THE TALK BY THE SEA-SIDE.

(IMITATED FROM HEINE.)

WE sat by the fisherman's cottage,
Where once I sat with thee;
We watched the evening shadows
Climb upwards from the sea.

The lamps in the distant light-house
Were kindled one by one,
And a sail on the far horizon
Gleamed in the setting sun.

We spoke of wreck and tempest-
Of the life that seamen bear,
How 'twixt sea and sky it floateth,
'Twixt joy and stormy care.

We spoke of distant countries,
Far off, by many a sea;
And of strange men and manners
Within their coasts that be.

Amid tall trees of Ganges

The fragrant breezes die; Strange creatures fair and silent Beneath the lotus lie.

The savage Lapland people,

Uncouth and narrow-browed, Baking their fish in pine-fires, About the embers crowd.

The girls beside us listened

Until we spoke no more,

Till the ship that we watched had vanished

In darkness clouded o'er.

C. P. M.

SHELLEY.

WHEN We consider how far a bigoted attachment to particular opinions, either in religion or politics, will carry men; when we observe how it blinds them to all perception of good or virtuous qualities in those opposed to them, we can be at no loss to understand the reason why Shelley's poetry found so little favour in the eyes of his own generation. It requires but a slight knowledge of man's history to be aware that if any one places himself in direct opposition to the received opinions of those among whom he lives, he will meet with violent opposition.

It was Shelley's misfortune to hold opinions, both on religious and political questions, that ran counter to the favourite ideas of his time. In addition to this, he ventured to give utterance to those opinions. What wonder, then, that his reception was what it was? But children seldom see with the eyes of their fathers. Now that some years have gone by; now that the mists generated by passion and prejudice have gradually dispersed, and there remain only the naked facts, we can judge more impartially than they possibly could, whose very nearness to the subject prevented their seeing aright. Contemporary opinions on important events are seldom, if ever, true. While, therefore, without their bitter violence, we may deprecate Shelley's unhappy views on religion, from the decision of the last generation with respect to his poetry we most emphatically dissent. We should like to see the poetry of Shelley in the hands of every educated person. The greatest poet of that great age of poetry should not be known only to the few, while the absurdities of the "spasmodic school" are being eagerly devoured by thousands. It is very commonly observed that Shelley's poetry is for the few, not for the many; that he indulges too much in refinements of thought-that he idealizes too much-ever to be popular as a poet. This is a mistake. No true poetry is for a class, for a time, but for all men, for all times. True poetry needs only to find an entrance into the human heart, and it makes its home there. Shelley has indeed written poems which are purely imaginative, whose beauty does not lie on the surface to be gathered in at once by the careless eye,-poems with a hidden meaning, valuable as much for what they suggest as for what they express,—such can never be popular with the many. But he has written, too, on subjects that interest all,-on the thoughts and passions, the hopes and fears, the joys and sorrows, that all have felt, for they fall to the lot of

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all. In her preface to the collected edition of her husband's works, Mrs. Shelley observes:-"His influence over mankind, though slow in growth, is fast increasing." This is but partially true. We admit that with a certain class, who have the will and power to think for themselves, the writings of Shelley are becoming daily better known and appreciated. Yet the old prejudice against him is powerful still: from the vast majority his works are still excluded. They who assume the office of teachers keep nervously away from him, just as the grown boy often dislikes to approach the place that his childish fancy had peopled with mysterious dangers.

In the remarks we have to offer on Shelley's poetry, and the extracts we shall make, we shall endeavour to point out what are his most characteristic features, and to show the peculiar and most striking beauties of his style.

In the first place we would draw attention to his singular command over words, and that subtle power of transfusing into verse the very spirit of music, till even the words seem instinct with life. In these respects Coleridge alone, of his own time, approached him. Since then no poet has been possessed in any high degree of this peculiar excellence, with the exception of our own countryman, Clarence Mangan, and Edgar Poe, the American. What could be more musical than the following verses, which we take from one of the best known of Shelley's poems, "The Sensitive Plant ?"

"Then the pied windflowers and the tulip tall,

And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness.
"And the naiad-like lily of the vale,

Whom youth makes so fair, and passion so pale;
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green.

"And the hyacinth, purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music, so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense.

"And the rose like a nymph to the bath addrest,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare."

Again, farther on in the same poem, when the Lady of the Garden dies, it would be impossible for words to convey a more oppressively

real picture than is contained in the following verses. How each word chimes in with the sad thought!

"Three days the flowers of the garden fair,

Like stars, when the moon is awakened, were,

Or the waves of the Baiæ, ere luminous
She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius.

"And on the fourth the Sensitive Plant

Felt the sound of the funeral chant,

And the steps of the bearers, heavy and slow;
And the sobs of the mourners, deep and low.
"The weary sound and the heavy breath,
And the silent motions of passing death;
And the smell, cold, oppressive, and dank,
Sent through the pores of the coffin-plank.

To that most perfect poem, "The Skylark," what a wealth of words is there, what haunting music! It may be a mere fancy, but we have sometimes thought that the versification of this poem, in the irregular rise and fall of the lines, resembles somewhat the skylark's song heard on a still summer day, when a few irregular notes only at first strike the ear; and then, as you pause to listen, comes clear and strong the full gush of melody

"Higher still and higher,

From the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest:

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

"All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,

As when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud

The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

"What thou art we know not.

What is most like thee?

From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see,

As from thy presence showers a rain of melody."

Then follows that exquisite simile, where he compares the invisible singer to

"A poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought

To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

There are many other passages not so well known as these, but equally beautiful, which, if our space permitted, we should extract. "The Cloud," "Arethusa," " Adonais," all contain passages which are not anywhere surpassed for rhythmical melody. Before leaving this part of the subject, however, we would just quote one verse where in a single line the poet creates a very vivid, though unpleasant picture. The verse we allude to is a simile in a short poem describing two worthless political characters of that time:

:

"As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,

For the negro-ship, whose freight
Is the theme of their debate;

Wrinkling their red gills the while."

There is one characteristic of Shelley's poetry which must not be passed over,—we mean its perfect purity. When poetry ceases to be pure, it ceases to be poetry; for it wants the chief essential of poetry, truth. By the expression of voluptuous ideas in voluptuous verse the imagination may indeed be fascinated, and the senses charmed; but the poet who aims at nothing higher than this prostitutes to the meanest purposes the divine gift within him. We do not mean to assert that purity consists in avoiding all allusion to the natural passions and affections of men not so-but in avoiding all exaggeration of them,-in painting Nature as she is, not as a morbid fancy pictures her. It is this wanton exaggeration which too often disfigures the poetry of Byron; it is the absence of this which adds to that of Shelley a peculiar charm. He wrote but little of what we call "love poetry;" he seems ever to shrink from expressing in words his conceptions on that subject. And certainly, his poetry loses nothing by this. For, on the one or two occasions when he directly addresses a woman in sentiments of love, we find, instead of the usual vulgarities, a depth of tenderness, a purity of thought, a serious gentleness, and withal an under-current of concealed passion, which we have sought for in vain in the works of any other poet.

Take the following beautiful verse as an instance of his manner of treating this difficult subject:

"I can give not what men call love,

But wilt thou accept not

The worship the heart lifts above,

And the heavens reject not?