FROM DON JUAN THE SHIPWRECK. FROM CANTO II* 38 But now there came a flash of hope once more; Day broke, and the wind lulled: the masts were gone, All this, the most were patient, and some bold, Until the chains and leathers were worn through Of all our pumps :-a wreck complete she rolled, At mercy of the waves, whose mercies are The leak increased; shoals round her, but no Like human beings' during civil war. And not the fixed-he knew the way to To sounds which echo further west wheedle; So vile he 'scaped the doom which oft avenges; And being fluent (save indeed when fee'd ill), He lied with such a fervour of intentionThere was no doubt he earned his laureate pension. 85 Thus, usually, when he was asked to sing, He gave the different nations something national; 'Twas all the same to him-"God save the King," Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest.''10 12 The mountains look on Marathon- I dreamed that Greece might still be free; A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And men in nations;-all were his! Or, “Ca ira,''4 according to the fashion all: | And where are they? and where art thou, His Muse made increment of anything, From the high lyric down to the low rational; If Pindar sang horse-races, what should hinder Himself from being as pliable as Pindar. The heroic lay is tuneless now— The heroic bosom beats no more! Even as I sing, suffuse my face; Must we but weep o'er days more blest? What, silent still? and silent all? Ah! no;-the voices of the dead In vain-in vain: strike other chords; And shed the blood of Scio's vine! You have the Pyrrhic dance11 as yet; Of two such lessons. why forget The nobler and the manlier one? 18 77 24 You have the letters Cadmus 13 gave- He served but served Polycrates14- The tyrant of the Chersonese15 Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades! Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind! Such chains as his were sure to bind. Fill high the bowl with Samian wine! Such as the Doric mothers bore; The only hope of courage dwells: Our virgins dance beneath the shade- Place me on Sunium '818 marbled steep, There, swan-like, let me sing and die: 87 60 66 72 78 84 90 96 Thus sung, or would, or could, or should have sung, The modern Greek, in tolerable verse; If not like Orpheus quite, when Greece was young, Yet in these times he might have done much worse: 13 Cadmus was said to have introduced the Greek alphabet from Phoenicia. His strain displayed some feeling-right or wrong; And feeling, in a poet, is the source Of others' feeling; but they are such liars, And take all colours-like the hands of dyers. 19 88 But words are things, and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think; 'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses Instead of speech, may form a lasting link 101 T' our tale.-The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired: The Arab lore and poet's song were done, And every sound of revelry expired; The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired; Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee! 102 Ave Maria! blessed be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer. 103 Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove What though 't is but a pictured image?— strike That painting is no idol,—'t is too like. 104 14 Tyrant (ruler) of Samos, who gave refuge to Some kinder casuists are pleased to say, Anacreon. 13 A Thracian peninsula. 16 In western Greece. 17 i. e., ancient Greek 18 The southernmost promontory of Attica. In nameless print-that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, 19 Shakespeare: Sonnet 111. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ALASTOR, OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE* Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quærebam quid amarem, amans amare.t-Confes. St. August. PREFACE The poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications So long as it is a variety not to be exhausted. possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he emful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the bodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderphilosopher, or the lover, could depicture. The tions of sense, have their respective requisitions on intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functhe sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave. The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to speedy ruin. But that Power which strikes the luminaries of the world with sudden darkness and extinction, by awakening them to too exquisite a perception of its influ The word Alastor means "the spirit of solitude." which is treated here as a spirit of evil, or a spirit leading to disaster; it must not be mistaken for the name of the hero of the poem. In the introduction (lines 1-49) Shelley speaks in his own person; but the Poet whose history he then proceeds to relate bears very markedly his own traits, and the whole must be considered as largely a spiritual autobiography. It is difficult to resist calling attention to some of the features of this impressive poem; to its quiet mastery of theme and sustained poetic power; to its blank-verse harmonies subtler than rhymes; to the graphic descriptions, as in lines 239369, whence Bryant, Poe, and Tennyson have manifestly all drawn inspiration to occasional lines of an impelling swiftness (612, 613), or occasional phrases of startling strength (676, 681); to the fervent exaltation of self-sacrifice in the prayer that one life might answer for all, and the pangs of death be henceforth banished from the world (609-624); or to the unapproachable beauty of the description of slow-coming death itself -a euthanasia in which life passes away like a strain of music or like an "exhalation." There can be no higher definition of poetry than is implicit in these things. "Not yet did I love, yet I yearned to love: I sought what I might love, yearning to love." In this vain pursuit of ideal loveliness, said Mrs. Shelley, is the deeper meaning of Alastor to be found. |