CHAPTER XXIX.

Shelley's residence at Bishopgate

Excursion to the

sources of the Thames-"Alastor"-Mode of its composition-Its character and beauty-Proceeds again to Switzerland-Arrival at Champagnôlle-Journey to Geneva-Arrival at the Sécheron-Description of the

Jura.

As soon as the warm summer weather had set in, the poet visited Clifton, and afterwards made a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire. Returning thence he rented a house on Bishopgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness,* pluck

* Mrs. Shelley's notes to his works.

ing the flowers in the fields, or roaming amidst the woodland scenery; or floating on the waters of the Thames, leaving his boat to drift, resigning himself the while to his own splendid thoughts, till he became literally drenched with beauty.

Towards the end of the summer he spent a fortnight, accompanied by a few friends, in tracing the Thames to its source; proceeding as far Crichlade, on the "silvery Isis," he saw all the beauty of its sylvan banks, so well calculated to allure his soul to visions of peace and love.

In the stanzas written on this occasion, in Lechlade church-yard, we may trace the calm serenity that had settled in his mind. How beautiful are the lines

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day."

He seems almost to have become enamoured of death, with so much of tranquil beauty has its abode inspired him.

But it was reserved for "Alastor" to breathe forth his higher aspirations, to give utterance in harmonious numbers to the deeper and stronger

emotions of his nature, which as they awakened, unconsciously wove themselves into verse.

This poem was written on his return from that voyage; during its composition he spent his days in the Great Park of Windsor, or on the Thames in its neighbourhood, floating under sylvan banks where the swan only inhabits, or reposing, Druid-like, under the shadow of gigantic oak trees, utterly resigning himself to the feelings of natural piety, and to all those spiritual influences which nature and nature's charms can alone inspire.

How beautiful is this poem, how perfect in rhythm, how solemn and stately in diction, how brilliant in imagery! every thought is pure and holy, every word breathes love. The joy, the exultation which the varied aspects of the universe inspires, and the sad, struggling pangs of human passion, are alike depicted with a skilful hand; they are drawn from his own keen sensations, or suggested by the emotions and yearnings of his own heart.

The gorgeous imagery with which he adorns his poem is but the vivid reflex of all he had himself seen and mused upon in his many

VOL. I.

P

wanderings, whether amidst the lakes and mountains of Cumberland, or the wild echoes of Killarney; whether amidst the rugged grandeur of Welsh scenery on the borders of the ocean, or under the solemn and inspiring shadow of the Swiss Alps; whether along the rapids of the Reuss and the castellated banks of the lordly Rhine, or along the quiet and tranquil bosom of our own sweet valley of the Thames.

Over this, which stands to us as a grand panorama of nature, he seems to move like the spirit of beauty gliding along still waters; like the reflection of moon and star-beam over river, and forest, and stream—over mountain, and valley, and lake, and meadow, spangled with flowers.

Alastor is but the portraiture of his own spiritual existence, reflected in the light of poetry: and for the time being we dwell with him in all things spiritual, while he stands to us the impersonation of an ideal love, seeking repose from that passion on which he nourishes, and which consumes him, in the love of all things animate and inanimate, all things beautiful and good; pouring the beauty of his own soul over all

things visible, and gathering its invisible essence back unto himself.

But vivid and gorgeous as is the imagery, splendid as a whole, minute and perfect in all its detail as is the poem itself, its immediate tendency is to blind with excess of light, to dazzle rather than to please, to excite rather than to satisfy; suggesting eternal restlessness but no repose the restlessness of his own existence, the bewilderment of his own soaring fancy, the excitement of his own heart.

But the more intimate we become with it, the more its excellencies grow upon us, the more we enter into the spirit of the poet's conception, till at length we are lifted up, as it were, above ourselves, into the very heaven of his thoughts, breathing in a purer and brighter atmosphere of beauty and love-then its apparent inequalities soften down, and its bold contrasts of brilliant sunlight and dim shadow blend and harmonise; but there is a tone of infinite sadness pervading the whole, springing, as it were, out of the hopeless aspiration of Alastor, after that purity and perfection which is not akin to earth, and therefore utterly beyond hiin.