GODDESS bare, and gaunt, and pale, We call thee FAMINE! After the trial, Could scarcely disagree. I may recover my lost appetite, Goddess of fasts and feasts, starving and I cramming! feel the gout flying about my stomach Through thee, for emperors, kings, and Give me a glass of Maraschino punch. Those who produce these fruits thro' Puts me in mind of blood, and blood more wine, And let things be as they have ever But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk been; At least while we remain thy priests, And shed more blood than any man in And proclaim thy fasts and feasts! Through thee the sacred SWELLFOOT Thebes. [To PURGANAX. God's sake stop the grunting of those pigs! Purganax. We dare not, Sire, 'tis Chorus of Swine. Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine! robe is of rags; Thou devil which livest on damning; and GREEN BAGS, Till in pity and terror thou risest, Confounding the schemes of the wisest, When thou liftest thy skeleton form, When the loaves and the skulls roll about, We will greet thee-the voice of a storm Would be lost in our terrible shout! Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Hail to thee, Empress of Earth! When thou risest, dividing posses- [A graceful figure in a semi-transparent In the pride of thy ghastly mirth. Over palaces, temples, and graves, We will rush as thy minister-slaves, Trampling behind in thy train, Till all be made level again! Mammon. I hear a crackling of the giant bones Of the dread image, and in the black pits Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames. These prodigies are oracular, and show The presence of the unseen Deity. Mighty events are hastening to their doom! Swellfoot. I only hear the lean and mutinous swine Grunting about the temple. Dakry. In a crisis Upon her trial without delay. Is here. Purganax. the entire scene THE BAG I have rehearsed veil passes unnoticed through the Temple; the word LIBERTY is seen through the veil, as if it were written in fire upon its forehead. Its words are almost drowned in the furious grunting of the PIGS, and the business of the trial. She kneels on the steps of the Altar, and speaks in tones at first faint and low, but which ever become louder and louder. Mighty Empress! Death's white wife! By the starving and the cramming, Of fasts and feasts! by thy dread self, O Famine! standard bearers in the van of Change. Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill The lap of Pain, and Toil, and Age!Remit, O Queen! thy accustomed rage! Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low FREEDOM calls Famine, - her eternal foe, A spot or two on me would do no harm, To brief alliance, hollow truce.-Rise Nay, it might hide the blood, which now! [Whilst the Veiled Figure has been chaunting this strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS, and SWELLFOOT, have surrounded IONA TAURINA, who, with her hands folded on her breast, and her eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like resignation, to wait the issue of the business, in perfect confidence of her innocence. [PURGANAX, after unsealing the GREEN These stinking foxes, these devouring BAG, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the PIGS begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by the skulls; all those who eat the loaves are turned into BULLS, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a MINOTAUR At least till you have hunted down your game, I will not throw you. Iona Taurina. (During this speech she has been putting on boots and spurs, and a hunting cap, buckishly cocked on one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly on his back.) Hoa! hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho! Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down, otters, These hares, these wolves, these anything but men. Hey, for a whipper-in! my loyal pigs, Now let your noses be as keen as beagles, Your steps as swift as greyhounds, and your cries More dulcet and symphonious than the bells Of village-towers, on sunshine holiday; Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music. Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?) But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho! Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert, Pursue the ugly beasts! tallyho! ho! Through rain, hail, and snow, Tallyho! tallyho! [Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving THE END NOTE ON CEDIPUS TYRANNUS, BY MRS. SHELLEY IN the brief journal kept in those days, I find recorded, in August 1820, Shelley begins Swellfoot the Tyrant, suggested by the pigs at the fair of San Giuliano." This was the period of Queen Caroline's landing in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of her claims; which failing, Lord Castle " reagh placed the 'Green Bag" on the table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King's name that an inquiry should be instituted into his wife's conduct. These circumstances were the theme of all conversation among the English. We were then at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friend came to visit us on the day when a fair was held in the square beneath our windows Shelley read to us his Ode to Liberty; and was riotously accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared to the " 'chorus of frogs" in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a politicalsatirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which the pigs would serve as chorus-and Swellfoot was begun. When finished, it was transmitted to England, printed, and published anonymously; but stifled at the very dawn of its existence by the Society for the Suppression of Vice, who threatened to prosecute it, if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of bringing it out, of course, did not think it worth the annoyance and expense of a contest, and it was laid aside. Hesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my publishing it at first. But I cannot bring myself to keep back anything he ever wrote; for each word is fraught with the peculiar views and sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human race, and the bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The world has a right to the entire compositions of such a man; for it does not live and thrive by the outworn lesson of the dullard or the hypocrite, but by the original free thoughts of men of genius, who aspire to pluck bright truth "from the pale-faced moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned" truth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that he was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in his slightest word than from the waters of Lethe which are so eagerly prescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woes. This drama, however, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere plaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among many, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were full of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name. EPIPSYCHIDION VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CON- L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nel infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. HER OWN WORDS. My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning, Thee to base company (as chance may do), And bid them own that thou art beautiful, 42638 ADVERTISEMENT THE Writer of the following Lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that, gran ver gogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, odi colore rettorico: edomandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento. The present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite page is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous Canzone Voi, ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, etc. The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to his own composition will raise a smile at the expense of my unfortunate friend: be it a smile not of contempt, but pity. EPIPSYCHIDION S. Flash, lightning-like, with unaccustomed glow; Pourest such music, that it might assuage thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody; This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale song All of its much mortality and wrong, With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightin- From the twin lights thy sweet soul gale! darkens through, |
