS PREFACE. XXV
This critic is of opinion that a passage which
occurs a few lines further on lends countenance
to his cataract theory : —
A pine,
Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
Yielding one only response, at each pause
In most familiar cadence, with the howl
The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams
Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad rivco".
Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path,
Fell into that immeasurable void
Scattering its waters to the -parsing winds.
I have given this critic's reading rather as a
curiosity than as a serious proposal, for I doubt
whether he himself would expect it to be
gravely entertained.
I will quote finally from a private letter
(with the writers leave) Professor Dowden's
explanation of the passage — an explanation
which, on the whole, commends itself to me as
a luminous and happy solution of its difficulties.
It is as follows : —
" My notion is that Shelley wished to describe
a narrowing ravine through which flows a j
considerable stream, and along which the hero j
xxvi editor's preface.
of the poem advances towards that point at
which the ravine ends and the stream tumbles
over a vast height. As the ravine narrows, its
rocky sides rise in height, so that the ravine
grows dark below from the sheer height of its
precipitous sides ; but above, in the rocky
heights, can be discerned openings in the crags,
and caverns, amid which the voice of the
stream echoes. Such is the sense I get, and I
extract it from Shelley's text by considering the
relative ^ which' following * rocks* as nominative
not only to the verb 'lifted' but also to the
verb ' disclosed ' ; and this verb * disclosed ' has
as its accusative or object the w^ords * black
gulphs and yawning caves.' The words 'its
precipice obscuring the ravine' I take to be
parenthetical, and as meaning the height of its
rocky sides darkening the ravine. Pointed thus
my meaning may be clearer —
On every side now rose
Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and (its precipice
Obscuring the ravine) disclosed above
(Mid toppling stones) black gulphs &c.
EDITOR S PREFACE. XXVll
I separate ' toiopling stones ' as governed by
tlie preposition ' 'mid ' from * black gulphs, &c/
which is governed by the verb * disclosed.*
'Above' is an adverb, not a preposition, and
means in the wpper region"
Passages like this, which to the reader seem
hopelessly difficult, probably appear to their
authors to be quite clear and free from am-
biguity; because, knowing the genesis of their
conceptions, they have a key by which all
obscurities are unriddled. Writers like Shelley
and Browning, of subtle and penetrating intel-
lect, must feel continually the difficulty of
translating their glowing and swift-winged
conceptions into a language inadequate to
express them ; or which, if adequate, must yet
be manipulated so as to bring down their
meaning to the apprehension of the ordinary
reader. This may explain wdiy many passages
in Shakespeare and other famous writers, are,
in spite of innumerable commentators, still
unexplained and likely to remain so. What all
commentators who wish to get at the meaning
of an obscure passage should first attempt is,
XXVlll EDITOB 8 PREFACE.
to try to find the sense of it, not from its
external peculiarities (which may lead them
altogether astray), but from considering what
could have been in the author s mind when the
passage was written. It may be thought that
it is impossible to do this, and doubtless it is
so sometimes ; but it will often be found that
by tracking the author s ideas as they precede
or follow the passage in dispute, it will be
comparatively easy to solve its difficulties. The
commentator, in short, should consider not what
he himself would have written under the cir-
cumstances, but what the author, impelled by
his peculiar genius, was likely to have meant.
P. 53. " O ! there are spirits of the air."
This poem in all recent editions is headed
" To Coleridge." The editors have the authority
of Mrs. Shelley for thus heading it. In " Notes
on the Early Poems," in her edition of 1839,
she says : — " The poem beginning ' Oh, there
are spirits in the air,' ^ was addressed in idea to
* The reader will notice that there are here two departures
from the original text, Oh, for 0 ! and in for of. Mrs.
Shelley probably had looser notions as to an editor's duties
EDITOR S PREFACE. XXIX
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 re-
garded his change of opinion as rather an
act of will than conviction, and believed that
in his inner heart he would be haunted by
what Shelley considered the better and holier
aspirations of his youth."
Notwithstanding this statement, I feel con-
vinced that the poem has no reference whatever
to Coleridge, and that Mrs. Shelley must have
been labouring under a misapprehension re-
garding it. I cannot see that the lines have
the remotest application to Coleridge's character
or works, while they apply clearly and strongly
to Shelley himself. The stanzas are merely a
variation of the theme dwelt upon in Alastor ;
and if, as I believe, Shelley delineates himself
in that poem, then these verses are only another
phase of his self-portraiture. As it might seem
rather presumptuous on my part to speak thus
than are now entertained ; or perhaps she thought herself
warranted in making what she regarded as trifling alterations.
XXX editor's preface.
positively without having submitted the point
to more competent judges, I have consulted Mr.
Rossetti and Professor Dowden with regard to
it. The former says : " I have always shared
your opinion that the verses have no traceable
application to Coleridge, and must to all ap-
pearance be personal to Shelley." Professor
Dowden does not speak quite so positively ; but
he says, however, " Your thought that the poem
had Shelley himself for subject often occurred
to me."
P. 56. " Stanzas :— April, 1814."
Respecting these verses, Mr. Rossetti says : —
" The purport of these stanzas has never, so far
as I know, been cleared up to the reader by any
of the persons who could speak with authority.
They might appear to be addressed by way of
apostrophe to Shelley himself, on his then
impending separation from his first wife,
Harriet. If so, they are important in point
of date, as the separation did not actually take
place till about 17th June. A person likely to
know the facts has, however, stated in writing
(within my knowledge) that the stanzas have a
EDITOR S PREFACE. XXXI
personal application of a different kind whicli
it is not my province to detail." Among the
pieces classed as " Fragments " in Mr. Rossetti's
edition, there is one, numbered XXVII., which
is dated March, 1814, and which may be con-
jectured to have relation to the same cir-
cumstances as the " Stanzas."
TO .
