"Of kingly mantles; some across the tire "A baby's or an idiot's brow, and made "Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes "Who made this earth their charnel. Others more Humble, like falcons, sat upon the fist Of common men, and round their heads did soar; "Or like small gnats and flies, as thick as mist "Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stain'd "From every firmest limb and fairest face "Of life. The marble brow of youth was cleft "Of her last cub, glared ere it died; each one "In autumn evening from a poplar tree, "As the sun shapes the clouds; thus on the way "Was old, the joy which waked like heaven's glance "Which they extinguished; and, like tears, they were" Then, what is life? I cried."- In drops of sorrow. I became aware FRAGMENTS.* ΤΟ HERE, my dear friend, is a new book for you; To other friends, one female and one male, Free love has this, different from gold and clay, Like ocean, which the general north wind breaks If I were one whom the loud world held wise, It is a sweet thing friendship, a dear balm, * These fragments do not properly belong to the poems of 1822. They are gleanings from Shelley's manuscript books and papers; preserved not only because they are beautiful in themselves, but as affording indications of his feelings and virtues. A flower which fresh as Lapland roses are, A solitude, a refuge, a delight. If I had but a friend! why I have three, A lute, which those whom love has taught to play XXIII. He wanders, like a day-appearing dream, Through the dim wildernesses of the mind; Through desert woods and tracts, which seem Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined. XXIV. The rude wind is singing The dirge of the music dead, The cold worms are clinging Where kisses were lately fed. XXV. What art thou, Presumptuous, who profanest In sacred dedication ever grew,— NOTE ON THE POEMS OF 1822. BY THE EDITOR. THIS morn thy gallant bark Sailed on a sunny sea, By spirits of the deep Thou sleep'st upon the shore The spirits of the deep, From far across the sea WITH this last year of the life of Shelley these Notes end. They are not what I intended them to be. I began with energy and a burning desire to impart to the world, in worthy language, the sense I have of the virtues and genius of the Beloved and the Lost; my strength has failed under the task. Recurrence to the past-full of its own deep and unforgotten joys and sorrows, contrasted with succeeding years of painful and solitary struggle, has shaken my health. Days of great suffering have followed my attempts to write, and these again produced a weakness and languor that spread their sinister influence over these notes. I dislike speaking of myself, but cannot help apologising to the dead, and to the public, for not having executed in the manner I desired the history I engaged to give of Shelley's writings *. I at one time feared that the correction of the press might be less exact through my illness; but, I believe that it is nearly free from error. No omissions have been made in this edition; (in the last of 1839 they were confined to certain passages of "Queen Mab";) some asterisks occur in a few pages, as they did in the volume of Posthumous Poems, either because they refer to private concerns, or because the original manuscript was left imperfect. Did any one see the papers from which I drew that volume, the wonder would be how any eyes or patience were capable of extracting it from so confused a mass, The winter of 1822 was passed in Pisa, if we might call that season winter in which autumn merged into spring, after the interval of but few days of bleaker weather. Spring sprang up early, and with extreme beauty. Shelley had conceived the idea of writing a tragedy on the subject of Charles I. It was one that he believed adapted for a drama; full of intense interest, contrasted character, and busy passion. He had recommended it long before, when he encouraged me to attempt a play. Whether the subject proved more difficult than he anticipated, or whether in fact he could not bend his mind away from the broodings and wanderings of thought, divested from human interest, which he best loved, I cannot tell; but he proceeded slowly, and threw it aside for one of the most mystical of his poems, "The Triumph of Life," on which he was employed at the last. His passion for boating was fostered at this time by having among our friends several sailors; his favourite companion, Edward Ellerker Williams, of the 8th Light Dragoons, had begun his life interlined and broken into fragments, so that the sense could only be deciphered and joined by guesses, which might seem rather intuitive than founded on reasoning. Yet I believe no mistake was made. |