A Snatch of Verse: "Bind eagle wings upon the lagging hours" Fragment: "Mine eyes . . . like two ever bleed- Stanza: "If I walk in Autum [n] even" Fragment: "It is a sweet thing Friendship" Rejected Openings: No. I No. II PAGE 184 185 186 187 187 . 188 Draft Dirge with notation for music The End of The Sensitive Plant. Concerning Una Favola . 189 • 198 201 . 205 PREFATORY REMARKS IT is not essential that one be a devout Shelleyan in order to appreciate the importance of the work here presented. It would unquestionably be a spectacle of great intrinsic interest if we could take a peep into the workshop of Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, or any of our leading poets, and see, in its original and undisturbed state, the great mass of unfinished structural material, models and methods used in the construction of the monumental works that have immortalized their names. Such a view into Shelley's workshop is afforded by these Note Books, and in the absence of Shelley himself to explain the whys and wherefores of things, we have in Mr. H. Buxton Forman a guide capable of pointing out matters of interest better perhaps than Shelley himself would have done. It is doubtful if Shelley knew his own works as well as Mr. Forman knows them; it is certain that if he saw in them one half the beauty and merit ascribed to them by posterity he must have lamented the lack of erudition, and the morbid drowsiness of his contemporaries in failing adequately to appreciate his work until after he had gone. These Note Books show how thoughtfully he labored, and with what scrupulous care every word and sentence was tested and fitted before being finally woven into the fabric of his work. Herein is the record of his inceptive thoughts-sometimes imperfectly recorded by single words or broken sentences-before being finally rounded out into the symmetrical lines in their finished state. Words and passages are written and re-written again and again before reaching the stage of perfection necessary to meet the poet's exacting requirements. It will be observed that the lack of contemporary adulation did not for a moment lessen Shelley's vigilance in seeking and attaining the loftiest ideals in literature. He strove for the highest in mental conception and verbal expression, content to let recognition come when it would. It is creditable to the good taste and scholarship of the present generation that the excellence of Shelley's works is now more universally appreciated than ever before. The casual reader in following the graceful lines and thought of a finished poem has no idea of the travail of the author in finding and connecting the words necessary to give rhythmic expression to his thoughts. The lines of the completed work appear to have fallen from the poet's pen as naturally as water issues from a fountain, though such is not the case. The late Mr. Hurd once told me that the poet Whittier gave him a MS. of one of his poems which he had changed and re-written twenty times before sending it to the printer. The plan of reproducing in facsimile the entire contents of the Note Books was first considered; but such a reproduction of the original MSS. would be no more interesting or intelligible to the average reader or student than a Greek dictionary would be to one who could not read the Greek alphabet. The task of deciphering the contents of these Note Books seemed impossible; it could be accomplished only by one thoroughly familiar with Shelley's handwriting, and with an intimate acquaintance with practically his entire works, as well as a knowledge of his habits and characteristics, and the methods he employed in constructing his work. Shelley adopted no systematic order of paging in these books-sometimes he would write in the front, then in the back, then with the book bottom side up, and frequently he wrote up and |