Ariel guides you o’er the sea
Of life from your nativity. 30
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun
Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps, and served your will;
Now, in humbler, happier lot, 35
This is all remembered not;
And now, alas! the poor sprite is
Imprisoned, for some fault of his,
In a body like a grave; —
From you he only dares to crave, 40
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile today, a song tomorrow.
The artist who this idol wrought,
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep 45
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast, 50
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree, —
O that such our death may be! —
Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 55
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully, 60
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learned all harmonies 65
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills, 70
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound, 75
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way. —
All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well 80
The Spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before,
By those who tempt it to betray 85
These secrets of an elder day:
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone. 90
TO JANE: ‘THE KEEN STARS WERE TWINKLING’.
(Published in part (lines 7-24) by Medwin (under the title, “An Ariette for Music. To a Lady singing to her Accompaniment on the Guitar”), “The Athenaeum”, November 17, 1832; reprinted by Mrs. Shelley, “Poetical Works”, 1839, 1st edition. Republished in full (under the title, To — .), “Poetical Works”, 1839, 2nd edition. The Trelawny manuscript is headed “To Jane”. Mr. C.W. Frederickson of Brooklyn possesses a transcript in an unknown hand.)
1.
The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane!
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them 5
Again.
2.
As the moon’s soft splendour
O’er the faint cold starlight of Heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender 10
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.
3.
The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later,
To-night; 15
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.
4.
Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing 20
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.
A DIRGE.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
Rough wind, that moanest loud
Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
Knells all the night long;
Sad storm whose tears are vain, 5
Bare woods, whose branches strain,
Deep caves and dreary main, —
Wail, for the world’s wrong!
LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OF LERICI.
(Published from the Boscombe manuscripts by Dr. Garnett, “Macmillan’s
Magazine”, June, 1862; reprinted, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceased to climb
The azure path of Heaven’s steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanced on her wings of light, 5
Hovered in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stayed alone
Thinking over every tone 10
Which, though silent to the ear,
The enchanted heart could hear,
Like notes which die when born, but still
Haunt the echoes of the hill;
And feeling ever — oh, too much! — 15
The soft vibration of her touch,
As if her gentle hand, even now,
Lightly trembled on my brow;
And thus, although she absent were,
Memory gave me all of her 20
That even Fancy dares to claim: —
Her presence had made weak and tame
All passions, and I lived alone
In the time which is our own;
The past and future were forgot, 25
As they had been, and would be, not.
But soon, the guardian angel gone,
The daemon reassumed his throne
In my faint heart. I dare not speak
My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak 30
I sat and saw the vessels glide
Over the ocean bright and wide,
Like spirit-winged chariots sent
O’er some serenest element
For ministrations strange and far; 35
As if to some Elysian star
Sailed for drink to medicine
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine.
And the wind that winged their flight
From the land came fresh and light, 40
And the scent of winged flowers,
And the coolness of the hours
Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day,
Were scattered o’er the twinkling bay.
And the fisher with his lamp 45
And spear about the low rocks damp
Crept, and struck the fish which came
To worship the delusive flame.
Too happy they, whose pleasure sought
Extinguishes all sense and thought 50
Of the regret that pleasure leaves,
Destroying life alone, not peace!
LINES: ‘WE MEET NOT AS WE PARTED’.
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
1.
We meet not as we parted,
We feel more than all may see;
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me: —
One moment has bound the free. 5
2.
That moment is gone for ever,
L
ike lightning that flashed and died —
Like a snowflake upon the river —
Like a sunbeam upon the tide,
Which the dark shadows hide. 10
3.
That moment from time was singled
As the first of a life of pain;
The cup of its joy was mingled
— Delusion too sweet though vain!
Too sweet to be mine again. 15
4.
Sweet lips, could my heart have hidden
That its life was crushed by you,
Ye would not have then forbidden
The death which a heart so true
Sought in your briny dew. 20
5.
…
…
…
Methinks too little cost
For a moment so found, so lost! 25
THE ISLE.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
There was a little lawny islet
By anemone and violet,
Like mosaic, paven:
And its roof was flowers and leaves
Which the summer’s breath enweaves, 5
Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze
Pierce the pines and tallest trees,
Each a gem engraven; —
Girt by many an azure wave
With which the clouds and mountains pave 10
A lake’s blue chasm.
TO THE MOON. (FRAGMENT)
(Published by Dr. Garnett, “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.)
Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,
To whom alone it has been given
To change and be adored for ever,
Envy not this dim world, for never
But once within its shadow grew 5
One fair as —
EPITAPH.
(Published by Mrs. Shelley, “Posthumous Poems”, 1824.)
These are two friends whose lives were undivided;
So let their memory be, now they have glided
Under the grave; let not their bones be parted,
For their two hearts in life were single-hearted.
ALASTOR
Written in 1815 whilst Shelley was staying at Bishopsgate, this poem was without a title when the poet passed it along to his friend and fellow poet Thomas Love Peacock, who suggested the name Alastor, an ‘evil genius’ from Roman mythology. The name does not refer to the hero or narrator, but instead to the spirit that divinely animates the poem.
Alastor recounts the life of a poet that zealously pursues the most obscure part of nature in search of “strange truths in undiscovered lands”, journeying to the Caucasus Mountains and other obscure locations. The poet rejects an Arab maiden in his search for an idealised embodiment of a woman. As the poet wanders one night, he dreams of a veiled maid, who tells him of the supernatural world that lies beyond nature. This dream vision serves as a mediator between the natural and supernatural domains by portraying both the spirit and element of human love.
Reviews were initially negative when the poem was published in 1816. John Gibson Lockhart of the Edinburgh Magazine wrote the first major positive review in the November, 1819 issue, declaring Shelley as “a man of genius... Mr. Shelley is a poet, almost in the very highest sense of that mysterious word.” Leigh Hunt also praised Alastor in the December, 1816 issue of The Examiner. However, the poem was attacked by contemporary critics for its obscurity. In a review in The Monthly Review for April, 1816, a critic complained: “We must candidly own that these poems are beyond our comprehension; and we did not obtain a clue to their sublime obscurity, till an address to Mr. Wordsworth explained in what school the author had formed his taste.”
The original title page
Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. He was also a close friend of Shelley and they influenced each other’s work.
Introductory Note
Nondum amabam, et amare amabam,
quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.
Confess. St. August.
Alastor was published nearly three years after the issue of Queen Mab, in 1816, in a thin volume with a few other poems. It is strongly opposed to the earlier poem, and begins that series of ideal portraits, — in the main, incarnations of Shelley’s own aspiring and melancholy spirit, — which contain his personal charm and shadow forth his own history of isolation in the world; they are interpretations of the hero rather than pronunciamentos of the cause, and are free from the entanglements of political and social reform and religious strife. The poetical antecedents of Alastor are Wordsworth and Coleridge. The deepening of the poet’s self-consciousness is evident in every line, and the growth of his genius in grace and strength, in the element of expression, is so marked as to give a different cadence to his verse. He composed the poem in the autumn of 1815, when he was twenty-three years old and after the earlier misfortunes of his life had befallen him. Mrs. Shelley’s account of the poem is the best, and nothing has since been added to it:
‘Alastor is written in a very different tone from Queen Mab. In the latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his youth — all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny of his fellow-creatures, gave birth. Alastor, on the contrary, contains an individual interest only. A very few years, with their attendant events, had checked the ardor of Shelley’s hopes, though he still thought them well-grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve.
‘This is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that checkered his life. It will be sufficient to say, that in all he did, he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward; inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own soul, than to glance abroad, and to make, as in Queen Mab, the whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the spring of 1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state of his health.
‘As soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad. He visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and returned to England from Lucerne by the Reuss and the Rhine. This river-navigation enchanted him. In his favorite 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 Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the source of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to Crichlade. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were written on that occasion. Alastor was composed on his return. He spent his days under the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem.
‘None of Shelley’s poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature, the broodings of a poet’s heart in solitude — the mingling of the exulting joy which the various aspect of the visible universe inspires, with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion imparts, give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during the last months as certain and near, he here represented in such colors as had, in his lonely musings, soothed
his soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation of death.’
Peacock explains the title: ‘At this time Shelley wrote his Alastor. He was at a loss for a title, and I proposed that which he adopted: Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude. The Greek word, ..., is an evil genius, ..., though the sense of the two words is somewhat different, as in the ... of Æschylus. The poem treated the spirit of solitude as a spirit of evil. I mention the true meaning of the word because many have supposed Alastor to be the name of the hero of the poem.’
In his Preface Shelley thus describes the main character, and draws its moral:
‘The poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous and tranquil and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful or wise or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher or the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.
Percy Bysshe Shelley Page 43
