PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY was born at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, August 4, 1792. He was the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart., of Castle Goring. At the age of ten he was sent to school at Brentford, and at thirteen to Eton. There he first exhibited his innate ideas of personal freedom and determined will by refusing to fag. He remained there three years, then spent two years at home, and at the age of eighteen was sent to Oxford. "Epipsychi Byron ; "The Witch of Atlas; Shelley was passionately fond of boating, and in April, 1822, he removed to Lerici, on the Gulf of Spezia. In July he went to Leghorn to welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy. On the 8th he sailed from Leghorn on the return voyage, with a friend named Williams. The boat was capsized in a squall, and both were drowned. When the bodies were washed ashore, Byron, Hunt, and Trelawney, burned them. It has been commonly supposed that this was done in accordance with a wish of Shelley's, to express his atheistic sentiments. The real reason for it was simply that the quarantine laws of Italy required that all bodies so cast up by the sea should be burned. Shelley's ashes were deposited in the Protestant cemetery at Rome, near the grave of Keats. He left a son by his second wife. He had already become a bold free-thinker, and in his second year at the university published a pamphlet entitled "A Defence of Atheism," for which he was expelled. His father refused to receive him at home, and soon after was completely estranged from him (though continuing his liberal yearly allowance) by his rash marriage, in August, 1811, with Harriet Westbrook, daughter of a retired inn-keeper. This unfortunate union ended in a separation at the end of two years, after two children had Shelley was tall and slender, but muscular, been born to them. Mrs. Shelley returned to with features as delicate as a woman's. He her father's house, taking the children with had sharp gray eyes, and brown hair which alher, and three years later she drowned herself. ready showed a sprinkling of gray. His reliShelley then tried to get possession of the chil-gious belief and the moral tendency of his podren; but Mr. Westbrook resisted him on the ground that he was an atheist, and the law sustained Westbrook, the proof of Shelley's atheism being found in "Queen Mab," which had been printed for private circulation a year or two before. . Shelley's reason for separating from his wife was simply that he had found a woman whom he preferred to her. This was Mary Godwin, daughter of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. He travelled with her on the Continent in 1814, and in 1816, after the death of his wife, married her, out of deference to her scruples, as he himself held the marriage contract to be neither necessary nor of binding force. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley had considerable scholarship and literary skill. She wrote several novels, a book of travels, and other works, the best known of which is "Frankenstein." In 1815 Shelley, then living at Bishopsgate, near Windsor, wrote "Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude." In 1816 he travelled in Switzerland, where he made the acquaintance of Lord Byron. In 1817 he wrote "The Revolt of Islam," while residing at Marlow. In March, 1818, he left England, and never returned. He went to Italy, where he saw much of Byron, and resided successively in Rome, Venice, and Pisa. There he wrote "Prometheus Unbound," a drama; "The Cenci," a tragedy; "Julian and Maddalo," a record of a conversation between himself and etry have been much discussed. His skepticism and his ideas on the subject of marriage have brought him into disrepute with all classes of professed Christians, and his personal character has thereby suffered unjustly. For in truth he was philanthropic, faithful to his friends, gentle in his manners, upright, and lovable to a remarkable degree. It must be considered that he was but thirty years old when he died; and that age, however mature it may be for a poet, is but a later boyhood for a philosopher, a moralist, a man dealing with the thousand problems of human existence in the broadest spirit and with earnest purpose. A poet may reach the full measure of his powers at thirty, and rank high in his art; but the man who has reached his moral and intellectual stature at that age is generally a dwarf. The spirit of liberty was so strong in Shelley that he broke forth with boyish impetuosity and boyish jeal ousy against all restraint. His moral sense was as crude as his poetic sense was perfect. What faith his soul might have rested in when it had come to its full strength, is known only to the God who gave it. Shelley's poetry was the most essentially poetic which the language had at that time acquired. It was not popular while he lived, but it has been deeply studied since his death. The best poets of our day are under obligations to it, and the writer of this has heard it quoted in prayer by a clergyman of the strictest orthodoxy. She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. XI. One from a lucid urn of starry dew Wash'd his light limbs, as if embalming them; Another clipt her profuse locks, and threw The wreath upon him, like an anadem, Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem.; Another in her wilful grief would break Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem A greater loss with one which was more weak; And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. XII. Another Splendour on his mouth alit, That mouth, whence it was wont to draw the breath Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, XVI. Grief inade the young Spring wild, and she threw down Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were, To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, XVII. Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, And scared the angel soul that was its earthly It flash'd through his pale limbs, and pass'd to its eclipse. XIII. And others came,-Desires and Adorations, Of hopes and fears, and twilight Phantasies; Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, seem Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. XIV. All he had loved, and moulded into thought, From shape, and hue, and odour, and sweet sound, Lamented Adonais. Morning sought Dimm'd the aërial eyes that kindle day; XV. Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains, And feeds her grief with his remember'd lay, And will no more reply to winds or fountains, Or amorous birds perch'd on the young green spray, Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day; Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear Than those for whose disdain she pined away Into a shadow of all sounds:-a drear Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. guest! And grief itself be mortal! Woe is me! Whence are we, and why are we ? of what scene The actors or spectators? Great and mean Meet mass'd in death, who lends what life must borrow. As long as skies are blue, and fields are green, Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow. XXII. He will awake no more, oh, never more! "Wake thou," cried Misery, "childless Mo⚫ ther, rise Out of thy sleep, and. slake, in thy heart's core, A wound more fierce than his with tears and sighs." And all the Dreams that watch'd Urania's eyes, And all the Echoes whom their sister's song Had held in holy silence, cried: "Arise!" Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. XXIII. She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs Out of the East, and follows wild and drear The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear So struck, so roused, so wrapt Urania; So sadden'd round her like an atmosphere Of stormy mist; so swept her on her way, Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. XXIV. Out of her secret Paradise she sped, And human hearts, which to her aery tread Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell: than they, Rent the soft Form they never could repel, Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, And in my heartless breast and burning brain That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive, With food of saddest memory kept alive, Now thou art dead, as if it were a part Of thee, my Adonais! I would give All that I am to be as thou now art! But I am chain'd to Time, and cannot thence depart! XXVII. "O gentle child, beautiful as thou wert, Why didst tnou leave the trodden paths of men Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart Dare the unpastured dragon in his den? Defenceless as thou wert, oh! where was then Wisdom the mirror'd shield, or scorn the spear? Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when Thy spirit should have fill'd its crescent sphere, The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like deer. XXVIII. "The herded wolves, bold only to pursue; When, like Apollo, from his golden bow, blow, They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them as they go. XXIX. "The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn, He sets, and each ephemeral insect then A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight when It sinks, the swarms that dimm'd or shared its light Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful |