SEMICHORUS II

Thou voice which art

The herald of the ill in splendor hid! Thou echo of the hollow heart Of monarchy, bear me to thine abode When desolation flashes o'er a world destroyed.

Oh, bear me to those isles of jagged cloud Which float like mountains on the earthquake, mid

958 The momentary oceans of the lightning; Or to some toppling promontory proud Of solid tempest, whose black pyramid, Riven, overhangs the founts intensely brightning

Of those dawn-tinted deluges of fire Before their waves expire, When heaven and earth are light, and only light

In the thunder-night!

VOICE (without)

Repulse, with plumes from conquest torn, Led the ten thousand from the limits of the morn

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Through many an hostile Anarchy ! At length they wept aloud and cried, 'the sea! the sea!'

Through exile, persecution, and despair, Rome was, and young Atlantis shall become,

The wonder, or the terror, or the tomb, Of all whose step wakes Power lulled in her savage lair.

But Greece was as a hermit child,

Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built

To woman's growth by dreams so mild She knew not pain or guilt;

And now, O Victory, blush! and Empire, tremble,

When ye desert the free!
If Greece must be

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A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble,

And build themselves again impregnably In a diviner elime,

To Amphionic music, on some Cape sublime

Which frowns above the idle foam of time.

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
From waves serener far;

A new Peneus rolls his fountains

Against the morning-star.

Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.

A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
Fraught with a later prize;
Another Orpheus sings again,

And loves, and weeps, and dies.
A new Ulysses leaves once more
Calypso for his native shore.

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,
If earth Death's scroll must be !
Nor mix with Laian rage the joy
Which dawns upon the free;
Although a subtler Sphinx renew
Riddles of death Thebes never knew.

Another Athens shall arise,

And to remoter time

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Bequeath, like sunset to the skies,
The splendor of its prime;

And leave, if nought so bright may live,
All earth can take or Heaven can give.

Saturn and Love their long repose

Shall burst, more bright and good Than all who fell, than One who rose, Than many unsubdued;

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Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,
But votive tears and symbol flowers.

Oh, cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.

The world is weary of the past,
Oh, might it die or rest at last!

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EARLY POEMS

1813-1815

The Miscellaneous Poems, with some exceptions, were published either by Shelley, in his successive volumes, or by Mrs. Shelley, in Posthumous Poems, 1824, and the two editions of 1839. A few first appeared elsewhere and were included in the collected editions by Mrs. Shelley, and still others have from time to time found their way to the public. The original issue of each poem is here stated in the introductory note, and its history so far as known is given. By far the greater portion of Shelley's shorter poems is personal, and many of them are addressed to his friends and companions or those who made up the domestic circle in his wanderings; even those which are most entirely poems of nature are, with few exceptions, charged with his moods, and governed by passing circumstances; as a whole, therefore, they require, for full understanding, intimacy with the events of his private life, and the reader must be referred to the Life of the poet for such a narrative as could not be condensed intelligibly into brief introductory notes, with respect both to persons and facts. Mrs. Shelley's biographical notes, however, have been largely used to preface the poems of each year because of their extraordinary truth to the feeling and atmosphere of Shelley's Italian life. The few political poems are sufficiently

EVENING

TO HARRIET

Composed at Bracknell, July 31, 1813, for the birthday (August 1) of Harriet, his first wife, on the completion of her eighteenth year. Published by Dowden, Life of Shelley, 1887.

explained by reference to current events; in most of these Shelley owes the manner to Coleridge's example.

Tradition has established Queen Mab at the head of Shelley's mature work, and in accordance with it all poems earlier than Queen Mab are included under Juvenilia. A more just sense would have given this honor to Alastor, and have relegated the poems of 1815 to the period of immaturity, to which with all the events relating to them they together with Queen Mab belong. It is, however, not deemed wise to attempt to disturb the traditionary arrangement at so late a time.

The Early Poems mainly relate to Shelley's domestic history. A few only show his political interest. Mrs. Shelley describes the summer of 1815 as one of rest, but it was exceptional, as these years were the most troubled of his life. Her record begins with 1815.

'He never spent a season more tranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe pulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near Windsor Forest, and his life was spent under its shades, or on the water; meditating subjects for verse. Hitherto, he had chiefly aimed at extending his political doctrines; and attempted so to do by appeals, in prose essays, to the people, exhorting them to claim their rights; but he had now begun to feel that the time for action was not ripe in England, and that the pen was the only instrument wherewith to prepare the way for better things.'

March 16, 1814: I have written nothing but one stanza, which has no meaning, and that I have only written in thought. This is the vision of a delirious and distempered dream, which passes away at the cold clear light of morning. Its surpassing excellence and exquisite perfections have no more reality than the color of an autumnal sunset.' Published by Hogg, Life of Shelley. 1858.

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.

ΤΟ

ΔΑΚΡΥΣΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ.

Mrs. Shelley states that Coleridge is the person addressed: The poem beginning "Oh, there are spirits in the air" was addressed in idea to Coleridge, whom he never knew; and at whose character he could only guess imperfectly, through his writings and accounts he heard of him from some who knew him well.

He regarded his change of opinions as rather

an act of will than conviction, and believed that in his inner heart he would be haunted by what Shelley considered the better and holier aspirations of his youth.' Dowden questions 'whether it was not rather addressed in a de

spondent mood by Shelley to his own spirit.' This suggestion was first advanced by Bertram Dobell, in his reprint of Alastor, and supported by the assent of Rossetti there given; that it is correct is reasonably certain. Published with Alastor, 1816.

OH, 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 When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.