Thy dewy looks sink in my breast ;
Thy gentle words stir poison there :
Thou hast disturbed the only rest
That was the portion of despair.
Subdued to duty's hard control,
I could have borne my wayward lot ;
The chains that bind this ruined soul
Had cankered then, but crushed it not.
On these verses Mr. Eossetti remarks : —
" These lines were written by Shelley whilst he
was staying at the house of Mrs. Boinville, at
Bracknell, shortly before his separation from
Harriet, and under the influence of very gloomy
feelings as to his domestic relations and pros-
pects. They are apparently addressed to Mrs.
Boinville, or else to one of her daughters. In
sending the lines to Hogg, Shelley termed them
XXXU EDITOR S PREFACE.
* the vision of a delirious and distempered dream,
which passes away at the cold clear light of
morning. Its surpassing excellence and ex-
quisite perfections have no more reality than
the colour of an autumnal sunset.'" Putting
the " Stanzas " and the verses " To " to-
gether, and reading them by the light of Mr.
Rossetti's remarks, it is not difficult to evolve a
theory as to the circumstances which occasioned
them ; but doubtless we shall be enlightened
on this point as on many other doubtful matters
by Professor Dowden s forthcoming memoir of
Shelley.
P. 61. "The pale, the cold, and the moony
smile " —
It is interesting to learn that this powerful
poem was written not later than the winter of
1812-13. I am indebted to Professor Dowden
for the knowledge of this fact.
P. 67. " To Wordsworth."
Never perhaps were severe disapprobation
and reproach expressed with more force, yet
with less acrimony and less of the ordinary
language of vituperation than in this sonnet.
EDITOR S PREFACE. XXXlll
I feel convinced that this poem was the cause
of Wordsworth's dislike of Shelley. I will not
discuss the question as to whether Shelley was
unjust to Wordsworth ; but just or unjust, the
lines must have wounded their subject deeply.
P. 71. "Superstition."
These lines are extracted from the sixth
section of Q%teen Mob. The last two lines —
Converging thou didst give it name, and form,
Intelligence, and unity, and power —
are an amplification (and not perhaps an
improvement) of one line of Qiteen Mcib —
Converging, thou didst bend, and called it God. y-
P. 81. " The Dsemon of the World."
This poem consists of the first section and
about half of the second section of Queen
Mob, but much altered from the original
text.
It may be worth while in conclusion to try to
account in some degree for the vast disparity of
merit — a disparity only to be expressed indeed
by the height of excellence as compared with the
most entire worthlessness — between the early
XXXIV EDITOB S PREFACE.
and late writings of Shelley. Zastrozzi and
St, Irvyne have not yet found an advocate
bold enough to defend their crudities and
incoherences ; nor have the earlier poems
{Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson^
&c.,) yet met with admirers even among his
most enthusiastic devotees. Shall we therefore
pronounce that the labour spent upon them
was utterly wasted, and that they had far
better have never been written ? I think not.
We may regret that they were ever published,
but the writing of them was a necessary and
inevitable phase of Shelley's intellectual de-
velopment; and hence we may regard them, not
as subjects for critical examination, but simply
with the curiosity with which we should look
upon the pothooks and hangers which he made
in his earliest copybooks. The constitution of
his intellect irresistibly impelled him to the
act of creation — of course understanding by
creation not the making of something out of
nothing, but the fashioning of something new
out of such materials as may be available.
Even if the intellect a man is endowed with is
editor's preface. XXXV
brilliant in the highest degree, it is yet of
little or no use to him before he has accumu-
lated a stock of knowledge and experience for
it to work upon. It is true that the poet is
born, not made ; but it is true also that the
poet is made as well as born. To the making
of the poet it is essential that he should serve
an apprenticeship to his calling. The early
works of Shelley are the essays of his appren-
ticeship, the first crude efforts of his creative
faculty, the awkward flutterings of a young
eagle attempting to imitate the majestic soar-
ings of its parents ! We may conjecture that
all famous authors have done a good deal of
prentice work, more or less like that of Shelley,
although most of them have either voluntarily
suppressed their juvenile efforts, or have had
advisers wise enough to induce them to do
so. But the fervour and enthusiasm which
above all else were characteristic of Shelley,
did not allow him to doubt that what to him
had seemed worth writing must be also worth
publishing. There is this at least to be said
for his early verses, that they do not consist, as
xxxvi editor's preface.
is usually the case >vith youthful poets, of mere
repetitions of what may be termed the stock-
in-trade of poetry, such as Odes to Spring,
Verses to Myra, Sonnets to the Moon, &c.
There is always an effort visible in them to
get beyond the commonplace; while in his
novels, chaotic as they are, he makes an at-
tempt at least at novelty of plot and incident.
But when every possible allowance has been
made, it still remains a mystery how the youth
who could perpetrate such utter failures, could,
within the brief time afterwards allotted him,
have reached such supreme heights of excellence.
Happily we are able to trace Shelley's intellec-
tual progress with great exactness, but even were
we ignorant of the order in which his works
were written, it would surely need no great
degree of ingenuity to arrange them in the
order of their composition. From the time of
the printing of Queen Mob he advances in excel-
lence with footsteps no less rapid than sure ;
exhibiting in each new work, increased vigour
of thought, sweeter and stronger melody, and
a wider range of power. Hard as it may seem
EDITORS PREFACE. XXXVll
to conceive of higher achievements than The
Genci, Prometheus Unbound, and Epiiosychidicn,
yet I am persuaded that, had he lived, even
those masterpieces would have been surpassed ;
and perhaps in the end Shakespeare himself
would have maintained his supremacy over
him, only by virtue of his possession of that gift
of humorous delineation which was apparently
denied to Shelley.
