Shelley wrote on this poem, 'For Jane and Williams only to see.' Medwin, who published it, The Athenæum, 1832, gives an account of the experiments out of which it grew, in his Shelley Papers: 'Shelley was a martyr to a most painful complaint, which constantly menaced to terminate fatally; and was subject to violent paroxysms which, to his irritable nerves, were each a separate death. I had seen magnetism practised in India and at Paris, and at his earnest request consented to try its efficacy. Mesmer himself could not have hoped for more complete success. The imposition of my hand on his forehead instantaneously put a stop to the spasm, and threw him into a magnetic sleep, which for want of a better word is called somnambulism. Mrs. Shelley and another lady [Mrs. Williams] were present. The experiment was repeated more than once. During his trances I put some questions to him. He always pitched his voice in the same tone as mine. I enquired about his complaint, and its the usual magnetic enquiries. His reply was, "What would cure me would kill [Shelley answered in Italian.] He improvised also verses in Italian, in which language he was never known to write poetry.' Medwin adds, in his Life of Shelley: After my departure from Pisa he was magnetized by a lady, which gave rise to the beautiful stanzas entitled The Magnetic Lady to her Patient, and during which operation he made the same reply to an enquiry as to his disease and its cure as he had done to me, "What would cure me would kill me." Mrs. Shelley also magnetized him, but soon discontinued the

cure

me

...

Williams, in his Journal, February 2, describes such an excursion: Fine warm day. Jane accompanies Mary and S. to the sea-shore through the Cascine. They return about three. The poem was published by Mrs. Shelley, in an earlier form, in Posthumous Poems, 1824, and, as here given, in her second collected edition, 1839.

BEST and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the winter wandering,
Found it seems the halcyon Morn,
To hoar February born.

ΤΟ

Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the Earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear

Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 20

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs;
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustomed visitor:-

I am gone into the fields

To take what this sweet hour yields.
Reflection, you may come to-morrow,
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.

30

!

Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away
To the wild woods and the plains,
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sand-hills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new:
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous

Billows murmur at our feet,

Where the earth and ocean meet,

And all things seem only one,

In the universal sun.

THE RECOLLECTION

The lightest wind was in its nest,

The tempest in its home.

The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep

The smile of Heaven lay;

It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.

III

We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced,

And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;

Now all the treetops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.

IV

How calm it was!- the silence there
By such a chain was bound
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;

The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed, from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain waste

To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,

A spirit interfused around,

A thrilling silent life,

To momentary peace it bound

Our mortal nature's strife;

And still I felt the centre of

The magic circle there

Was one fair form that filled with love The lifeless atmosphere.

More boundless than the depth of night,

And purer than the day,

-

In which the lovely forests grew,

As in the upper air,

More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.

There lay the glade and neighboring lawn
And through the dark green wood

The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.

Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,

An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.

Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast,

Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth expressed;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,

Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.

Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,

Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind,
Than calm in waters seen.

WITH A GUITAR: TO JANE

Shelley originally intended to give a harp to Mrs. Williams, and wrote to Horace Smith with regard to its purchase. The suggestion for the poem is found by Dr. Garnett in the fact that the front portion of the guitar is made of Swiss pine.' He continues: 'It is now clear how the poem took shape in Shelley's mind. The actual thought of the imprisonment of the Spirit of Music in the material of the instrument suggested Ariel's penance in the cloven pine; the identification of himself with Ariel and of Jane Williams with Miranda was the easiest of feats to his brilliant imagination; and hence an allegory of unequalled grace and charm, which could never have existed if the instrument had not been partly made of pine wood. The back, it should be added, is of mahogany, the finger board of ebony, and minor portions, chiefly ornamental, of some wood not identified. It was made by Ferdinando Bottari of Pisa in 1816. Having been religiously preserved since Shelley's death, it is in as perfect condition as when made. The

strings, it is said, are better than those that are produced now.

This guitar is also in a measure the subject of another of Shelley's most beautiful lyrics, "The keen stars were twinkling." In a letter dated June 18, 1822, speaking of his cruises "in the evening wind under the summer moon," he adds, "Jane brings her guitar." There is probably no other relic of a great poet so intimately associated with the arts of poetry and music, or ever will be, unless Milton's organ should turn up at a broker's or some excavating explorer should bring to light the lyre of Sappho.'

The guitar was given to the Bodleian Library by E. W. Silsbee, of Salem, Mass., who bought it of the grandson of Mrs. Williams on condition that it should be so disposed of. The composition of the poem is described by Tre.. lawny The strong light streamed through the opening of the trees. One of the pines, undermined by the water, had fallen into it. Under its lee, and nearly hidden, sat the Poet, gazing on the dark mirror beneath, so lost in his bardish reverie that he did not hear my approach. . . . The day I found Shelley in the pine-forest he was writing verses on a guitar. I picked up a fragment, but could only make out the first two lines. It was a frightful

scrawl; words smeared out with his finger, and one upon the other, over and over in tiers, and all run together "in most admired disorder;" it might have been taken for a sketch of a marsh overrun with bulrushes, and the blots for wild ducks; such a dashed-off daub as self-conceited artists mistake for a manifestation of genius.' The poem was published by Medwin, in two parts, The Athenæum, 1832, and Fraser's, 1833.

ARIEL to Miranda: - Take

This slave of Music, for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst, and only thou,
Make the delighted spirit glow,
Till joy denies itself again,
And, too intense, is turned to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand,
Poor Ariel sends this silent token
Of more than ever can be spoken;
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who
From life to life must still pursue
Your happiness, for thus alone
Can Ariel ever find his own.
From Prospero's enchanted cell,
As the mighty verses tell,

10

50

The artist who this idol wrought
To echo all harmonious thought,
Felled a tree, while on the steep
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rocked in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of Autumn past,
And some of Spring approaching fast,
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love; and so this tree
Oh, that such our death may be!
Died in sleep, and felt no pain,
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven's fairest
star,

The artist wrought this loved guitar,
And taught it justly to reply,
To all who question skilfully,
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamoured tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
For it had learned all harmonies
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voiced fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills,

The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew,
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound,
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way.
All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray
These secrets of an elder day.
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest, holiest tone
For our beloved Jane alone.

TO JANE

80

90

Shelley sent the lines to Mrs. Williams with a note. I sat down to write some words for an ariette which might be profane; but it was in vain to struggle with the ruling spirit who compelled me to speak of things sacred to yours and to Wilhelm Meister's indulgence. I commit them to your secrecy and your mercy, and will try to do better another time.'

The poem was published in part by Medwin, The Athenæum, 1832, and complete by Mrs. Shelley in her second collected edition, 1839.