The struggling brook: tall spires of Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty windlestrae Threw their thin shadows down the Dim tracts and vast, robed in the rugged slope, streams, lustrous gloom And nought but gnarled roots of ancient Of leaden-coloured even, and fiery hills Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge pines Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots The unwilling soil. was here, Yet ghastly. away, Of the remote horizon. The near scene, For, as fast years flow The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes Had shone, gleam stony orbs :-so from his steps pine, Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast Yielding one only response, at each pause In most familiar cadence, with the howl Bright flowers departed, and the beauti- The thunder and the hiss of homeless Of the green groves, with all their odor- Mingling its solemn song, whilst the ous winds And musical motions. pursued broad river, Calm, he still Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, The stream, that with a larger volume Fell into that immeasurable void. now Rolled through the labyrinthine dell, and there Fretted a path through its descending curves With its wintry speed. On every side now rose Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms, Lifted their black and barren pinnacles In the light of evening, and, its precipice Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, Mid toppling stones, black gulphs and yawning caves, Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues Scattering its waters to the passing winds. Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine And torrent were not all;-one silent nook Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks, It overlooked in its serenity The dark earth, and the bending vault of stars. It was a tranquil spot, that seemed to smile Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped To the loud stream. Lo! where the The fissured stones with its entwining Beneath the wan stars and descending The children of the autumnal whirlwind In wanton sport, those bright leaves, In thy devastating omnipotence, The stillness of its solitude :-one voice His brother Death. A rare and regal Alone inspired its echoes ;-even that voice Which hither came, floating among the winds, And led the loveliest among human forms To make their wild haunts the depository Of all the grace and beauty that endued Its motions, render up its majesty, Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm, And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, prey He hath prepared, prowling around the world; Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. When on the threshold of the green recess Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew The dim and hornèd moon hung low, Like winds that bear sweet music, when and poured A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank Of the old pine. Upon an ivied stone Wan moonlight even to fulness: not a Reclined his languid head, his limbs did Shone, not a sound was heard; the very Diffused and motionless, on the smooth winds, brink Danger's grim playmates, on that Of that obscurest chasm ;-and thus he precipice lay, Slept, clasped in his embrace.-O, storm Surrendering to their final impulses of death! And his own being unalloyed by pain, Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there At peace, and faintly smiling :-his last sight Was the great moon, which o'er the western line Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills It rests, and still as the divided frame Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, That ever beat in mystic sympathy O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! O, that God, Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice Which but one living man has drained, who now, Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels No proud exemption in the blighting curse He bears, over the world wanders for ever, With nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler Lone as incarnate death! O, that the still: alone dream And when two lessening points of light Of dark magician in his visioned cave, Raking the cinders of a crucible Gleamed through the darkness, the For life and power, even when his feeble alternate gasp Of his faint respiration scarce did stir The stagnate night :-till the minutest ray hand Shakes in its last decay, were the true law Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered Like some frail exhalation; which the in his heart. dawn It paused-it fluttered. But when Robes in its golden beams,-ah! thou heaven remained Utterly black, the murky shades involved An image, silent, cold, and motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. hast fled! The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful, The child of grace and genius. Heartless things Are done and said i' the world, and many worms Even as a vapour fed with golden beams 94 NOTE TO ALASTOR; OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE So sweet even in their silence, on those contrary, contains an individual interest And all the shows o' the world are frail and vain To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. It is a woe too "deep for tears," when all Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, The passionate tumult of a clinging hope; only. A very few years, with their attendant events, had checked the ardour of Shelley's hopes, though he still thought them well grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve. This is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that chequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did, he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward; inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in Queen Mab, the whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of 1815 an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and, though through life he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state of his health. He As soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad. visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and returned to England from Lucerne, by the Reuss and the Rhine. The river-navigation enBirth and the grave, that are not as they chanted him. In his favourite poem of But pale despair and cold tranquillity, Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, were. NOTE ON ALASTOR, BY MRS. Alastor is written in a very different tone from Queen Mab. In the latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his youth-all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny, of his fellowcreatures, gave birth. Alastor, on the Thalaba, his imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In the summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopgate Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the source of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to Cricklade. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade a thirst for a happier condition of moral were written on that occasion. Alastor and political society survives, among the was composed on his return. He spent enlightened and refined, the tempests his days under the oak-shades of Windsor which have shaken the age in which we Great Park; and the magnificent woodland live. I have sought to enlist the harmony was a fitting study to inspire the various of metrical language, the ethereal comdescriptions of forest-scenery we find in binations of the fancy, the rapid and subtle the poem. transitions of human passion, all those elements which essentially compose a Poem, in the cause of a liberal and comprehensive morality; and in the view of kindling within the bosoms of my readers a virtuous enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith and hope in something good, which neither violence nor misrepresentation nor prejudice can ever totally extinguish among mankind. None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature, the broodings of a poet's heart in solitude-the mingling of the exulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe inspires with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion imparts-give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during the last months as certain and near he here represented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation of death. THE REVOLT OF ISLAM A POEM IN TWELVE CANTOS Οσαις δὲ βροτὸν ἔθνος ἀγλαίαις ἁπτόμεσθα Περαίνει πρὸς ἔσχατον PREFACE THE poem which I now present to the world is an attempt from which I scarcely dare to expect success, and in which a writer of established fame might fail without disgrace. It is an experiment on the temper of the public mind, as to how far For this purpose I have chosen a story of human passion in its most universal character, diversified with moving and romantic adventures, and appealing, in contempt of all artificial opinions or institutions, to the common sympathies of every human breast. I have made no attempt to recommend the motives which I would substitute for those at present governing mankind, by methodical and systematic argument. 1 would only awaken the feelings, so that the reader should see the beauty of true virtue, and be incited to those inquiries which have led to my moral and political creed, and that of some of the sublimest intellects in the world. The Poem therefore (with the exception of the first canto, which is purely introductory) is narrative, not didactic. It is a succession of pictures illustrating the growth and progress of individual mind aspiring after excellence, and devoted to the love of mankind; its influence in refining and making pure the most daring and uncommon impulses of the imagination, the understanding, and the senses; its impatience at "all the oppressions that are done under the sun"; its tendency to awaken public hope, and to enlighten and improve mankind; the rapid effects of the application of that tendency; the awakening of an immense nation from their slavery and degradation to a true sense of moral dignity and freedom; the bloodless dethronement of their oppressors, and the unveiling of the religious frauds |