I must add a few words concerning the contents of this volume. Julian and Maddalo, the Witch of Atlas, and most of the Translations, were written some years ago; and, with the exception of the Cyclops, and the Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso, may be considered as having received the author’s ultimate corrections. The Triumph of Life was his last work, and was left in so unfinished a state that I arranged it in its present form with great difficulty. All his poems which were scattered in periodical works are collected in this volume, and I have added a reprint of Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude: the difficulty with which a copy can be obtained is the cause of its republication. Many of the Miscellaneous Poems, written on the spur of the occasion, and never retouched, I found among his manuscript books, and have carefully copied. I have subjoined, whenever I have been able, the date of their composition.
I do not know whether the critics will reprehend the insertion of some of the most imperfect among them; but I frankly own that I have been more actuated by the fear lest any monument of his genius should escape me than the wish of presenting nothing but what was complete to the fastidious reader. I feel secure that the lovers of Shelley’s poetry (who know how, more than any poet of the present day, every line and word he wrote is instinct with peculiar beauty) will pardon and thank me: I consecrate this volume to them.
The size of this collection has prevented the insertion of any prose pieces. They will hereafter appear in a separate publication.
MARY W. SHELLEY.
LONDON, June 1, 1824.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
MRS. SHELLEY’S PREFACE TO FIRST COLLECTED EDITION, 1839
POSTSCRIPT IN SECOND EDITION OF 1839
MRS. SHELLEY’S PREFACE TO Posthumous Poems, 1824
ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE (1815)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
THE DAEMON OF THE WORLD. A FRAGMENT (1816)
Part I
Part II
THE REVOLT OF ISLAM. A POEM IN TWELVE CANTOS (1817)
Preface
Dedication: To Mary —— ——
Canto I
Canto II
Canto III
Canto IV
Canto V
Canto VI
Canto VII
Canto VIII
Canto IX
Canto X
Canto XI
Canto XII
Note by Mrs. Shelley
PRINCE ATHANASE. A FRAGMENT (1817)
ROSALIND AND HELEN. A MODERN ECLOGUE (1817)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
JULIAN AND MADDALO. A CONVERSATION (1818)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND. A LYRICAL DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS (1819)
Preface
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Note by Mrs. Shelley
THE CENCI. A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS (1819)
Dedication, to Leigh Hunt, Esq.
Preface
Act I
Act II
Act III
Act IV
Act V
Note by Mrs. Shelley
THE MASK OF ANARCHY (1819)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
PETER BELL THE THIRD (1819)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
OEDIPUS TYRANNUS; OR, SWELLFOOT THE TYRANT. A TRAGEDY IN TWO ACTS (1819)
Note by Mrs. Shelley
CHARLES THE FIRST (1819)
LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE (1820)
THE WITCH OF ATLAS (1820)
To Mary
The Witch of Atlas
Note by Mrs. Shelley
EPIPSYCHIDION (1821)
Fragments connected with Epipsychidion
ADONAIS. AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS (1821)
Preface
Adonais
Cancelled Passages
HELLAS. A LYRICAL DRAMA (1821)
Preface
Prologue
Hellas
Shelley’s Notes
Note by Mrs. Shelley
FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED DRAMA (1822)
THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE (1822)
EARLY POEMS (1814, 1815)
Stanza, written at Bracknell
Stanzas.—April, 1814
To Harriet
To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
To ——.‘Yet look on me’
Mutability
On Death
A Summer Evening Churchyard
To ——. ‘Oh! there are spirits of the air’
To Wordsworth
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte
Lines: ‘The cold earth slept below’
Note on the Early Poems, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1816
The Sunset
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Mont Blanc
Fragment: Home
Fragment of a Ghost Story
Note on Poems of 1816, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817
Marianne’s Dream
To Constantia, Singing
To Constantia
Fragment: To One Singing
A Fragment: To Music
Another Fragment to Music
‘Mighty Eagle’
To the Lord Chancellor
To William Shelley
From the Original Draft of the Poem to William Shelley
On Fanny Godwin
Lines: ‘That time is dead for ever’
Death
Otho
Fragments supposed to be parts of Otho
‘O that a Chariot of Cloud were mine’
Fragments:
To a Friend released from Prison
Satan broken loose
Igniculus Desiderii
Amor Aeternus
Thoughts come and go in Solitude
A Hate-Song
Lines to a Critic
Ozymandias
Note on Poems of 1817, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1818
To the Nile
Passage of the Apennines
The Past
To Mary——
On a Faded Violet
Lines written among the Euganean Hills
Scene from ‘Tasso’
Song for ‘Tasso’
Invocation to Misery
Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples
The Woodman and the Nightingale
Marenghi