Eeturning to the present volume, it may be
worth inquiring, why, in spite of its consider-
able merits, it yet attracted, upon its first ap-
pearance, no public attention, and was nowhere
recognised as the work of a new and genuine
poet. One reason, doubtless, was that Byron
was then in the full tide of his success, and
so engrossed the attention of the reading
public that it was almost impossible for any
other author to obtain a fair hearing. It
must be confessed, however, that the subject
of the leading poem was not very happily
chosen. The late James Thomson once ob-
served to me (not in relation, however, to
Alastor) that he thought it was a great mis-
xxxviii editor's preface.
take for a poet to write about poets, or their
thoughts and feelings. Fellow poets may be
interested in such studies, but the general
public can hardly be expected to interest
itself in the analysis of feelings and thoughts
of which it has had no experience, and of
which therefore it cannot test the validity.
The wide theatre of human nature lies open
to the poet to select from, and out of it he
should choose his subject, and not from the small
circle of those who, to judge by the pictures
we get of them, in becoming poets have put
off a good part of their manliness. The only
poet I can remember just now as figuring in
Shakespeare is the one in Timon of Athens, but
he is only a subordinate character, and is intro-
duced for a special object, and with perfect
appropriateness. A long poem about a poet
inevitably becomes tedious at last ; and al-
though we who are interested in Shelley take
pleasure now in reading Alastor, yet it is not
so certain that we should care for it if it came
to our hands as an anonymous production. It
was practically an anonymous production to
EDITOR S PREFACE. XXXIX
Shelley's contemporaries, for to them it was
merely one of the scores of volumes of poems
then issuing from the press, any one of which
might prove to be equal if not superior to
it. I cannot think, therefore, that the public
of that time was greatly to blame for not
receiving Alastor with enthusiasm. Shelley m
fact had not yet learned the lesson that what
interested him profoundly might nevertheless
have little or no interest for those to whom
he appealed. Had Shelley's productiveness
stopped short with Alastor ^ his chance of being
remembered would have depended rather upon
Queen Mob than upon the former poem, because
of its greater human interest, and of the
higher importance of its subject-matter. But
these considerations are of little value or
interest. An author has the right to be judged
by his supreme achievements only. A man
of genius may, from accidental circumstances,
produce much indifferent work ; but it is certain
nevertheless that no dunce ever brought forth
a masterpiece. To a poet capable of writing
EDITORS PREFACE.
another Prometheus Unhound any quantity of
inferior verse shall be freely forgiven.
But it is hardly likely that we shall ever
have another great writer, who will make so
poor a start as Shelley did. Perhaps the danger
now lies in a different direction. Our young
poets of the present day bestow so much atten-
tion upon the mere form of their compositions,
that matter and substance are neglected ; and
hence we have productions faultless enough, no
doubt, but which bear the same relation to real
poetry that paste diamonds bear to genuine
stones. By all means let us have form and
matter too, if possible ; but if we must choose
between them, we can better dispense with the
former than with the latter. A golden orna-
ment, however rude its design, will ever be
preferred before one in bronzC; let the workman-
ship of the latter be ever so excellent.
Bertram Dobell.
MRS. SHELLEY'S NOTE ON ALASTOR
NOTE ON ALASTOK
BT
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY.
" Alastor " is written in a very different
tone from " Queen Mab." In the latter,
Shelley poured out all the cherished specu-
lations of his youth — all the irrepressible emo-
tions 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
xliv MRS. Shelley's note on alastor.
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 pul-
monary disease vanished. His nerves, which
nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled
MRS, Shelley's note on alastor. xlv
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 Lucerne, by the
Eeuss and the Rhine. This river navigation
enchanted him. In his favourite poem of
"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 Heatli,
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 the voyage in a wherry from
Windsor to Crick] ade. 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
xlvi MBS. Shelley's note on alastok.
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 character-
istic than this. The solemn spirit that reigns
throughout, the worship of the majesty of
nature, the breedings of a poet's heart in soli-
tude— the mingling of the exulting joy which
the various aspect of the visible universe in-
spires, 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 m 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 out-pouring 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.
ALASTOE ;
OR,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE
AND OTHER POEMS.
BY
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
LONDON:
rniNTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, PATER-
NOSTER ROW ; AND CARPENTER AND SON,
OLD BOND-STREET :
By S. Hamilton, Weybridge, Surrey.
1816.
PEEFACE.
The poem entitled 'Alastor/ may be con-
sidered as allegorical of one of the most inte-
resting situations of the human mind. It re-
presents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and
adventurous genius led forth by an imagina-
tion 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
IV PREFACE.
cease to suffice. His mind is at length sud-
denly 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 de-
picture. The Intellectual faculties, the imagi-
nation, the functions of sense, have their re-
spective requisitions on the sympathy of cor-
responding powers in other human beings.
The Poet is represented as uniting these re-
quisitions, and attaching them to a single
image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of
his conception. Blasted by his disappoint-
ment, he descends to an untimely grave.
The picture is not barren of instruction
to actual men. The Poet's self-centred se-
clusion was avenged by the fuiies of an irre-
sistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin.
But that Power which strikes the luminaries of
the world with sudden darkness and extinction,
PREFACE. V
by awakening them to too exquisite a percep-
tion 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 tlieir 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 lan-
guish, because none feel with them their com-
mon 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
VI PREFACE.
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 ! '
The Fragment, entitled * The Daemon of
THE World,* is a detached part of a poem
which the author does not intend for publica-
tion. The metre in which it is composed is
that of Samson Agonistes and the Italian pas-
toral drama, and may be considered as the
natural measure into which poetical concep-
tions, expressed in harmonious language, ne-
cessarily fall.
December 14, 1815.
ALASTOE;
OB,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.
Nondumamabam, etamareamabam, quserebamquidamarem,
amans mare.
Confess. St. August.
ALASTOR;
OE,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.
Earth, ocean, air, beloved brotherhood !
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your 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 ;
2 ALASTOBj OB,
If autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs ;
If spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses, have been dear to me ;
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred ; then forgive
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favour now I
Mother of this unfathomable world I
Favour 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
THE SPIEIT OF SOLITUDE.
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 renderjjp-4ii6^1e
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchymist
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
B 2
4 alastob; OB,
Thou hast unveil'd 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.
There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
No human hands with pious reverence reared.
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
THE SPIBIT OF SOLITUDE. 0
Built 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 baf d
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh ;
Hfe lived, he died, he sung, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, /
And virgins, as unknown he past, have pined j^
And 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,
/
6 alastor; oe,
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 philosophy
Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great,
Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
And knew. When early youth had past, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home
To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
Has lured his fearless steps ; and he has bought
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 SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.
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
Eugged 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 chrysolite.
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
o alastor; or,
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 vnld 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.
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. U
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 daemons watch
The 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 day
Gazed on those speechless shapes, nor, when the moon
Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades
Suspended he that task, but ever gazed
And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind
10 ALASTOR; OR,
Flashed 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 stole
From duties and repose to tend his steps : —
Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe
To speak her love : — and watched his nightly sleep,
Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips
Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath
Of innocent dreams arose : then, when red mom
Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home
Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned.
The Poet wandering on, through Arabic
And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 11
And o'er the aerial mountains which pour down
Indus and Oxus from their icy caves,
In joy and exultation held his wayj ^ ^C
Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within
Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine
Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower,
Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched
His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep
There came, a dream of hopes that never yet
Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid
Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones.
Her voice was like the voice of his own soul
Heard in the calm of thought ; its music long,
Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held
His inmost sense suspended in its web
12 alastor; or,
Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues.
Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme,
And lofty hopes of divine liberty,
Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy,
Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood
Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame
A permeating fire : wild numbers then
She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs
Subdued by its own pathos : her fair hands
Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp
Strange symphony, and in their branching veins
The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale.
The beating of her heart was heard to fill
The pauses of her music, and her breath
Tumultuously accorded with those fits
THE SPIRIT OP SOLITUDE. 13
Of 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 life
Her 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 lips
Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly.
His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess
Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs and quelled
His 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 cry
14 alastob; or,
Folded his frame in her dissolving arms.
Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night
Involved and swallowed up the vision ; sleep,
Like a dark flood suspended in its course,
Kolled 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. Whi^^^gj^J^^yp f^aA
The hues of heaven that canopied his bower
Of yesternight 1 The sounds that soothed his sleep.
The mystery and the majesty of Earth,
The joy, the exultation 1 His wan eyes
Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly
THE SPIRIT OP SOLITUDE. 15
As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven.
The spirit of sweet human love has sent
A vision to the sleep of him who spurned
Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues
Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade ;
He overleaps the bounds. Alas ! alas ! -^-'(^ !■ ^ i \^ ,
Were limbs, and breath, and being intert veined
Thus 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,
0 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.
16 alastoe; ob,
Where every shade which the foul grave exhales
Hides its dead eye from the detested day,
Conduct, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms 1
This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart;
The insatiate hope which it awakened, stung
His brain even like despair.
While day-light held
The 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 forth
Into the darkness. — As an eagle grasped
In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast
Burn with the poison, and precipitates
Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 17
Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight
O'er the wide aery wilderness : thus driven
By 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 moon^light snake,
He fled. Bed morning dawned upon his flight,
Shedding the mockery of its vital hues
Upon his cheek of death^_ He wandered on
Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep
Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud ;
Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs
Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind
Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on,
Day after day, a weary waste of hours,
0
18 alastor; or,
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 suffering
Sung 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 secretly
From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers,
Who ministered with human charity
His human wants, beheld with wondering awe
Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer,
Encountering on some dizzy precipice
That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind
With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet
THE SPIRIT OP SOLITUDE. 19
Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused
In its career : the infant would conceal
His troubled visage in his mother's robe
In terror at the glare of those w;ild eyes,
To remember their strange light in many a dream
Of after-times ; but youthful maidens, taught
By nature, would interpret half the woe
That wasted him, would call him with false names
Brother, and friend, would press his pallid hand
At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path
Of his departure from their father's door.
At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged
His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there,
c 2
20
ALASTORj OR,
Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds.
It rose as he approached, and with strong wings
Scaling 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 eyes
Bright 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 powers
In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven
That echoes not my thoughts ] " A gloomy smile
<.'
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 21
Of desperate hope wrinkled his quiveriog lips.
For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly
Its 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. thoughtaiie^laQked-axamid.
There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight I /
Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. y<^ /
A little shallop floating near the shore
Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze.
It had been long abandoned, for its sides
Gaped 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 ;
22 alastor; or,
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
The slimy caverns of the populous deep.
The day was fair and sunny, sea and sky
Drank 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 aloft
On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat,
And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea
Like a torn bloud before the hurricane.
As one that in a silver vision floats
Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds
Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly
Along the dark and ruffled waters fled
The straining boat. — ^A whirlwind swept it on,
THE SPIRIT OP SOLITUDE. 23
With fierce gusts and precipitating force,
Through the white ridges of the chafed sea.
The waves arose. Higher and higher still
Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge
Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp.
Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war
Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast
Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven
"With dark obliterating course, he sate :
As if their genii were the ministers
Appointed to conduct him to the light
Of those beloved eyes, the Poet sate
Holding the steady helm. Evening came on,
The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues
High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray
24 alastoe; on,
That canopied his path o'er the waste deep ;
Twilight, ascending slowly from the east,
Entwin'd 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 streams
Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war
Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock
The calm and spangled sky. The little boat
Still 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 mass
That fell, convulsing ocean. Safely fled — •_
As if that frail and wasted human form,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 25
Had been an elemental god.
At midnight
The moon arose : and lo 1 the etherial cliffs
Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone
Among the stars like sunlight, and around
Whose cavern'd base the whirlpools and the waves
Bursting 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 jagged 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 depths
?6 alastor; or,
Ingulphed the rushing sea. The boat fled on
With unrelaxing speed. — * Vision and Love I '
The Poet cried aloud, ' I have beheld .
The path of thy departure. Sleep and death
Shall not divide us long I *
The boat pursued
The windings of the cavern. Day-light shone
At length upon that gloomy river's flow ;
Now, where the fiercest war among the waves
Is calm, on ihe unfathomable stream
The 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 sound
That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 27
Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm ;
Stair above stair the eddying waters rose,
Circling immeasurably fast, and laved
With alternating dash the knarled roots
Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms
In 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 spot
Of glassy quiet mid those battling tides
28 alastoe; oe,
Is left, the boat paused shuddering. — Shall it sink
Down the abyss ? Shall the reverting stress
Of that resistless gulph embosom it 1
Now shall it fall ? — A wandering stream of wind,
Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail,
And, lo ! with gentle motion, between banks
Of 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 cove
Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers
For ever gaze on their own drooping eyes.
Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 29
Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task,
Which nought but vagrant bird, or wanton wi^d,
Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay
Had 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 hid
In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame,
Had yet performed its ministry : it hung
Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud
Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods
Of night close over it.
The noonday sun
Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass
Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence
30 alastoe; ob,
A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves,
Scooped in the dark base of their aery rocks
Mocking its moans, respond and roar for ever.
The meeting boughs and implicated leaves
Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as led
By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Deatit,
He sought in Nature's dearest haunt, some bank,
Her cradle, and his sepulchre. More dark
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak.
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching, frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 31
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The gray 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 leaves
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells.
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen
Sends from its woods of musk- rose, twined with jasmine,
32 alastoe; ob,
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 laves
Its 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
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 33
Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon.
Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld
Their own wan light through the reflected lines
Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth
Of that still fountain ; as the human heart,
Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave,
Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard /•!
The motion of the leaves, the grass that sprung
Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel
An unaccustomed presence, and the sound
Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs
Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed
To stand beside him — clothed in no bright robes
Of shadowy silver or enshrining light,
Borrowed from aught the visible world affords
34 alastob; or,
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 regard
Was 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 light
That shone within his soul, he went, pm'suing
The windings of the dell. — The rivulet
Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine
Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 35
Among the moss with hollow harmony-
Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones
It danced ; like childhood laughing as it went :
Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept,
E-eflecting every herb and drooping bud
That overhung its quietness. — * 0 stream 1
Whose source is inaccessibly profound, ^^
A
Whither do thy mysterious waters tend ?
Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, -^ t^^
Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulphs,
Thy searchless fountain, and invisible course
Have each their type in me : and the wide sky,
And measureless ocean may declare as soon
What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud
Contains thy waters, as the universe
D 2
36 alastor; or,
Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched
Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste
I' the passing wind I '
Beside the grassy shore
Of the small stream he went ; he did impress
On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught
X Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one
Roused 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 went
Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow
Of the wild babbling rivulet, and now
The forest's solemn canopies were changed
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 37
For the uniform and lightsome evening sky.
Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed
The struggling brook : tall spires of windlestrae
Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope,
And nought but knarled roots of ancient pines
Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots
The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here,
Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away,
The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin
And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes
Had shone, gleam stony orbs : — so from his steps
Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade
Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds
And musical motions. Calm, he still pursued
The stream, that with a larger volume now
38 ALASTORj OE,
Rolled through the labyrinthine dell ; and there
Fretted a path through its descending curves
With its wintry speed. On every side now rose
Kocks, which, in unimaginable forms,
Lifted their black and barren pinnacles
In the light of evening, and its precipice
Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above,
Mid toppling stones, black gulphs 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 moon
Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 39
Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom
Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills
Mingling 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 vacancy
Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast
Yielding one only response, at each pause
In most familiar cadence, with the howl
The 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.
40 alastor; ok,
Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine
And torrent, were not all ; — one silent nook
Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountai
Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks,
It overlooked in its serenity
The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars.
It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile
Even 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 here
The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore,
In wanton sport, those bright leaves, whose decay,
Red, yellow, or etherially pale,
.. Y
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 41
Rivals the pride of summer. 'Tis the haunt
Of every gentle wind, whose breath can teach
The wilds to love tranquillity. One step,
One human step alone, has ever broken
The stillness of its solitude : — one voice
Alone inspired its echoes, — even that voice
Which hither came, floating among the winds,
And led the loveliest among human forms
To make their wild haunts the depository
Of 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,
42 alastob; or,
That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes.
The dim and horned moon hung low, and poured
A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge
That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist
Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank
Wan moonlight even to fullness : not a star
Shone, not a sound was heard ; the very winds.
Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice
Slept, clasped in his embrace. — 0, storm of death I
Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night :
And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still
Guiding its irresistible career
In thy devastating omnipotence.
Art king of this frail world, from the red field
Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital.
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 43
The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed
Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne,
A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls
His 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 recess
The 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,
44 ALASTOR; OR
Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe
Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place
His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk
Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone
Reclined his languid head, his limbs did rest,
Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink
Of that obscurest chasm ; — and thus he lay,
Surrendering to their final impulses
The hovering powers of life. Hope and despairi
The torturers, slept ; no mortal pain or fear
Marred 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 there
At peace, and faintly smiling : — his last sight
THE SPIRIT OP SOLITUDE. 45
Was the great moon, which o'er the western line
Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended,
With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed
To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills
It 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 gasp
Of his faint respiration scarce did stir
The stagnate night : — till the minutest ray
Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart.
It paused — it fluttered. But when heaven remained
Utterly black, the murky shades involved
46 alastor; ob,
An image, silent, cold, and motionless,
As their own voiceless earth and vacant air.
