To muse on my own separate fantasy, One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings III. Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,-that death is slumber, The veil of life and death? Or do I lie Its circles? for the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt,- -or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that Man may be, But for such faith, with Nature reconciled. Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise and great and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel. IV. The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Within the dædal earth, lightning and rain, Holds every future leaf and flower, the bound With which from that detested trance they leap, The works and ways of man, their death and birth, All things that move and breathe, with toil and sound Are born and die, revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this the naked countenance of earth On which I gaze, even these primæval mountains, Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep, Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled-dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin, Is there, that from the boundary of the skies Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destined path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down The limits of the dead and living world, 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 And their place is not known. Below, vast caves The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever V. Mont Blanc yet gleams on high: the power is there, And many sounds, and much of life and death. Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend And what were thou and earth and stars and sea, Silence and solitude were vacancy? 23 June 1816. NOTE ON POEMS OF 1816, BY MRS. SHELLEY. SHELLEY wrote little during this year. The poem entitled The Sunset was written in the Spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The Hymn to Intellectual Beauty was conceived during his voyage round the lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the Nouvelle Héloïse for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley's own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views, and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful. Mont Blanc was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the History of Six Weeks' Tour, and Letters from Switzerland:-"The Poem entitled Mont Blanc is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untameable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang." This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the Prometheus of Eschylus, several of Plutarch's Lives, and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny's Letters, the Annals and Germany of Tacitus. In French, the History of the French Revolu tion by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne's Essays, and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke's Essay, Political Justice, and Coleridge's Lay Sermon, form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, Paradise Lost, Spenser's Faery Queen, and Don Quixote. POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817. MARIANNE'S DREAM. I. A PALE Dream came to a Lady fair, I know the secrets of the air; And things are lost in the glare of day, II. "And thou shalt know of things unknown, The veiny lids whose fringe is thrown III. At first all deadly shapes were driven And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven If the golden sun shone forth on high. IV. And, as towards the east she turned, V. The sky was blue as the summer sea; The air was calm as it could be; There was no sight or sound of dread, VI. The Lady grew sick with a weight of fear And looked abroad if she might know Of the blood in her own veins to and fro. VII. There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake shock; But the very weeds that blossomed there Were moveless, and each mighty rock Stood on its basis steadfastly; The anchor was seen no more on high. VIII. But piled around, with summits hid In lines of cloud at intervals, |