By the deep murmuring stream of passing things, The Spirit saw The vast frame of the renovated world 325 330 And sinks and rises, fails and swells by fits, The mighty tide of thought had paused awhile, Was the sweet stream of thought that with wild motion Flowed o'er the Spirit's human sympathies. 336 To me is given The wonders of the human world to keep- The habitable earth is full of bliss; 340 345 350 355 360 365 To murmur through the heaven-breathing groves The vast tract of the parched and sandy waste 370 375 380 That comes to lick his feet, his morning's meal. Those trackless deeps, where many a weary sail 385 390 But vocal to the sea-bird's harrowing shriek, The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm, Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds 395 Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem, 400 Man chief perceives the change, his being notes The gradual renovation, and defines Each movement of its progress on his mind. 405 Man, where the gloom of the long polar night Where scarce the hardiest herb that braves the frost Basked in the moonlight's ineffectual glow, 409 Shrank with the plants, and darkened with the night; Where blue mists through the unmoving atmosphere 415 Teemed with all earthquake, tempest and disease, Had crushed him to his country's blood-stained dust. Even where the milder zone afforded man That peace which first in bloodless victory waved 420 425 There man was long the train-bearer of slaves, The jackal of ambition's lion-rage, The bloodhound of religion's hungry zeal. Here now the human being stands adorning 430 This loveliest earth with taintless body and mind; Blest from his birth with all bland impulses, Which gently in his noble bosom wake All kindly passions and all pure desires. Him, still from hope to hope the bliss pursuing, 435 Which from the exhaustless lore of human weal Dawns on the virtuous mind, the thoughts that rise With self-enshrined eternity, that mocks The unprevailing hoariness of age, 440 And man, once fleeting o'er the transient scene Swift as an unremembered vision, stands Immortal upon earth: no longer now He slays the beast that sports around his dwelling And horribly devours its mangled flesh, 445 Or drinks its vital blood, which like a stream Of poison thro' his fevered veins did flow 450 455 An equal amidst equals: happiness 460 And science dawn though late upon the earth; Peace cheers the mind, health renovates the frame; The tranquil spirit fails beneath its grasp, Within the massy prison's mouldering courts, With a pale and sickly glare, now freely shines 470 475 430 485 *490 On the pure smiles of infant playfulness: No more the shuddering voice of hoarse despair Peals through the echoing vaults, but soothing notes 495 The fanes of Fear and Falsehood hear no more 500 The works of faith and slavery, so vast, 505 So sumptuous, yet withal so perishing! Even as the corpse that rests beneath their wall. A thousand mourners deck the pomp of death Thus human things are perfected, and earth, 510 515 Her veiny eyelids quietly unclosed; Moveless awhile the dark blue orbs remained: That through the casement shone. ALASTOR OR THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE 620 [Composed at Bishopsgate Heath, near Windsor Park, 1815 (autumn); published, as the title-piece of a slender volume containing other poems (see Bibliographical List, by Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, London, 1816 (March). Reprinted-the first edition being sold out amongst the Posthumous Poems, 1824. Sources of the text are (1) the editio princeps, 1816; (2) Posth. Poems, 1824; (3) Poetical Works, 1839, edd. 1st and 2nd. For (2) and (3) Mrs. Shelley is responsible.] 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. The picture is not barren of instruction to actual men. The Poet's self-centred seclusion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion pursuing him to |