Shelley's handling of his instrument will become clearer if we follow very briefly the consecutive metrical changes in the drama. As a rule, the blank verse marks passages of transition or of repressed feeling, while at every climax of passion the poetry rushes into lyrical form. The first introduction of the lyric follows the opening soliloquy of Prometheus. He calls on mountains, springs, the air, the whirlwinds, to repeat to him the forgotten curse. They respond, and deny, in long lyrical lines; and, though the horror deepens through the images of carnage presented by their words, relief is yet afforded, after the stern repression of Prometheus, by the free beauty of the movement of the verse. The lyric next appears where Ione and Panthea, whose voices are now heard for the first time, hail the approach of the Phantasm of Jupiter. This is the first passage in the drama of pure and painless beauty. The curse is lyrical, but even, slow, serene in movement. The coming of Mercury is sung by the sister-spirits in exquisite lines. After the long passage, in which the Titan, clad in the conscious pride of purity, repels the temptation of the fair Spirit of Compromise, the lyric appears again with the coming of the Furies. We approach now the climax of the horror of the drama. That horror is rendered endurable, and competent to purge us by pity and terror, largely through the marvellous beauty of the music through which it breathes. As the pain of the whole world presses upon the spirit of Prometheus, the music deepens in grandeur and solemnity; the grievous terror of the visions beheld by the Titan is subdued by the weird melody that ebbs and flows with the theme. Yet not in lyric but in blank verse is reached the climax of the revelation of sor row, and in blank verse does Prometheus utter his cry of supreme anguish. Shelley doubtless here suggests the quietness of the deepest horror of life. Not the height of lyrical passion but dull recognition of daily experience marks the supreme bitterness of the woful problem of human destiny. As the pain subsides and the weary but triumphant Titan sinks into repose, the tension of the song relaxes. The coming of the spirits of the human mind is heralded in lines which afford exquisite relief by the mere introduction of rhyme; and the lyrics of consolation chanted by these spirits have a serene and tender beauty of movement all their own. Of certain portions of the music of the second act we have already spoken. "Shelley has here," says Todhunter, "made English blank verse the native language of elemental genii." The lyrics are more frequent, and blend more with structure than in the first act. The whole journey of Asia and Panthea is like a great processional, accompanied by a chant which now rises, now falls upon the wind. The semichoruses that sing the advance of the sister-spirits have a subtle mystical meaning; they have also an imaginative beauty of movement like that of Keats's Ode to a Nightingale, but with less heavy richness, and a more flute-like tone. The longest passage of blank verse in the act is the discussion between Demogorgon and Asia, which is purely intellectual. As soon as emotion and action reappear, the verse breaks into the Song of the Spirit of the Hour. This anapæstic lyric, interrupted as it is by the end of the scene, and ended in Scene V., gives a wonderful impression of haste. The fifth scene, the apotheosis of Asia, touches the highwater mark of the English lyric. The scene corresponds in passion to the scene with the Furies, in Act I. As that was hate this is love, as that was darkness this is light, as that was supreme horror so this is supreme rapture. The great Lyric, Life of Life, is simple in form, as a ray of white sunlight is simple. Asia's response, less well known, is a sequence of subtly inwoven harmonies. The third act, as we have already said, is attuned to the music of peace. But Shelley is less fitted to render this music than to sing of desire, or even of endurance. The second act is artistically as well as spiritually the finest in the drama. Yet the third act has certain passages of tranquil music, music no longer, as in the first act, breathing the tense calm of pain and scorn, but inspired with the free serenity of joy. Such is the lovely little scene between Apollo and Ocean, which is Hellenic in its pure repose. The fourth act defies comment. The triumphant pæan of enfranchised Nature, it is so bewildering in complex structure, so intricate in beauty, so remote from all human interest, that complete sympathy with it is, perhaps, impossible. Yet the act as a whole marks the most sustained effort of English lyrical genius. The music with which it opens is light, almost too light, perhaps, as the Hours, past and future, and the spirits of the human mind, join in joyful choruses of thankful glee. But soon the music deepens and widens, and proceeds with an involution of solemn harmony, in the grand antiphon of rejoicing between the Spirit of the Earth and of the Moon. The music of the earth is grave and exultant, that of the moon exquisite in lightness and tenderness. The act, and the drama, conclude with an organ-roll of harmony, like that of the Ode to the West Wind. Demogorgon, the mystic Living Spirit, the Power no longer of Destruction but of Love, solemnly invokes all forces of natural and spiritual life to listen to his song; and when, in answering music, they attest their presence, and we feel the harmony of the redeemed creation speaking through their words, he utters, in cadence grave and serene, his final message. It is the message of courage and of hope; and the quiet dignity and seriousness of the lines fitly conclude that music which may at times have seemed wild, lawless, and fantastic, yet which has always in its most passionate abandon yielded allegiance to the law of perfect beauty. Thus we see that the poetic power of Shelley, as manifested in the Prometheus Unbound, is distinct and very high. The hold on concrete human life of a Shakespeare or a Browning he does not possess; nor was there granted to him the serene insight of Wordsworth nor the philosophic method of Tennyson. But his exquisitely equipped temperament, sensitive in every fibre, enabled him to express those finest aspects of nature where visible trembles into invisible, and those finest aspects of emotion where rapture and sorrow blend. He has the power to sing melodies which seem the echoes of unearthly music, while his imaginative passion and spiritual insight reveal to him the solemn vision of human destiny, and the redemption that shall be. The Ode to the West Wind, written in the same year as the Prometheus Unbound, doubtless expresses Shelley's own longing for his drama; and as we realize the power with which his message has been uttered, we must feel that the longing has been fulfilled : : "Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is. What though my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies "Shall take from both a deep Autumnal tone, Sweet, though in sadness; be thou, Spirit fierce, My Spirit; be thou me, impetuous one. "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth, And by the incantation of this verse "Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth, Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind: Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy. O wind, |