21 Critical Heritage, pp. 124–35.
22 ‘Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Part II’, in The Works of Thomas Love Peacock, ed. H. F. B. Brett-Smith and C. E. Jones, 10 vols (New York: AMS Press, 1967; original edition 1927), VIII, p. 107.
23 Critical Heritage, pp. 87–94.
24 H. Buxton Forman, Vicissitudes of Shelley’s Queen Mab: A Chapter in the History of Reform (London: privately printed, 1887); Bouthaina Shaaban, ‘Shelley and the Chartists’, in Shelley: Poet and Legislator of the World, ed. Betty T. Bennett and Stuart Curran (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 114–25; St Clair, The Reading Nation, pp. 318–22.
25 Critical Heritage, pp. 254–5.
26 Critical Heritage, p. 192.
27 Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824), p. iv.
28 The Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, ed. Betty T. Bennett, vol. 1 (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), pp. 444–5; Roger Ingpen, Shelley in England (London: Kegan Paul, 1917), pp. 576–86; Michael Rossington, ‘Editing Shelley’, in The Oxford Handbook, pp. 645–56.
29 The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 2 vols (London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886).
30 St Clair, The Reading Nation, pp. 318–20, 680–82; Complete Poetry, II, pp. 509–10.
31 Stuart Curran, Shelley’s Cenci: Scorpions Ringed with Fire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 183–97.
32 Letters II, p. 127.
33 Letters I, pp. 504, 507–8.
34 Shelley refers approvingly to the American experience in Laon and Cythna, ll. 4414–39, and in Hellas, ll. 66–71, 1027–30 (pp. 518, 547).
35 Prose Works I, p. 37.
36 A Philosophical View of Reform – see p. 637.
37 The Visionary Company: A Reading of English Romantic Poetry, revised edn (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1971), p. 282.
38 Letters II, p. 108.
39 Letters I, p. 242.
40 Prose, pp. 185–6.
41 The Prose Works of William Wordsworth, ed. Reverend Alexander B. Grosart, 3 vols (London: Edward Moxon, Son and Co., 1876), III, pp. 462–3.
Note on the Texts
The present selection aims to provide as generous and varied a representation of Shelley’s poetry and prose as limitations of space allow. All of what have come to be regarded as his major poems have been included with the exception of the 4,818 lines of the epic-romance Laon and Cythna (1817), though the Dedication before that poem, addressed to Shelley’s wife Mary and in some measure a separate work, has been retained. Within both ‘The Poems’ and ‘The Prose’ sections the texts are presented in chronological order of composition, inasmuch as that can be determined.
Because Shelley spent the final third or so of his writing life in Italy, he was not able to correct for the press those of his volumes that were printed and published in London during the years 1819–22, and a consequence of his sudden and untimely death was that a significant number of his works were left in manuscript notebooks and published posthumously without having received his final attention. As a result, the textual witnesses for Shelley’s verse and prose, of very different kinds, have always posed correspondingly varied, and sometimes very difficult, problems for his editors. The most authoritative source of a given text may be a printed volume published in Shelley’s lifetime for which he may or may not have seen proofs; one of the few manuscripts that he prepared for the press to have survived (for example, The Mask of Anarchy or Peter Bell the Third); a fair copy in his own hand or transcribed by another which he may have meant for safe-keeping, or for private circulation rather than regular publication; or one of his many surviving drafts, which range from clean and unambiguous at one extreme to untidy, unresolved, incomplete and barely legible at the other.
The copy-texts we have chosen for the present edition have been treated on the principle of minimal intervention. We have almost always retained their spelling and capitalization (even where these are inconsistent), and we have modified punctuation where we have judged it necessary to clarify a passage or to reduce what has appeared to us the excessive punctuation of some source-texts. Modern accents and breathings have been supplied where necessary for Greek epigraphs. In the endnotes on each title, we have indicated the source of our text and, for manuscript sources, have provided a reference to a facsimile of the manuscript where one exists in one of the three series, The Bodleian Shelley Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of the Younger Romantics: Shelley and Shelley and His Circle 1773–1822. For bibliographical details of these, see Abbreviations and Further Reading.
In both the Poems and Prose sections, a word or phrase within angle brackets is cancelled in the manuscript source; space within square brackets [ ] signals a missing word or phrase; a question mark within square brackets [ ? ] indicates an illegible word or phrase; a question mark and word(s) within square brackets [?word(s)] marks a conjectural reading. Word(s) within square brackets [word(s)] are missing in the manuscript source and have been supplied by the editors. Suspension points … in a text are present in the copy-text; an ellipsis within square brackets […] signifies an editorial omission.
THE POEMS
* * *
The Irishman’s Song
The stars may dissolve, and the fountain of light
May sink into ne’er ending chaos and night,
Our mansions must fall, and earth vanish away,
But thy courage O Erin! may never decay.
