passed away, no sign remained of where it had been-who but will regard as a prophecy the last stanza of the Adonais?

The breath whose might I have invoked in song

Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,

Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;

The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven !

I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,

The soul of Adonais, like a star, Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.'

PUTNEY, May 1, 1839.

1 Captain Roberts watched the vessel saved. The observation made as to the with his glass from the top of the light-spot where the boat disappeared caused it house of Leghorn, on its homeward track. to be found, through the exertions of They were off Via Reggio, at some distance Trelawny for that effect. It had gone from shore, when a storm was driven over down in ten fathom water; it had not the sea. It enveloped them and several capsized, and, except such things as had larger vessels in darkness. When the floated from her, everything was found on cloud passed onwards, Roberts looked a-board exactly as it had been placed when gain, and saw every other vessel sailing on the ocean except their little schooner, which had vanished. From that time he could scarcely doubt the fatal truth; yet we fancied that they might have been driven towards Elba or Corsica, and so be

they sailed. The boat itself was uninjured. Roberts possessed himself of her, and decked her; but she proved not seaworthy, and her shattered planks now lie rotting on the shore of one of the Ionian islands, on which she was wrecked.

TRANSLATIONS

[Of the Translations that follow a few were published by Shelley himself, others by Mrs. Shelley in the Posthumous Poems, 1824, or the Poetical Works, 1839, and the remainder by Medwin (1834, 1847), Garnett (1862), Rossetti (1870), Forman (1876) and Locock (1903) from the MS. originals. Shelley's Translations fall between the years 1818 and 1822.]

HYMN TO MERCURY

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF HOMER

[Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. This alone of the Translations is included in the Harvard MS. book. Fragments of the drafts of this and the other Hymns of Homer exist among the Boscombe MSS.' (Forman).]

I

SING, Muse, the son of Maia and of Jove,

The Herald-child, king of Arcadia

And all its pastoral hills, whom in sweet love
Having been interwoven, modest May

Bore Heaven's dread Supreme. An antique grove
Shadowed the cavern where the lovers lay
In the deep night, unseen by Gods or Men,
And white-armed Juno slumbered sweetly then.

5

II

Now, when the joy of Jove had its fulfilling,
And Heaven's tenth moon chronicled her relief,
She gave to light a babe all babes excelling,
A schemer subtle beyond all belief;

A shepherd of thin dreams, a cow-stealing,
A night-watching, and door-waylaying thief,
Who 'mongst the Gods was soon about to thieve,
And other glorious actions to achieve.

III

The babe was born at the first peep of day;
He began playing on the lyre at noon,
And the same evening did he steal away
Apollo's herds;-the fourth day of the moon
On which him bore the venerable May,

From her immortal limbs he leaped full soon,

Nor long could in the sacred cradle keep,
But out to seek Apollo's herds would creep.

IV

Out of the lofty cavern wandering

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He found a tortoise, and cried out-A treasure!'

(For Mercury first made the tortoise sing)

The beast before the portal at his leisure

The flowery herbage was depasturing,

Moving his feet in a deliberate measure

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Over the turf. Jove's profitable son

Eying him laughed, and laughing thus begun :

'A useful godsend are you to me now,
King of the dance, companion of the feast,

Lovely in all your nature! Welcome, you

Excellent plaything! Where, sweet mountain-beast, Got you that speckled shell? Thus much I know,

You must come home with me and be my guest;

You will give joy to me, and I will do
All that is in my power to honour you.

VI

'Better to be at home than out of door,

So come with me; and though it has been said
That you alive defend from magic power,

I know you will sing sweetly when you're dead.'
Thus having spoken, the quaint infant bore,
Lifting it from the grass on which it fed

And grasping it in his delighted hold,
Ilis treasured prize into the cavern old.
13 cow-stealing] qy. cattle-stealing?

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VII

Then scooping with a chisel of gray steel,

He bored the life and soul out of the beast.-
Not swifter a swift thought of woe or weal

Darts through the tumult of a human breast
Which thronging cares annoy-not swifter wheel
The flashes of its torture and unrest
Out of the dizzy eyes-than Maia's son
All that he did devise hath featly done.

VIII

And through the tortoise's hard stony skin
At proper distances small holes he made,
And fastened the cut stems of reeds within,
And with a piece of leather overlaid

The open space and fixed the cubits in,
Fitting the bridge to both, and stretched o'er all
Symphonious cords of sheep-gut rhythmical.

IX

When he had wrought the lovely instrument,

He tried the chords, and made division meet,
Preluding with the plectrum, and there went
Up from beneath his hand a tumult sweet
Of mighty sounds, and from his lips he sent
A strain of unpremeditated wit

Joyous and wild and wanton-such you may
Hear among revellers on a holiday.