Even as a vapour fed with golden beams
That ministered on sunlight, ere the west
Eclipses it, was now that wonderous frame —
No sense, no motion, no divinity —
A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings
The breath of heaven did wander — a bright stream
Once fed with many-voiced waves — a dream
Of youth, which night and time have^juenched 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 exhale
From vernal blooms fresh fragrance ! O, that God,
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE. 47
Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice
Which but one living man has drained, who now,
Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels
No proud exemption in the blighting curse
He bears, over the world wanders for ever,
Lone as incarnate death I 0, that the dream
Of dark magiciau in his visioned cave,
Raking the cinders of a crucible
For life and power, even when his feeble hand
Shakes in its last decay, were the true law
Of this so lovely world I But thou art fled
Like some frail exhalation ; which the dawn
Robes in its golden beams, — ah I thou hast fled !
The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful,
The child of grace and genius. Heartless things
48 ALASTORj OR,
Are done and said i' the world, and many worms
And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth
From 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 shapes
Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee
Been purest ministers, who are, alas I
Now thou art not. Upon those pallid lips
So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes
That image sleep in death, upon that form
Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear
Be shed — not even in thought. Nor, when those hues
Are gone, and those divinest lineaments,
"Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.
49
In the frail pauses of this simple strain,
Let not high verse, mourning the memory
Of that which is no more, or painting's woe
Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery
Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence,
And all the shews o' the world are frail and vain
To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade.
It is a woe too ' deep for tears,' when all
Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit,
Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves
Those 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.
E
n'f
POEMS.
E 3
4 ,) Ci^kjiP.'SCy}
POEMS.
AAKPTEI AlOlSn nOTMON AHOTMON.
O ! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees : —
Such lovely ministers to meet
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
54 POEMS.
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
Another's wealth : — tame sacrifice
To a fond faith ! still dost thou pine t
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands ?
Ah ! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy ?
Did thine own mind afford no scope
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee ?
That natural scenes or human smiles
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles.
POEMS. 65
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted ;
The glory of the moon is dead ;
Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed ;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs.
Dream not to chase ; — the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
M
POEMS.
STANZAS.— APRIL, 1814.
Away 1 the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drank the last pale beam of even :
Away 1 the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoimdest midnight shroud the serene lights
of heaven.
Pause not ! The time is past I Every voice cries,
Away 1
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle
. .i-
mood:
Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat
thy stay :
Duty and dereliction gidde thee back to solitude.
POEMS. 57
Away, away ! to thy sad and silent home ;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth ;
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around
thine head :
The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy
feet:
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that
binds the dead,
Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou
and peace may meet.
The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own
repose.
68 POEMS.
For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in
the deep :
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its ap-
pointed sleep.
Thou in the grave shalt rest — yet till the phantoms flee
"Which that house and heath and garden made dear
to thee erewhile,
Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings]
are not free
Fi'om the music of two voices and the light of one
sweet smile.
POEMS. 59
MUTABILITY.
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon ;
I How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly ! — yet soon
I Night closes round, and they are lost for ever :
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
j Give various response to each varying blast.
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. — A dream has power to poison sleep ;
We rise. — One wandering thought pollutes the day;
60 POEMS.
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep ;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away :
It is the same 1 — 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.
POEMS. 61
THERE IS NO WORK, NOR DEVICE, NOR KNOWLEDGE, NOR WIS-
DOM, IN THE GRAVE, WHITHER THOU OOEST.
Eeclesiastes.
The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.
O man ! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.
62 POEMS.
This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel ;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be.
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death t
Who lif teth the veil of what is to come 1
p POEMS. 63
5 Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
, The wide--windiDg cave of the peopled tomb ?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see ?
64 . POEMS.
SUMMER-EVt:NING CHURCH-YARD,
LECHLADE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray ;
And pallid evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day :
Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day.
Encompassing the earth, air, stara, and sea ;
I POEMS. 66
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aerial Pile I whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
I Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells.
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres :
And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound
Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,
k F
66 POEMS.
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
And mingling with the still night and mute sky ,
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night :
Here could I hope, like some enquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.
POEMS. 67
TO
WORDSWORTH.
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know-
That things depart which never may return :
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to moura
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine
On some frail bark in winter's midnight roar :
Thou hast like to a rock-built refuge stood
Above the blind and battling multitude :
f2
68 POEMS.
In honoured poverty thy voice did weave
Songs consecrate to truth and liberty, —
Deserting these, thou leavest me to grieve.
Thus having been, that thou shouldst cease to be.
POEMS. 69
FEELINGS OF A REPUBLICAN
ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE.
I HATED thee, fallen tyrant I I did groan
To think that a most unambitious slave,
Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave
Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne
Where it had stood even now : thou didst prefer
A frail and bloody pomp which time has swept
In fragments towards oblivion. Massacre,
For this I prayed, would on thy sleep have crept,
Treason and Slavery, Rapine, Fear, and Lust,
And stifled thee, their minister. I know
70 POEMS.
Too late, since thou and France are in the dust,
That virtue owns a more eternal foe
Than force or fraud : old Custom, legal Crime,
And bloody Faith the foulest birth of time.
POEMS. 71
SUPERSTITION.
Thou taintest all thou lookest upon 1 The stars,
Which on thy cradle beamed so brightly sweet,
Were gods to the distempered playfulness
Of thy untutored infancy ; the trees,
The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea,
All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly.
Were gods : the sun had homage, and the moon
Her worshipper. Then thou becamest, a boy.
More daring in thy frenzies : every shape,
Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
72 POEMS.
Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls ;
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to nature's varied works,
Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart : yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave
Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain ;
Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene,
Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride :
Their everlasting and unchanging laws
Reproached thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest
Baffled and gloomy ; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know ;
The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign,
POEMS. 73
The budding of the heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sun-rise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease,
And all their causes, to an abstract point
Converging, thou didst give it name, and form,
Intelligence, and unity, and power.
