philosophy of Love in the poems written to Mrs. Williams. It is true that the verses, 3, 4, 5, I have already alluded to, in The Zucca (1822) of the Poems, were written after Epipsychidion, and describe, more clearly than elsewhere, his imagined love. But they are verses that look back to what has been rather than on what is. At their beginning, the past tense, I loved, is used, and even when the present tense is used, the things said have the note of the past. The main motive of the poem is again taken up with dif ferent colouring and imagery in the fable, Una Favola, which has been published by Mr. Garnet in his Relics of Shelley. That Fable is dated 1820, but I should conjecture from its peculiar note, and from its being written in Italian, that it was composed after his meeting with Emilia Viviani. At any rate many of its images and expressions are repeated in Epipsychidion. The cave where death and life are, and their flight, the obscure forest into which Emilia comes, are both in the Fable, and many other things. So, also, he who cares for Epipsychidion would do well to read the first canzone of Dante's Convito, the last stanza of which is translated by Shelley as an introduction to this poem. NOTE xxv. p. 248. "The author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baix, with the enthusiasm exerted by the proclamation of a constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event. "The viper's palsying venom.' The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan."—Shelley's Note, NOTE xxvi. p. 255. I have printed this, as also "Life may change, but it may fly not," at p. 265, without the divisions made by the alternating semichorus. NOTE xxvii. p. 262. This is the close of Prometheus Unbound. It has been included in this book, not for the sake of its poetical quality, which is inferior to other passages in the Drama which might have been inserted, but for its importance as a declaration, not only of what Shelley thought Man would become, but also of how he thought Man should act now in order to arrive at the Golden Age. The two last verses embody the main motives of the Revolt of Islam. NOTE xxviii. p. 266. The Sensitive Plant is inserted in this place as an introduction to the love poems which belong to Mrs. Williams, because Shelley said that Mrs. Williams was the exact antitype of the lady depicted in it. The Sensitive Plant is, of course, Shelley himself, "companionless," as he makes himself in Adonais, "desiring what it has not, the beautiful." NOTE xxix. p. 282. "Wild wind, when sullen cloud We may compare in order to explain the term "As the last cloud of an expiring storm Whose thunder is its knell." (Adonais.) "Bare woods, whose branches stain" must be strain, as many have conjectured. All the things spoken of are sounding. The wind moans, the cloud knells, the caves and sea wail, and there are few sounds so in tune with the tempest of this poem as the groaning of branches straining in a storm. NOTE xxx. p. 289. I have left out the lines which, however interesting personally, are out of harmony with the rest of the poem. NOTE xxxi. p. 290. The four lines omitted by Shelley in the Recollection deserve insertion here. "Were not the crocuses that grew Under the ilex tree As beautiful in scent and hue As ever fed the bee?" NOTE xxxii. p. 296. The Greek motto is translated elsewhere by Shelley. "Thou wert the morning star among the living, Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving NOTE xxxiii. p. 307, 308. The Pilgrim of Eternity is Byron. Ierne is Ireland, and her lyrist, Moore. No analysis of Shelley's nature can excel or equal the selfdescription of the three verses of p. 308. Leigh Hunt is the last of the mountain shepherds alluded to, p. 309. The lines "And his own thoughts, along that rugged way Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey." are Shelley's reminiscence of two lines in a poem of Wordsworth's. "And his own mind did like a tempest strong Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along." It is interesting to compare them. They speak volumes of both poets. NOTE xxxiv. p. 313. "And flowery weeds and fragrant copses dress Nothing but the bones are there now; and what have we gained? NOTE XXXV. p. 317. "This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset, with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightning peculiar to the Cis-alpine regions. "The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers and of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the winds that announce it."-Shelley's Note. It is characteristic of Shelley's pleasure in repeating an image or a thought that pleased him, that he makes use of this "phenomenon " at least three times in different poems. INDEX OF FIRST LINES. A glorious people vibrated again Alas! Italian winds are mild Amid the desolation of a city And like a dying lady, lean and pale An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king. A widow bird sate mourning for her love. A woodman whose rough heart was out of tune Before these cruel Twins, whom at one birth Beneath is a wide plain of billowy mist Brother mine, calm wanderer PAGE 56 133 145 147 54 177 285 129 266 47 176 82 142 201 116 288 164 141 194 7 158 39 175 |