falls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke- Because the crystal silence of the air Weighed on their life; even as the Power divine, EPODE II. a. Then gentle winds arose, With many a mingled close The soldiers dreamed that they were blacksmiths, of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen; Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;-in a band The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis; much, I wis, To the annoyance of king Amasis. LXXVI, And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shoue; [done And where the Baian ocean Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, It bore me, like an Angel o'er the waves The Author has connected many recollections of hir visit to Pompeii and Baie with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.-Author's Note, + Pompeii. NAPLES! thou Heart of men, which ever pantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, Which armed Victory offers up unstained Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, STROPHE B. 2. Thou youngest giant birth, Which from the groaning earth Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale! Last of the Intercessors Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail, Wave thy lightning lance in mirth; Though from their hundred gates the leagued With hurried legions move! ANTISTROPHE a. What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; Shall theirs have been-devoured by their own ANTISTROPHE 8. 2. From Freedom's form divine, From Nature's inmost shrine, Homer and Virgil. Strip every impious gaw d, rend Error veil by veil : O'er Ruin desolate, O'er Falsehood's fallen state, Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale! And equal laws be thine, And winged words let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne of God: ANTISTROPHE α. Y. Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling pæar. Starts to hear thine! The Sea EPODE I. B. Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forins Of crags and thunder clouds? The Serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide [hoary On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating EPODE II. B. Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move Exa, the Island of Circe. + The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. All things which live and are, within the Italian Who spreadest heaven around it, [shore; Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison ! From the Earth's bosom chill; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison! Whilst light and darkness bound it, To make it ours and thine! Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.— DEATH. DEATH is here, and death is there, Death has set his mark and seal On all we are and all we feel, On all we know and all we fear, First our pleasures die--and then All things that we love and cherish, SUMMER AND WINTER. It was a bright and cheerful afternoon, All things rejoiced beneath the sun, the weeds, It was a winter such as when birds die THE TOWER OF FAMINE*. AMID the desolation of a city, [guilt, Which was the cradle, and is now the grave, Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror YE hasten to the dead! What seek ye there, Thou vainly curious Mind which wouldest guess Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press A refuge in the cavern of grey death? O heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below? AN ALLEGORY. A PORTAL as of shadowy adamant Stands yawning on the highway of the life Which we all tread, a cavern huge and gaunt ; Around it rages an unceasing strife Of shadows, like the restless clouds that haunt ⚫ At Pisa there still exists the prison of Ugolino, which goes by the name of La Torre della Fame:" in the adjoining building the galley-slaves are confined. situated near the Ponte al Mare on the Arno. It is LINES TO A REVIEWER. ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see NOTE ON THE POEMS OF 1820. BY THE EDITOR. WE spent the latter part of the year 1819 in Florence, where Shelley passed several hours daily in the Gallery, and made various notes on its ancient works of art. His thoughts were a good deal taken up also by the project of a steamboat, undertaken by a friend, an engineer, to ply between Leghorn and Marseilles, for which he supplied a sum of money. This was a sort of plan to delight Shelley, and he was greatly disappointed when it was thrown aside. There was something in Florence that disagreed excessively with his health, and he suffered far more pain than usual; so much so that we left it sooner than we intended, and removed to Pisa, where we had some friends, and, above all, where we could consult the celebrated Vaccà, as to the cause of Shelley's sufferings. He, like every other medical man, could only guess at that, and gave little hope of immediate relief; he enjoined him to abstain from all physicians and medicine, and to leave his complaint to nature. As he had vainly consulted medical men of the highest repute in England, he was easily persuaded to adopt this advice. Pain and ill-health followed him to the end, but the residence at Pisa agreed with him better than any other, and there in consequence we remained. In the spring we spent a week or two near Leghorn, borrowing the house of some friends, who were absent on a journey to England. It was on a beautiful summer evening, while wan dering among the lanes, whose myrtle hedges were the bowers of the fire-flies, that we heard the carolling of the sky-lark, which inspired one of the most beautiful of his poems. He addressed the letter to Mrs. Gisborne from this house, which was hers; he had made his study of the workshop of her son, who was an engineer. Mrs. Gisborne had been a friend of my father in her younger days. She was a lady of great accomplishments, and charming from her frank and affectionate nature. She had the most intense love of knowledge, a delicate and trembling sensibility, and preserved freshness of mind, after a life of considerable adversity. As a favourite friend of my father we had sought her with eagerness, and the most open and cordial friendship was established between us. We spent the summer at the baths of San Giuliano, four miles from Pisa. These baths were of great use to Shelley in soothing his nervous irritability. We made several excursions in the neighbourhood. The country around is fertile ; and diversified and rendered picturesque by ranges of near hills and more distant mountains. The peasantry are a handsome, intelligent race, and there was a gladsome sunny heaven spread over us, that rendered home and every scene we visited cheerful and bright. During some of the hottest days of August, Shelley made a solitary journey on foot to the summit of Monte San Pelegrinoa mountain of some height, on the top of which there is a chapel, the object, during certain days in the year, of many pilgrimages. The excursion delighted him while it lasted, though he exerted himself too much, and the effect was considerable lassitude and weakness on his return. During the expedition he conceived the idea and wrote, in the three days immediately succeeding to his liarly characteristic of his tastes--wildly fanciful, return, the Witch of Atlas. This poem is pecufull of brilliant imagery, and discarding human that his imagination suggested. interest and passion, to revel in the fantastic ideas The surpassing excellence of The Cenci had made me greatly desire that Shelley should increase his popularity, by adopting subjects that would more suit the popular taste, than a poem conceived in the abstract and dreamy spirit of the Witch of Atlas. It was not only that I wished him to acquire popularity as redounding to his i |