74
SONNET.
I
FBOM THE ITALIAN OF DANTE.
Dante Alighieri to Guido CavcUcanti.
GuiDO, I would that Lappo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly
With winds at will where'er our thoughts might wend.
And that no change, nor any evil chance,
Should mar our joyous voyage ; but it might be,
That even satiety should still enhance
Between our hearts their strict community :
SONNET. 75
And that the bounteous wizard then would place
I Vanna and Bice and my gentle love,
Companions of our wandering, and would grace
I With passionate talk wherever we might rove
Our time, and each were as content and free
As I believe that thou and I should be.
76
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF MOSCHUS.
Toy aha rav yXavKuv 6rav uvefios orpe/xo fia?<Xr), k. t.\.
When winds that move not its calm surface sweep
The azure sea, I love the land no more ;
The smiles of the serene and tranquil deep
Tempt my unquiet mind. — But when the roar
Of ocean's gray abyss resounds, and foam
Gathers upon the sea, and vast waves burst,
I turn from the drear aspect to the home
Of earth and its deep woods, where interspersed,
When winds blow loud, pines make sweet melody.
Whose house is some lone bark, whose toil the sea.
TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK. 77
Whose prey the wandering fish, an evil lot
Has chosen. — But I my languid limbs will fling
Beneath the plane, where the brook's murmuring
Moves the calm spirit, but disturbs it not.
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD.
A FEAGMENT.
Nee tantmn prodere vati,
Quantum scire licet. Venit setas omnis in unam
Congeriem, miserumque premunt tot ssecula pectus.
Lucan Phars. L. v. 1. 176.
THE DiEMON OF THE WORLD.
A FRAGMENT.
How wonderful is Death,
Death and his brother Sleep I
One pale as yonder wan and horned moon,
"With lips of lurid blue,
The other glowing like the vital morn,
When throned on ocean's wave
It breathes over the world :
Yet both so passing strange and wonderful !
o
82 THE DiEMON OF THE WORLD.
Hath then the iron-sceptered Skeleton,
Whose reign is in the tainted sepulchres,
To the hell dogs that couch beneath his throne
Cast that fair prey 1 Must that divinest form,
Which love and admiration cannot view
Without a beating heart, whose azure veins
Steal like dark streams along a field of snow.
Whose outline is as fair as marble clothed
In light of some sublimest mind, decay 1
Nor putrefaction's breath
Leave aught of this pure spectacle
But loathsomeness and ruin 1 —
Spare aught but a dark theme,
On which the lightest heart might moralize?
Oi' is it but that downy-winged slumbers
THE D-SIMON OF THE WORLD. 83
Have charmed their nurse coy Silence near her lids
To watch their own repose ?
Will they, when morning's beam
Flows through those wells of light,
Seek far from noise and day some western cave.
Where woods and streams with soft and pausing
winds
A lulling murmur weave ? —
I Ian the doth not sleep
I The dreamless sleep of death :
Nor in her moonlight chamber silently
y Doth Henry hear her regular pulses throb,
Or mark her delicate cheek
Witb interchange of hues mock the broad moon,
V G 2
84 THE DiEMON OP THE WORLD.
Outwatching weary night,
Without assured reward.
Her dewy eyes are closed ;
On their transclucent lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs that burn below
With unapparent fire,
The baby Sleep is pillowed :
Her golden tresses shade
The bosom's stainless pride,
Twining like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.
Hark 1 whence that rushing sound f
*Tis like a wondrous strain that sweeps
Around a lonely ruin
THE DJ3M0N OP THE WORLD. 85
When west winds sigh and evening waves respond
In whispers from the shore :
'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes
Which from the unseen lyres of dells and groves
The genii of the breezes sweep.
Floating on waves of music and of light
The chariot of the Daemon of the World
Descends in silent power :
Its shape reposed within : slight as some cloud
That catches but the palest tinge of day
When evening yields to night,
Bright as that fibrous woof when stars indue
Its transitory robe.
Eour shapeless shadows bright and beautiful
Draw that strange car of glory, reins of light
86 THE D^MON OF THE WOELD.
Check their unearthly speed; they stop and fold
Their wings of braided air :
The Daemon leaning from the etherial car
Gazed on the slumbering maid.
Human eye hath ne'er beheld
A shape so wild, so bright, so beautiful,
As that which o'er the maiden's charmed sleep
Waving a starry wand,
Hung like a mist of light.
Such sounds as breathed around like odorous winds
Of wakening spring arose,
Filling the chamber and the moonlight sky.
. Maiden, the world's supremest spirit
Beneath the shadow of her wings
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD. 87
Folds all thy memory doth inherit
From ruin of divinest things,
Feelings that lure thee to betray,
And light of thoughts that pass away.
For thou hast earned a mighty boon,
The truths which wisest poets see
Dimly, thy mind may make its own,
Rewarding its own majesty,
Entranced in some diviner mood
Of self- oblivious solitude.
Custom, and Faith, and Power thou spurnest ;
From hate and awe thy heart is free ;
Ardent and pure as day thou burnest,
For dark and cold mortality
88 THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD.
A living light, to cheer it long,
The watch-fires of the world among.
Therefore from nature's inner shrine,
Where gods and fiends in worship bend.
Majestic spirit, be it thine
The flame to seize, the veil to rend,
Where the vast snake Eternity
In charmed sleep doth ever lie.
All that inspires thy voice of love,
Or speaks in thy unclosing eyes.
Or through thy frame doth burn or move.
Or think or feel, awake, arise !
Spirit, leave for mine and me
Earth's unsubstantial mimickry I
THE DJEMON OF THE WORLD. 89
It ceased, and from the mute and moveless frame
A radiant spirit arose,
All beautiful in naked purity.
Robed in its human hues it did ascend.
Disparting as it went the silver clouds
It moved towards the car, and took its seat
Beside the Daemon shape.