X

He sung how Jove and May of the bright sandal
Dallied in love not quite legitimate;

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And his own birth, still scoffing at the scandal,
And naming his own name, did celebrate;

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His mother's cave and servant maids he planned all

In plastic verse, her household stuff and state,

Perennial pot, trippet, and brazen pan,

But singing, he conceived another plan.

ΧΙ

Seized with a sudden fancy for fresh meat,

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He in his sacred crib deposited

The hollow lyre, and from the cavern sweet

Of thievish craft, such as a swindler might

Rushed with great leaps up to the mountain's head,
Revolving in his mind some subtle feat

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Devise in the lone season of dun night.

XII

Lo! the great Sun under the ocean's bed has

Driven steeds and chariot-the child meanwhile strode O'er the Pierian mountains clothed in shadows,

57 stony Boscombe MS., Harvard MS.; strong ed. 1824.

Where the immortal oxen of the God

Are pastured in the flowering unmown meadows,
And safely stalled in a remote abode.-
The archer Argicide, elate and proud,
Drove fifty from the herd, lowing aloud.

XIII

He drove them wandering o'er the sandy way,
But, being ever mindful of his craft,
Backward and forward drove he them astray,

So that the tracks which seemed before, were aft;
His sandals then he threw to the ocean spray,
And for each foot he wrought a kind of raft
Of tamarisk, and tamarisk-like sprigs,
And bound them in a lump with withy twigs.

XIV

And on his feet he tied these sandals light,
The trail of whose wide leaves might not betray
His track; and then, a self-sufficing wight,
Like a man hastening on some distant way,
He from Pieria's mountain bent his flight;
But an old man perceived the infant pass

Down green Onchestus heaped like beds with grass.

XV

The old man stood dressing his sunny vine:

Halloo old fellow with the crooked shoulder!
You grub those stumps? before they will bear wine
Methinks even you must grow a little older:
Attend, I pray, to this advice of mine,

As you would 'scape what might appal a bolder-
Seeing, see not-and hearing, hear not-and-
If you have understanding-understand.'

XVI

So saying, Hermes roused the oxen vast;
O'er shadowy mountain and resounding dell,
And flower-paven plains, great Hermes passed;

Till the black night divine, which favouring fell
Around his steps, grew gray, and morning fast
Wakened the world to work, and from her cell
Sea-strewn, the Pallantean Moon sublime
Into her watch-tower just began to climb.

XVII

Now to Alpheus he had driven all

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The broad-foreheaded oxen of the Sun;

They came unwearied to the lofty stall

And to the water-troughs which ever run

Through the fresh fields-and when with rushgrass tall,
Lotus and all sweet herbage, every one

Had pastured been, the great God made them move
Towards the stall in a collected drove.

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XVIII

A mighty pile of wood the God then heaped,
And having soon conceived the mystery

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Of fire, from two smooth laurel branches stripped

The bark, and rubbed them in his palms;-on high

Suddenly forth the burning vapour leaped
And the divine child saw delightedly.-

Mercury first found out for human weal
Tinder-box, matches, fire-irons, flint and steel.

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XIX

And fine dry logs and roots innumerous

He gathered in a delve upon the ground

And kindled them-and instantaneous

The strength of the fierce flame was breathed around:

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And whilst the might of glorious Vulcan thus

Wrapped the great pile with glare and roaring sound,
Hermes dragged forth two heifers, lowing loud,
Close to the fire-such might was in the God.

XX

And on the earth upon their backs he threw

The panting beasts, and rolled them o'er and o'er,
And bored their lives out. Without more ado
He cut up fat and flesh, and down before
The fire, on spits of wood he placed the two,

Toasting their flesh and ribs, and all the gore
Pursed in the bowels; and while this was done
He stretched their hides over a craggy stone.

XXI

We mortals let an ox grow old, and then
Cut it up after long consideration,-

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But joyous-minded Hermes from the glen

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Drew the fat spoils to the more open station

Of a flat smooth space, and portioned them; and when

He had by lot assigned to each a ration

Of the twelve Gods, his mind became aware

Of all the joys which in religion are.

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XXII

For the sweet savour of the roasted meat
Tempted him though immortal. Natheless

He checked his haughty will and did not eat,

Though what it cost him words can scarce express,

And every wish to put such morsels sweet
Down his most sacred throat, he did repress ;

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But soon within the lofty portalled stall

He placed the fat and flesh and bones and all.

XXIII

And every trace of the fresh butchery

And cooking, the God soon made disappear, As if it all had vanished through the sky;

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