Sonnet: ‘Lift not the painted veil’
Fragments:
To Byron
Apostrophe to Silence
The Lake’s Margin
‘My head is wild with weeping’
The Vine-Shroud
Note on Poems of 1818, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1819
Lines written during the Castlereagh Administration
Song to the Men of England
Similes for two Political Characters of 1819
Fragment: To the People of England
Fragment: ‘What men gain fairly’
A New National Anthem
Sonnet: England in 1819
An Ode written October, 1819
Cancelled Stanza
Ode to Heaven
Ode to the West Wind
An Exhortation
The Indian Serenade
Cancelled Passage
To Sophia [Miss Stacey]
To William Shelley, I
To William Shelley, II
To Mary Shelley, I
To Mary Shelley, II
On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci
Love’s Philosophy
Fragment: ‘Follow to the deep wood’s weeds’
The Birth of Pleasure
Fragments:
Love the Universe to-day
‘A gentle story of two lovers young’
Love’s Tender Atmosphere
Wedded Souls
‘Is it
that in some brighter sphere’
Sufficient unto the day
‘Ye gentle visitations of calm thought’
Music and Sweet Poetry
The Sepulchre of Memory
‘When a lover clasps his fairest’
‘Wake the serpent not’
Rain
A Tale Untold
To Italy
Wine of the Fairies
A Roman’s Chamber
Rome and Nature
Variation of the Song of the Moon
Cancelled Stanza of the Mask of Anarchy
Note by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1820
The Sensitive Plant
A Vision of the Sea
The Cloud
To a Skylark
Ode to Liberty
To ——. ‘I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden’
Arethusa
Song of Proserpine
Hymn of Apollo
Hymn of Pan
The Question
The Two Spirits: An Allegory
Ode to Naples
Autumn: A Dirge
The Waning Moon
To the Moon
Death
Liberty
Summer and Winter
The Tower of Famine
An Allegory
The World’s Wanderers
Sonnet: ‘Ye hasten to the grave!’
Lines to a Reviewer
Fragment of a Satire on Satire
Good-night
Buona Notte
Orpheus
Fiordispina
Time Long Past
Fragments:
The Deserts of Dim Sleep
‘The viewless and invisible consequence’
A Serpent-face
Death in Life
‘Such hope, as is the sick despair of good’
‘Alas! this is not what I thought life was’
Milton’s Spirit
‘Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun’
Pater Omnipotens
To the Mind of Man
Note on Poems of 1820, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1821
Dirge for the Year
To Night
Time
Lines: ‘Far, far away’
From the Arabic: An Imitation
To Emilia Viviani
The Fugitives
To ——. ‘Music, when soft voices die’
Song: ‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou’
Mutability
Lines written on hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon
Sonnet: Political Greatness
The Aziola
A Lament
Remembrance
To Edward Williams
To ——. ‘One word is too often profaned’
To ——. ‘When passion’s trance is overpast’
A Bridal Song
Epithalamium
Another Version of the Same
Love, Hope, Desire, and Fear
Fragments written for Hellas
Fragment: ‘I would not be a king’
Ginevra
Evening: Ponte al Mare, Pisa
The Boat on the Serchio
Music
Sonnet to Byron
Fragment on Keats
Fragment: ‘Methought I was a billow in the crowd’
To-morrow
Stanza: ‘If I walk in Autumn’s even’
Fragments:
A Wanderer
Life rounded with Sleep
‘I faint, I perish with my love’
The Lady of the South
Zephyrus the Awakener
Rain
‘When soft winds and sunny skies’
‘And that I walk thus proudly crowned’
‘The rude wind is singing’
‘Great Spirit’
‘O thou immortal deity’
The False Laurel and the True
May the Limner
Beauty’s Halo
‘The death knell is ringing’
‘I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret’
Note on Poems of 1821, by Mrs. Shelley
POEMS WRITTEN IN 1822
The Zucca
The Magnetic Lady to her Patient
Lines: ‘When the lamp is shattered’
To Jane: The Invitation
To Jane: The Recollection
The Pine Forest of the Cascine near Pisa
With a Guitar, to Jane
To Jane: ‘The keen stars were twinkling’
A Dirge
Lines written in the Bay of Lerici
Lines: ‘We meet not as we parted’
The Isle
Fragment: To the Moon
Epitaph
Note on Poems of 1822, by Mrs. Shelley
TRANSLATIONS
Hymn to Mercury. Translated from the Greek of Homer
Homer’s Hymn to Castor and Pollux
Homer’s Hymn to the Moon
Homer’s Hymn to the Sun
Homer’s Hymn to the Earth: Mother of All
Homer’s Hymn to Minerva
Homer’s Hymn to Venus
The Cyclops: A Satyric Drama. Translated from the Greek of Euripides
Epigrams:
I. To Stella. From the Greek of Plato
II. Kissing Helena. From the Greek of Plato
III. Spirit of Plato. From the Greek
IV. Circumstance. From the Greek
Fragment of the Elegy on the Death of Adonis. From the Greek of Bion
Fragment of the Elegy on the Death of Bion. From the Greek of Moschus
From the Greek of Moschus
Pan, Echo, and the Satyr. From the Greek of Moschus
From Vergil’s Tenth Eclogue
From Vergil’s Fourth Georgic
Sonnet. From the Italian of Dante
The First Canzone of the Convito. From the Italian of Dante
Matilda gathering Flowers. From the Purgatorio of Dante
Fragment. Adapted from the Vita Nuova of Dante
Ugolino. Inferno, xxxiii. 22–75
Sonnet. From the Italian of Cavalcanti
Scenes from the Magico Prodigioso. From the Spanish of Calderon
Stanzas from Calderon’s Cisma de Inglaterra
Scenes from the Faust of Goethe
JUVENILIA
QUEEN MAB. A PHILOSOPHICAL POEM.
