leaves dead, Come, Months, come away, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, III First our pleasures die - and then IV All things that we love and cherish, LIBERTY Published by Mrs. Shelley, Posthumous Poems, 1824. I THE fiery mountains answer each other, Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone; And like dim shadows watch by her sepul- The tempestuous oceans awake one another, chre. And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne, When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown. II From a single cloud the lightning flashes, Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around; Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes, An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound Is bellowing underground. III But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp. IV From billow and mountain and exhalation The sunlight is darted through vapor and blast; From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation, From city to hamlet, thy dawning is cast, And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night In the van of the morning light. LINES TO A REVIEWER Published by Hunt, The Literary PocketBook, 1823. ALAS! good friend, what profit can you see Mrs. Shelley gives, as usual, the general scene and atmosphere of the year, which was spent at Pisa or the Baths of San Giuliano: We were not, as our wont had been, alone - friends had gathered round us. Nearly all are dead; and when memory recurs to the past, she wanders among tombs: the genius with all his blighting errors and mighty powers; the companion of Shelley's ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of his fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and fearless; and others, who found in Shelley's society, and in his great knowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction and solace, have joined him beyond the grave. ... Shelley's favorite taste was boating; when living near the Thames, or by the lake of Geneva, much of his life was spent on the water. On the shore of every lake, or stream, or sea, near which he dwelt, he had a boat moored. He had latterly enjoyed this pleasure again. There are no pleasure-boats on the Arno, and the shallowness of its waters, except in winter time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for boating, rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float. Shelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend, contrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the Maremma, to cross the sluggish but deep 66 streams that intersect the forests, a boat of And solitary places, where we taste 'Our little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when we removed to the baths. Some friends [the Williamses] lived at the village of Fugnano, four miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the canal, which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and picturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks, sheltered by trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day, multitudes of ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at noonday kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and more attached to the part of the country where chance appeared to cast us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm, situated on the height of one of the near hills, surrounded by chestnut and pine woods, and overlooking a wide extent of country; or of settling still further in the maritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished poems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us. It is the nature of that poetry, however, which overflows from the soul, oftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed by the weight of has recourse to the solace of expression in verse. life, and away from those he loves that the poet 'Still Shelley's passion was the ocean; and passed among the hills near Pisa, should be he wished that our summers, instead of being spent on the shores of the sea. difficult to find a spot. We shrank from NaIt was very ples from a fear that the heats would disagree with Percy; Leghorn had lost its only attraction, since our friends who had resided there were returned to England; and Monte Nero being the resort of many English, we did not wish to find ourselves in the midst of a colony of chance travellers. No one then thought it possible to reside at Viareggio, which latterly has become a summer resort. The low lands and bad air of Maremma stretch the whole length of the western shores of the Mediterranean, till broken by the rocks and hills of Spezia. It was a vague idea; but Shelley suggested an excursion to Spezia, to see whether it would be feasible to spend a summer there. The beauty of the bay enchanted him-we saw no house to suit us- -but the notion took root, and many circumstances, enchained as by fatality, occurred to urge him to execute it.' |