Like one beloved, the scene had lent

To the dark water's breast Its every leaf and lineament

With more than truth exprest,

Until an envious wind crept by,

Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

Though Thou art ever fair and kind,

And forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

February, 1822.

WITH A GUITAR

TO JANE

Ariel to Miranda: - Take
This slave of Music, for the sake
Of him, who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.

80

85

5

10

15

From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,
To the throne of Naples he

Lit you o'er the trackless sea,
Flitting on, your prow before,
Like a living meteor.

When you die, the silent Moon,
In her interlunar swoon,
Is not sadder in her cell
Than deserted Ariel;

When you live again on earth,
Like an unseen star of birth,
Ariel guides you o'er the sea
Of life from your nativity.
Many changes have been run
Since Ferdinand and you begun

Your course of love, and Ariel still
Has tracked your steps and served
Now in humbler, happier lot,
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,
For his service and his sorrow,
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow.

The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep

your will.

The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of autumn past,

20

25

30

And some of spring approaching fast,
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

be! may

Died in sleep, and felt no pain,

To live in happier form again:

60

From which, beneath Heaven's fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
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 learnt all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voicéd fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,

65

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
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
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
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 belovéd Friend alone.

1822.

85

90

PAGE

NOTES

1 Stanzas - April, 1814.

See Introduction, page xxxi. "The beautiful 'Stanzas,' dated April, 1814,' read like a fantasia of sorrow, the motives of which are supplied by Shelley's anticipated farewell to Bracknell, and his return, at the call of duty, to a loveless home. It is moonless and starless night in the poem -night with its melancholy ebb of life and strength; and at such an hour the lover is summoned to bid farewell to a refuge as dear as this at Bracknell was to Shelley, and to loved ones as gentle and delicate in sympathy as he had found in Harriet Boinville and Cornelia Turner." Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 411.

2 To Coleridge.

3

"The poem beginning, 'O, 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.' Mrs. Shelley's note. "I have often questioned whether the poem has reference (as Mrs. Shelley declares it has) to Coleridge, or whether it was not rather addressed in a despondent mood by Shelley to his own spirit." Dowden's Life of Shelley, I, 472.

66

25-30. Note the references in this stanza to Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner, -"glory of the moon,' Night's ghosts and dreams,' ""foul fiend." These seem to me opposed to Professor Dowden's conjecture. To Wordsworth.

Shelley's early regard for Wordsworth slowly lessened. The elder poet, at first eloquently liberal in his political utterance, became conservative with years, and seemed to Shelley to be betraying his noblest human impulses. In 1819 Shelley wrote his satire on Wordsworth, Peter Bell the Third. Cf. Browning's The Lost Leader.

4 A Summer Evening Churchyard.

See Introduction, page xxxv. "The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of Lechlade, occurred during his voyage up the Thames, in the autumn of 1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to its source.' "" Mrs. Shelley's note.