To Harriet*****
Queen Mab
Note by Mrs. Shelley
Verses on a Cat
Fragment: Omens
Epitaphium [Latin Version of the Epitaph is Gray’s Elegy]
In Horologium
A Dialogue
To the Moonbeam
The Solitary
To Death
Love’s Rose
Eyes: a Fragment
ORIGINAL POETRY BY VICTOR AND CAZIRE
I. ‘Here I sit with my paper, my pen and my ink’
II. To Miss —— —— [Harriet Grove] From Miss —— —— [Elizabeth Shelley]
III. Song: ‘Cold, cold is the blast’
IV. Song: ‘Come [Harriet]! sweet is the hour’
V. Song: Despair
VI. Song: Sorrow
VII. Song: Hope
VIII. Song: Translated from the Italian
IX. Song: Translated from the German
X. The Irishman’s Song
XI. Song: ‘Fierce roars the midnight storm’
XII. Song: To —— [Harriet]
XIII. Song: To —— [Harriet]
XIV. Saint Edmond’s Eve
XV. Revenge
XVI. Ghasta; or, The Avenging Demon
XVII. Fragment; or, The Triumph of Conscience
POEMS FROM ST. IRVYNE; OR, THE ROSICRUCIAN
I. Victoria
II. ‘On the Dark Height of Jura’
III. Sister Rosa. A Ballad
IV. St. Irvyne’s Tower
V. Bereavement
VI. The Drowned Lover
&nbs
p; POSTHUMOUS FRAGMENTS OF MARGARET NICHOLSON
Advertisement
War
Fragment: Supposed to be an Epithalamium of Francis Ravaillac and Charlotte Corday
Despair
Fragment
The Spectral Horseman
Melody to a Scene of Former Times
Stanza from a Translation of the Marseillaise Hymn
Bigotry’s Victim
On an Icicle that clung to the Grass of a Grave
Love
On a Fěte at Carlton House: Fragment
To a Star
To Mary, who died in this opinion
A Tale of Society as it is: From Facts, 1811
To the Republicans of North America
To Ireland
On Robert Emmet’s Grave
The Retrospect: Cwm Elan, 1812
Fragment of a Sonnet: To Harriet
To Harriet
Sonnet: To a Balloon laden with Knowledge
Sonnet: On launching some Bottles filled with Knowledge into the Bristol Channel
The Devil’s Walk
Fragment of a Sonnet: Farewell to North Devon
On leaving London for Wales
The Wandering Jew’s Soliloquy
Evening: To Harriet
To Ianthe
Song from the Wandering Jew
Fragment from the Wandering Jew
To the Queen of my Heart
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
ALASTOR
OR
THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE
PREFACE
THE poem entitled Alastor may be considered as allegorical of one of the most interesting situations of the human mind. It represents a youth of uncorrupted feelings and adventurous genius led forth by an imagination inflamed and purified through familiarity with all that is excellent and majestic, to the contemplation of the universe. He drinks deep of the fountains of knowledge, and is still insatiate. The magnificence and beauty of the external world sinks profoundly into the frame of his conceptions, and affords to their modifications a variety not to be exhausted. So long as it is possible for his desires to point towards objects thus infinite and unmeasured, he is joyous, and tranquil, and self-possessed. But the period arrives when these objects cease to suffice. His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself. He images to himself the Being whom he loves. Conversant with speculations of the sublimest and most perfect natures, the vision in which he embodies his own imaginations unites all of wonderful, or wise, or beautiful, which the poet, the philosopher, or the lover could depicture. The intellectual faculties, the imagination, the functions of sense, have their respective requisitions on the sympathy of corresponding powers in other human beings. The Poet is represented as uniting these requisitions, and attaching them to a single image. He seeks in vain for a prototype of his conception. Blasted by his disappointment, he descends to an untimely grave.