Obedient to the sweep of aery song,
The mighty ministers
IJnfiu'led their prismy wings.
The magic car moved on ;
The night was fair, innumerable stars
Studded heaven's dark blue vault ;
The eastern wave grew pale
"With the first smile of morn.
90 THE D^MON OF THE WOBLD.
The magic car moved on.
From the swift sweep of wings
The atmosphere in flaming sparkles flew ;
And where the burning wheels
Eddied above the mountain's loftiest peak
Was traced a line of lightning.
Now far above a rock the utmost verge
Of the wide earth it flew,
The rival of the Andes, whose dark brow
Frowned o'er the silver sea.
Far, far below the chariot's stormy path,
Calm as a slumbering babe,
Tremendous ocean lay.
Its broad and silent mirror gave to view
The pale and waning stars,
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD. 91
The chariot's fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That cradled in their folds the infant dawn.
The chariot seemed to fly
Through the abyss of an immense concave,
Radiant with million constellations, tinged
With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.
As they approached their goal,
The winged shadows seemed to gather speed.
The sea no longer was distinguished j earth
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere, suspended
92 THE D^MON OP THE WOELD.
In the black concave of heaven
With the sun's cloudless orb,
"Whose rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot's swifter course,
And fell like ocean's feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel's prow.
The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens,
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems widely rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever varying glory.
THE D^MON OP THE WOELD. 93
It was a sight of wonder ! Some were horned,
And, like the moon's argentine crescent hung
In the dark dome of heaven, some did shed
A clear mild beam like Hesperus, while the sea
Yet glows with fading sun-light ; others dashed
Athwart the night with trains of bickering fire,
Like sphered worlds to death and ruin driven ;
Some shone like stars, and as the chariot passed
Bedimmed all other light.
Spirit of Nature ! here
In this interminable wilderness
Of worlds, at whose involved immensity
Even soaring fancy staggers,
Here is thy fitting temple.
94 THE DiEMON OP THE WORLD.
Yet not the lightest leaf
That quivers to the passing breeze
Is less instinct with thee, —
Yet not the meanest worm,
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature ! thou
Imperishable as this glorious scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.
If solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the shore of the inmieasurable sea,
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun's broad orb
Seemed resting on the fiery line of ocean,
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD. 95
Thou must have marked the braided webs of gold
That without motion hang
Over the sinking sphere :
Thou must have marked the billowy mountain clouds,
Edged with intolerable radiancy,
Towering like rocks of jet
Above the burning deep :
And yet there is a moment
"When the sun's highest point
Peers like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery purple gleam
Like fairy lands girt by some heavenly sea :
Then has thy rapt imagination soared
Where in the midst of all existing things
The temple of the mightiest Daemon stands.
96 THE DiEMON OP THE WORLD.
Yet not the golden islands
That gleam amid yon flood of purple light,
Nor the feathery curtains
That canopy the sun's resplendent couch,
Nop the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful a sight
As the eternal temple could afford.
The elements of all that human thought
Can frame of lovely or sublime, did join
To rear the fabric of the fane, nor aught
Of earth may image forth its majesty.
Yet likest evening's vault that faery hall.
As heaven low resting on the wave it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD. 97
Its vast and azure dome ;
And on the verge of that obscure abyss
Where crystal battlements o'erhang the gulph
Of the dark world, ten thousand spheres diffuse
Their lustre through its adamantine gates.
The magic car no longer moved ;
The Dsemon and the Spirit
Entered the eternal gates.
Those clouds of aery gold
That slept in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy,
With the etherial footsteps trembled not,
WTiile slight and odorous mists
98 THE D^MON OF THE WORLD.
Floated to strains of thrilling melody
Through the vast columns and the pearly shrines.
The Daemon and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement.
Below lay stretched the boundless universed
There, far as the remotest line
That limits swift imagination's flight,
Unending orbs mingled in mazy motion
Immutably fulfilling
Eternal Nature's law
Above, below, around, ^
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony,
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD. 99
Each with undeviating aim
In eloquent silence through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way. —
Awhile the Spirit paused in ecstacy.
Yet soon she saw, as the vast spheres swept by,
Strange things within their belted orbs appear.
Like animated frenzies, dimly moved
Shadows, and skeletons, and fiondly shapes,
Thronging round human graves, and o'er the dead
Sculpturing records for each memory
In verse, such as malignant gods pronounce,
Blasting the hopes of men, when heaven and hell
Confounded burst in ruin o'er the world :
And they did build vast trophies, instruments
h2
100 THE D.EMON OF THE WORLD.
Of murder, human bones, barbaric gold,
Skins torn from living men, and towers of skulls
With sightless holes gazing on blinder heaven,
Mitres, and crowns, and brazen chariots stained
With blood, and scrolls of mystic wickedness,
The sanguine codes of venerable crime.
The likeness of a throned king came by,
When these had past, bearing upon his brow
A threefold crown ; his countenance was calm,
His eye severe and cold ; but his right hand
Was charged with bloody coin, and he did gnaw
By fits, with secret smiles, a human heart
Concealed beneath his robe ; and motley shapes,
A multitudinous throng, around him knelt.
With bosoms bare, and bowed heads, and false looks
THE D^MON OF THE WORLD. 101
Of true submission, as the sphere rolled by,
Brooking no eye to witness their foul shame,
Which human hearts must feel, while human tongues
Tremble to speak, they did rage horribly.
Breathing in self contempt fierce blasphemies
Against the Daemon of the World, and high
Hurling their armed hands where the pure Spirit,
Serene and inaccessibly secure.
Stood on an isolated pinnacle,
The flood of ages combating below
The depth of the unbounded universe
Above, and all around
Necessity's unchanging harmony.
THE END.
Printed by S. Hamilton, _Weybridge, Surrey.
^^
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