Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down, Your steps as swift as greyhounds', and your cries Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert, Full Chorus of IONA and the SWINE. 120 125 Through rain, hail, and snow, 130 Through brake, gorse, and briar, Through fen, flood, and mire, Tallyho! tallyho! Through pond, ditch, and slough, Wind them, and find them, Like the Devil behind them, Tallyho! tallyho! 135 [Exeunt, in full cry; IONA driving on the SwINE, with the empty GREEN BAG. THE END. NOTE ON OEDIPUS TYRANNUS, BY MRS. SHELLEY IN the brief journal I kept in those days, I find recorded, in August, 1820, Shelley 'begins Swellfoot the Tyrant, suggested by the pigs at the fair of San Giuliano.' This was the period of Queen Caroline's landing in England, and the struggles made by George IV to get rid of her claims; which failing, Lord Castlereagh placed the Green Bag' on the table of the House of Commons, demanding in the King's name that an inquiry should be instituted into his wife's conduct. These circumstances were the theme of all conversation among the English. We were then at the Baths of San Giuliano. A friend came to visit us on the day when a fair was held in the square, beneath our windows: Shelley read to us his Ode to Liberty; and was riotously accompanied by the grunting of a quantity of pigs brought for sale to the fair. He compared it to the 'chorus of frogs' in the satiric drama of Aristophanes; and, it being an hour of merriment, and one ludicrous association suggesting another, he imagined a political-satirical drama on the circumstances of the day, to which crite, but by the original free thoughts of men of genius, who aspire to pluck bright truth 'from the pale-faced moon; Or dive into the bottom of the deep Where fathom-line could never touch the ground, And pluck up drowned' truth. Even those who may dissent from his opinions will consider that he was a man of genius, and that the world will take more interest in his slightest word than in the waters of Lethe which are so eagerly prescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woe. This drama, however, must not be judged for more than was meant. It is a mere plaything of the imagination; which even may not excite smiles among many, who will not see wit in those combinations of thought which were full of the ridiculous to the author. But, like everything he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name. EPIPSYCHIDION VERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFORTUNATE LADY, EMILIA V NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OF L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un Mondo tutto per essa, diverso assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro. HER OWN WORDS. [Epipsychidion was composed at Pisa, Jan., Feb., 1821, and published without the author's name, in the following summer, by C. & J. Ollier, London. The poem was included by Mrs. Shelley in the Poetical Works, 1839, both edd. Amongst the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian is a first draft of Epipsychidion, consisting of three versions, more or less complete, of the Preface [Advertisement], a version in ink and pencil, much cancelled, of the last eighty lines of the poem, and some additional lines which did not appear in print' (Examination of the Shelley MSS. in the Bodleian Library, by C. D. Locock. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1903, p. 3). This draft, the writing of which is 'extraordinarily confused and illegible,' has been carefully deciphered and printed by Mr. Locock in the volume named above. Our text follows that of the editio princeps, 1821.] ADVERTISEMENT THE Writer of the following lines died at Florence, as he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular; less on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own character and feelings. The present Poem, like the Vita Nuova of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehen a sible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che avessero verace intendimento. The present poem appears to have been intended by the Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza on the opposite page1 is almost a literal translation from Dante's famous Canzone Voi, ch' intendendo, il terzo ciel movete, etc. The presumptuous application of My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few Of such hard matter dost thou entertain; Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring EPIPSYCHIDION SWEET Spirit! Sister of that orphan one, 1i.e. the nine lines which follow, beginning, 'My Song, I fear,' etc.-ED. S. 5 Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage, 5 10 High, spirit-winged Heart! who dost for ever Lie shattered; and thy panting, wounded breast Seraph of Heaven! too gentle to be human, Of light, and love, and immortality! Thou Moon beyond the clouds! Thou living Form With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew Then smile on it, so that it may not die. I never thought before my death to see Youth's vision thus made perfect. Emily, I love thee; though the world by no thin name 20 25 30 35 40 Would we two had been twins of the same mother! 45 Or, that the name my heart lent to another Could be a sister's bond for her and thee, Blending two beams of one eternity! Yet were one lawful and the other true, These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due, 50 How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me! I am not thine: I am a part of thee. Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burned its wings Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings, Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, 55 All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless? A well of sealed and secret happiness, Whose waters like blithe light and music are, A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight? бо A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play 65 Make music on, to soothe the roughest day And lull fond Grief asleep? a buried treasure? A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure? The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, And find-alas! mine own infirmity. 70 She met me, Stranger, upon life's rough way, And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day, In her mild lights the starry spirits dance, Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade Of unentangled intermixture, made By Love, of light and motion: one intense 95 Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing, Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 100 |