When every sight of lovely, wild, and grand
Astonishes, enraptures, elevates,
When fancy, at a glance, combines
The wondrous and the beautiful,-

So bright, so fair, so wild a shape brulan an
Hath ever yet beheld,

As that which reined the coursers of the air,
And poured the magic of her gaze
Upon the maiden's sleep.

The broad and yellow moon Shone dimly through her formThat form of faultless symmetry; The pearly and pellucid car

Moved not the moonlight's line:
"Twas not an earthly pageant:
Those who had looked upon the sight,
Passing all human glory,

Saw not the yellow moon,

Saw not the mortal scene,

Heard not the night-wind's rush,
Heard not an earthly sound,
Saw but the fairy pageant,
Heard but the heavenly strains
That filled the lonely dwelling.

The fairy's frame was slight, yon fibrous cloud,
That catches but the palest tinge of even,
And which the straining eye can hardly seize
When melting into eastern twilight's shadow,
Where scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star
That gems the glittering coronet of morn,
Sheds not a light so mild so powerful,
As that which bursting from the Fairy's form,
Spread a purpureal halo round the scene,
Yet with an undulating motion,
Swayed to her outline gracefully.

From her celestial car

The Fairy Queen descended,

And thrice she waved her wand flat?ât mai

Circled with wreaths of amaranth: d of tian w 10

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

FROM

THE BEQUEST OF EVERT JANSEN WENDELL

1918

Ir intellectual powers of the first order, if a disinterestedness that was pushed almost to generous romance, if social virtues that endeared him to every one with whom he came in contact, if purity of heart and sweetness of temper and uprightness of life—if these entitle to a place among the amiable and the gifted and the noble-hearted, that place belongs to PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. Born and educated amidst the affluences of British aristocracy, cradled (so to speak) in orthodoxy and conformity and titled privilege, he was a democrat and a heretic. His father, Sir John Shelley, disinherited him on account of his opinions, or rather of his honesty in expressing them; and the world continued a persecution against him for the same heinous crime; a persecution which did not terminate with his death, but pursued even the memory of one, whom mankind in the mass were too hypocritical to applaud, or perhaps too gross to appreciate. He was arraigned, tried, and convicted of heterodoxy; and that was enough to justify, in the world's eyes, the murder of his reputation.

Yet the bitterest of his enemies dare not accuse him of selfi hness, of ingratitude, of unkindness, of any moral de linquency. His only offences were against orthodox opinions; his crimes were the crimes of conscientiousness;

the same crimes that brought to Socrates the bowl of hemlock, and to Jesus, probably, the death of the cross.

Let one who confesses himself to have been once so strongly prejudiced against Shelley, as to have refused even to visit him, sketch his character. We quote from LANDOR, the well-known author of "Imaginary Conver sations."

Shelley, at the gates of Pisa, threw himself between Byron and a dragoon, whose sword in his indignation was lifted and about to strike. Byron told a common friend sometime afterwards, that he could not conceive how any man living should act so. Do you know, he might have been killed? and there was every appearance that he would be! The answer was: Between you and Shelley there is but little similarity, and perhaps but little sympathy; yet what Shelley did then, he would do again, and always.— There is not a human creature, not even the most hostile, that he would hesitate to protect from injury at the imminent hazard of his life. And yet life, which he would throw forward so unguardedly, is somewhat more with him than with others; it is full of hopes and aspirations, it is teeming with warm feelings, and it is rich and overrun with its own native, simple enjoyments. In him, every thing that ever gave pleasure gives it still, with the same freshness, the same exuberance, the same earnestness to communicate and share it.' By heaven! I cannot understand it!' cried Byron; a man to run upon a naked sword for another! Innocent and careless as a boy, Shelley possessed all the delicate feelings of a gentleman, all the discrimination of a scholar, and united in just degrees the ardour of the poet with the patience and forbearance of the philosopher. His generosity and charity went far beyond those of

any man, I believe, at present in existence. He was never known to speak evil of an enemy, unless that enemy had done some grievous injustice to another: and he divided his income of only one thousand pounds, with the fallen and afflicted. This is the man against whom much clamor has been raised by poor prejudiced fools, and by those who live and lap under their tables. This is the man whom, from one false story about his former wife, I had refused to visit at Pisa! I blush in anguish at my prejudice and injustice, and ought hardly to feel it as a blessing or a consolation, that I regret him less than I should have done if I had known him personally."

As a poet, Shelley has been greatly and justly admired, There is much of original and sterling beauty in all his poetical works. He may, indeed, with some reason, be taxed, in common with many of the most admired among poets, with obscurity and overstraining of the imagination. But there is so much of redeeming in the beautiful thoughts, chaste images, and noble sentiments scattered through his productions, that one forgets to dwell upon their blemishes,

Yet, it is not as poet that Shelley's character appears in its fairest light. It is as a high-minded reformer, as an unbending lover of truth, as an enthusiastic friend of human improvement. He was one of those pure beings who seem to be born some ages before their time; whose high aspirations after excellence scarcely belong to this generation, His poetic dreams had reference to that future-to use his own beautiful words

When reason's voice,

Loud as the voice of nature, shall have waked
The nations and mankind perceive, that vice
Is discord, war, and misery: that virtue
Is peace, and happiness, and harmony;