Envying us, may even entice The polluting multitude; But their rage would be subdued By that clime divine and calm, And the winds whose wings rain balm In their whisperings musical With its own deep melodies, And the love which heals all strife 355 360 365 370 HYMN ΤΟ INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.1 1. THE awful shadow of some unseen Power As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,— one left, the whole being replaced by more orthodox points. Moreover Shelley was in England when the Examiner version appeared, while, from the preface to the Rosalind volume, it would seem that he did not even know the Hymn was to be in that volume, -so that he is not likely to have prepared that version. On the whole therefore, I think it safer to give the earlier version, which presents no important difference from the other, except in this matter of punctuation, and in the few particulars specified in the following notes. Mrs. Shelley tells us in her note on Poems of 1816 that the Hymn was conceived during his voyage round the Lake [of Geneva] with Lord Byron." 1 This poem was published in The Examiner for 19 January, 1817 (No. 473), having been, as the Editor remarks, "originally announced under the signature of the Elfin Knight." In the meantime the authorship had become known to the editor; and the poem was duly signed, on its appearance, with the name PERCY B. SHELLEY. I suspect that Shelley read a proof of this poem before it appeared in The Examiner, or else that it was pretty correctly printed from a very careful copy. The punctuation is wholly different in system from that of the version in the Rosalind and Helen volume; and, referring to the remark made in a former note (p. 361) as to Peacock's practice of removing the pauses so constantly used by Shelley, it should be observed that this Hymn, as printed in The Examiner, has no less than twenty-one pauses in it, while the other version has not a single 66 2 In the version of 1819, among, instead of amongst,- -one point in which that version seems to me preferable to the other,--more Shelley-like in instinct for sound. It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like clouds in starlight widely spread,- Like aught that for its grace may be 2. Spirit of BEAUTY, that dost1 consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river, Why aught should fail and fade that once is shewn, Cast on the daylight of this earth Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope? 3. No voice from some sublimer world hath ever To sage or poet these responses given Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells-whose uttered charm might not avail to sever, From all we hear and all we see, Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone-like mist o'er mountains driven, 1 In The Examiner, dost; but doth in the Rosalind and Helen volume. 2 Mr. Garnett tells me an interest ing MS. variation in this line,-care and pain for fear and dream,—is shewn by Sir Percy Shelley's MS. Or music by the night wind sent, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, 4.1 Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, That wax and wane in lovers' eyes- Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came, Depart not-lest the grave should be, Like life and fear, a dark reality. 5. While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed, When musing deeply on the lot Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing 1 Mr. Garnett tells me this stanza is not in the original draft. 2 In both the Examiner version and that of 1819, this word is lover's in stead of lovers'. 3 In the Rosalind and Helen version, we read are for art. Sudden, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!1 6. I vowed that I would dedicate my powers To thee and thine-have I not kept the vow? With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now I call the phantoms of a thousand hours Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers Of studious zeal or love's delight Outwatched with me the envious nightThey know that never joy illumed my brow Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free This world from its dark slavery, That thou-O awful LOVELINESS, Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.3 1 Spelt extacy in both versions. We read loves instead of love's, both in the version printed in The Examiner, and in that published with Rosalind and Helen. 3 There can be but little doubt that these two stanzas (5 and 6) have reference to the same awakening of Shelley's spirit to its sublime mission, referred to in another passage of like autobiographic value, namely stanzas 3, 4, and 5 of the Dedication to Laon and Cythna (pp. 102 and 103). In a note on those stanzas the question whether the awakening was at Eton or at Brentford is referred to; and whichever be the correct version as to period and locality in that case is also correct as to this. The passage in Sir John Rennie's Autobiography alluded to there seems to me to correspond still more strikingly with these two stanzas of the Hymn than with the version of the same spiritual situation in the Dedication; and I have therefore reserved the following extract from the Autobiography as more fitting to be given here than there" During the time that I was there the most remarkable scholar |