Its destined path, or in the mangled soil

Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The limits of the dead and living world,
Never to be reclaimed. The dwelling-place

Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;
Their food and their retreat for ever gone,

So much of life and joy is lost. The race

Of man, flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known.

110

115

Below, vast caves

120

Shine in the rushing torrent's restless gleam,
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,

The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever

Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves,

Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

125

V.

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high-the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,

And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them :-Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret strength of things

1 Mr. Rossetti substitutes torrents'. Of course the grammar of this reading is right; but it is questionable whe

130

135

ther Shelley would ever have made such a change.

Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome.

Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings

Silence and solitude were vacancy?

June 23, 1816.

CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC.

There is a voice, not understood by all,
Sent from these desert-caves. It is the roar
Of the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call,
Plunging into the vale-it is the blast

Descending on the pines-the torrents pour....

(GARNETT'S Relics of Shelley, p. 75.)

140

Mont Blanc being the concluding piece in the Six Weeks' Tour, the imprint of the volume comes here it is as follows :—

"Reynell, Printer, 45, Broad-street,

Golden-square."

LAON AND CYTHNA;

OR,

THE REVOLUTION OF THE GOLDEN CITY.

(Usually known as The Revolt of Islam).

[Laon and Cythna, written in the summer of 1817, was printed in the latter part of that year, the title-page being dated 1818. It is an octavo volume, consisting of title-page, preface pp. III. to XXII., fly-title to the Dedication, with quotation from Chapman's Byron's Conspiracy (Act III.), dedication pp. XXIV. to XXXII., fly-title Laon and Cythna with quotation from Pindar, and 270 pages of text. The Revolt of Islam, being made up from the same sheets with a fresh title-page and 26 cancel-leaves, the same particulars apply, except that the preface, having the final paragraph cancelled, ends on page XXI. Some few copies of The Revolt bear the date 1817, instead of 1818 : probably a realistic compositor set up the new title-page, and his realism was only discovered after the printing was begun. The same sheets were used again in 1829 with a third title-page as follows: "THE REVOLT OF ISLAM; A POEM IN TWELVE CANTOS. BY PERCY BYSSHE Shelley. LONDON PRINTED FOR JOHN BROOKS, 421 OXFORD STREET, 1829." In the meantime some part of the stock of cancel-leaves had, I presume, been lost; for copies of the 1829 issue af The Revolt of Islam not unfrequently occur with Laon and Cythna text. There is a list of errata usually found in all the four varieties of the book, but sometimes missing. For further bibliographical particulars, and for an account of the copy worked upon by Shelley, now in my possession, and from which the poem is here edited, see Appendix. I am not aware of any complete extant MS. of Laon and Cythna; but Sir Percy Shelley has the preface and dedication, written fair for the press in Shelley's handwriting; Leigh Hunt published a fac-simile of four lines in his Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries; Mr. W. M. Rossetti owns a larger fragment (24 lines) formerly in the possession of Hunt, and of which a fac-simile was given in some copies of Mr. Rossetti's two-volume edition of Shelley's Poetry; and there is a still larger fragment (52 lines) among the Leigh Hunt MSS. placed at my disposal by Mr. Townshend Mayer. The principal variations shewn in these MSS. will be found in my foot-notes.-H.B.F.]

Laon and
and Cythna;

OR,

THE REVOLUTION

OF

THE GOLDEN CITY:

A Vision of the Nineteenth Century.

IN THE STANZA OF SPENSER.

BY

PERCY B. SHELLEY.

ΔΟΣ ΠΟΥ ΣΤΩ ΚΑΙ ΚΟΣΜΟΝ ΚΙΝΗΣΩ.

ARCHIMEDES.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, & JONES, PATERNOSTERROW; AND C. AND J. OLLIER, WELBECK-STREET;

By B. M'Millan, Bow-Street, Covent Garden.