iv. 32 spoil; all editions. 33 gone, all editions. 38 torrent's, 1817, 1824, 18391,2, Forman. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817 Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18392, p. 205: "The very illness that oppressed, and the aspect of death which had approached so near Shelley, appears to have kindled to yet keener life the spirit of poetry in his heart. The restless thoughts kept awake by pain clothed themselves in verse. Much was composed during this year. The Revolt of Islam, written and printed, was a great effort - Rosalind and Helen was begun - and the fragments and poems I can trace to the same period, show how full of passion and reflection were his solitary hours. "His readings this year were chiefly Greek. Besides the Hymns of Homer and the Iliad, he read the Dramas of Eschylus and Sophocles, the Symposium of Plato, and Arrian's Historia Indica. In Latin, Apuleius alone is named. In English, the Bible was his constant study; he read a great portion of it aloud in the evening. Among these evening readings, I find also mentioned the Faery Queen; and other modern works, the production of his contemporaries, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore, and Byron. "His life was now spent more in thought than action — he had lost the eager spirit which believed it could achieve what it projected for the benefit of mankind. And yet in the converse of daily life Shelley was far from being a melancholy man. He was eloquent when philosophy, or politics, or taste, were the subjects of conversation. He was playful and indulged in the wild spirit that mocked itself and others—not in bitterness, but in sport. The Author of Nightmare Abbey [Peacock] seized on some points of his character and some habits of his life when he painted Scythrop. He was not addicted to 'port or madeira,' but in youth he had read of Illuminati and Eleutherarchs,' and believed that he possessed the power of operating an immediate change in the minds of men and the state of society. These wild dreams had faded; sorrow and adversity had struck home; but he struggled with despondency as he did with physical pain. There are few who remember him sailing paper boats, and watching the navigation of his tiny craft with eagerness -or repeating with wild energy The Ancient Mariner, and Southey's Old Woman of Berkeley - but those who do, will recollect that it was in such, and in the creations of his own fancy, when that was most daring and ideal, that he sheltered himself from the storms and disappointments, the pain and sorrow, that beset his life." 185 Marianne's Dream. Hunt to Shelley, November 12, 1818 "I have been writing a Pocket-Book. It is entitled . . . and contains original poetry, among which I have taken the liberty (Hunt is too ceremonious sometimes') of publishing Marianne's Dream, to the great delight of said Marianne [Mrs. Hunt, who had related the dream to Shelley], not to mention its various MS. readers." Hunt, Correspondence, i. 125. TEXT: iii. 6 gold 18391,2. v. 4 nor 18391,2. xii. 1 that || each James Thomson conj. The conjecture and the similar one below are purely fanciful. xv. 1 waves 1824, 18391,2. xvi. 4 mountain 1824, 18391,2. This reading and the same in xxii. 2 give a more consonant sense and may be correct. xvii. 3 flood | flames James Thomson conj. xix. 5 that who 18391.2. xxii. 2 mountain 1824, 18391,2. 3 flood floor 18391,2. 191 To Constantia Singing. "He was especially fond of the novels of Brown Charles Brockden Brown, the American. . . . The heroine of this novel [Ormond], Constantia Dudley, held one of the highest places, if not the highest place, in Shelley's idealities of female character. . . . Nothing stood so clearly before his thoughts as a perfect combination of the purely ideal and possibly real as Constantia Dudley." Peacock, Works, iii. 409, 410. The verses were addressed to Miss Clairmont, and are said to have been published in a newspaper at the time. The first draft of the poem exists, unpublished. 193 To the Lord Chancellor. "His heart, attuned to every kindly affection, was full of burning love for his offspring. No words can express the anguish he felt when his elder children were torn from him. In his first resentment against the Chancellor, on the passing of the decree, he had written a curse, in which there breathes, besides haughty indignation, all the tenderness of a father's love, which could imagine and fondly dwell upon its loss and the consequences." Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18391, iii. 207, 208. The decree was pronounced in August. For the circumstances, see Memoir. TEXT: iv. 3 Be || And Rossetti. xiii. 2 snares and nets Rossetti. The Harvard MS. book contains this poem in Shelley's hand, much corrected, as if composed upon the page itself. There are four transcripts by Mrs. Shelley. Forman describes two, Hunt's and Charles Cowden Clarke's, without distinguishing exactly between them. The other two, referred to as Frederickson1, and Frederickson2, are in the possession of Mr. C. W. Frederickson. The first of these is corrected in Shelley's hand and deserves attention; the second is later and carelessly made. 197 To William Shelley. Born at Bishopsgate, January 24, 1816, baptized at St.-Giles-in-the-Fields March 9, 1818, died at Rome, June 7, 1819. "At one time, while the question was still pending, the Chancellor had said some words that seemed to intimate that Shelley should not be permitted the care of any of his children, and for a moment he feared that our infant son would be torn from us. He did not hesitate to resolve, if such were menaced, to abandon country, fortune, everything, and to escape with his child; and I find some unfinished stanzas addressed to this son, whom afterwards we lost at Rome, written under the idea that we might suddenly be forced to cross the sea, so to preserve him. This poem, as well as the one previously quoted, were not written to exhibit the pangs of distress to the public; they were the spontaneous outbursts of a man who brooded over his wrongs and woes, and was impelled to shed the grace of his genius over the uncontrollable emotions of his heart. [Here follows the poem.] "When afterwards this child died at Rome, he wrote, apropos of the English burying-ground in that city, This spot is the repository of a sacred loss, of which the yearnings of a parent's heart are now prophetic ; he is rendered immortal by love, as his memory is by death. My beloved child lies buried here. I envy death the body far less than the oppressors the minds of those whom they have torn from me. The one can only kill the body, the other crushes the affections.'" Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18391, iii. 209, 210. The lines were composed before September 2, when Clara was born. TEXT: i. 5 thou omit Rossetti. ii. 8 fearless are Rossetti. v. 1 and omit Rossetti. 199 On Fanny Godwin. Daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft and Gilbert Imlay, and adopted by Godwin. She committed suicide, by taking laudanum, at an inn at Swansea, October 9, 1816. Shelley had recently seen her in London. 200 Lines. The date is from the edition of 1824. 202 Death. TEXT: i. 4 the omit 18391,2. 5 called 1824. 201 Sonnet: Ozymandias. Signed Glirastes. See note on Sonnet: To the Nile. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818 Mrs. Shelley's Note, 18392, pp. 229, 230: . . . "I Capuccini was a villa built on the site of a Capuchin convent, de molished when the French suppressed religious houses; it was situated on the very overhanging brow of a low hill at the foot of a range of higher ones. The house was cheerful and pleasant; a vine-trellised walk, a pergola, as it is called in Italian, led from the hall door to a summer-house at the end of the garden, which Shelley made his study, and in which he began the Prometheus; and here also, as he mentions in a letter, he wrote Julian and Maddalo; a slight ravine, with a road in its depth, divided the garden from the hill, on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este, whose dark massive wall gave forth an echo, and from whose ruined crevices, owls and bats flitted forth at night, as the crescent moon sunk behind the black and heavy battlements. We looked from the garden over the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines, while to the east, the horizon was lost in misty distance. After the picturesque but limited view of mountain, ravine, and chestnut wood at the Baths of Lucca, there was something infinitely gratifying to the eye in the wide range of prospect commanded by our new abode. "Our first misfortune, of the kind from which we soon suffered even more severely, happened here. Our little girl, an infant in whose small features I fancied that I traced great resemblance to her father, showed symptoms of suffering from the heat of the climate. Teething increased her illness and danger. We were at Este, and when we became alarmed, hastened to Venice for the best advice. When we arrived at Fusina, we found that we had forgotten our passport, and the soldiers on duty attempted to prevent our crossing the laguna; but they could not resist Shelley's impetuosity at such a moment. We had scarcely arrived at Venice, before life fled from the little sufferer, and we returned to Este to weep her loss. "After a few weeks spent in this retreat, which were interspersed by visits to Venice, we proceeded southward. We often hear of persons disappointed by a first visit to Italy. This was not Shelley's case the aspect of its nature, its sunny sky, its majestic storms; of the luxuriant vegetation of the country, and the noble marble-built cities, enchanted |