5See! the wide wasting ruin extends all around,
Our ancestors’ dwellings lie sunk on the ground,
Our foes ride in triumph throughout our domains,
And our mightiest heroes lie stretched on the plains.
Ah! dead is the harp which was wont to give pleasure,
10Ah! sunk is our sweet country’s rapturous measure,
But the war note is waked, and the clangor of spears,
The dread yell of Sloghan yet sounds in our ears.
Ah! where are the heroes! triumphant in death,
Convulsed they recline on the blood sprinkled heath,
15Or the yelling ghosts ride on the blast that sweeps by,
And ‘my countrymen! vengeance!’ incessantly cry.
Song (‘Fierce roars the midnight storm’)
Fierce roars the midnight storm,
O’er the wild mountain,
Dark clouds the night deform,
Swift rolls the fountain—
5See! o’er yon rocky height,
Dim mists are flying—
See by the moon’s pale light,
Poor Laura’s dying!
Shame and remorse shall howl,
10 By her false pillow—
Fiercer than storms that roll,
O’er the white billow;
No hand her eyes to close,
When life is flying,
15But she will find repose,
For Laura’s dying!
Then will I seek my love,
Then will I cheer her,
Then my esteem will prove,
20 When no friend is near her.
On her grave I will lie,
When life is parted,
On her grave I will die,
For the false hearted.
‘How eloquent are eyes!’
How eloquent are eyes!
Not the rapt Poet’s frenzied lay
When the soul’s wildest feelings stray
Can speak so well as they.
5 How eloquent are eyes!
Not music’s most impassioned note
On which love’s warmest fervours float
Like they bid rapture rise.
Love! look thus again,
10That your look may light a waste of years
Darting the beam that conquers cares
Thro’ the cold shower of tears!
Love! look thus again,
That Time the victor as he flies
15May pause to gaze upon thine
eyes,
A victor then in vain!—
Yet no! arrest not Time,
For Time, to others dear, we spurn,
When Time shall be no more we burn,
20 When Love meets full return.
Ah no! arrest not Time,
Fast let him fly on eagle wing
Nor pause till Heaven’s unfading spring
Breathes round its holy clime.
25 Yet quench that thrilling gaze
Which passionate Friendship arms with fire,
For what will eloquent eyes inspire
But feverish, false desire?
Quench then that thrilling gaze
30For age may freeze the tremulous joy,
But age can never love destroy.
It lives to better days.
Age cannot love destroy.
Can perfidy then blight its flower
35Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in fancy’s bower?
Age cannot love destroy.
Can slighted vows then rend the shrine
On which its chastened splendours shine
40 Around a dream of joy?
Fragment, or The Triumph of Conscience
’Twas dead of the night, when I sat in my dwelling;
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low;
Around, the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,—
5 They bodingly presag’d destruction and woe.
’Twas then that I started!—the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning, which danc’d in the sky;
Above me, the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs, the blast wafted by.
10My heart sank within me—unheeded the war
Of the battling clouds, on the mountain-tops, broke;—
Unheeded the thunder-peal crash’d in mine ear—
This heart, hard as iron, is stranger to fear;
But conscience in low, noiseless whispering spoke.
15’Twas then that her form on the whirlwind upholding,
The ghost of the murder’d Victoria strode;
In her right hand, a shadowy shroud she was holding,
She swiftly advanc’d to my lonesome abode.
I wildly then call’d on the tempest to bear me—
Song (‘Ah! faint are her limbs’)
I
Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary,
Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;
Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary,
She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.
5I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle,
As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;
And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle,
‘Stay thy boat on the lake,—dearest Henry, I come.’
II
High swell’d in her bosom the throb of affection,
10 As lightly her form bounded over the lea,
And arose in her mind every dear recollection:
‘I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.’
How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing,
When sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving,
15And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving,
Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!
III
Oh! dark lower’d the clouds on that horrible eve,
And the moon dimly gleam’d through the tempested air;
Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?
20 Oh! how could false hope rend a bosom so fair?
Thy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving,
O’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;
But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving,
In eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.
The Monarch’s funeral
An Anticipation
The growing gloom of eventide
Has quenched the sunbeam’s latest glow
And lowers upon the woe and pride
That blasts the city’s peace below.
5At such an hour how sad the sight
To mark a Monarch’s funeral
When the dim shades of awful night
Rest on the coffin’s velvet pall;
To see the Gothic Arches shew
10 A varied mass of light and shade
While to the torches’ crimson glow
A vast cathedral is displayed;
To see with what a silence deep
The thousands o’er this death-scene brood
15As tho’ some wizard’s charm did creep
Upon the countless multitude;
To see this awful pomp of death
For one frail mass of mouldering clay
When nobler men the tomb beneath
20 Have sunk unwept, unseen away.
For who was he, the uncoffined slain,
That fell in Erin’s injured isle
Because his spirit dared disdain
To light his country’s funeral pile?
25Shall he not ever live in lays
The warmest that a Muse may sing
Whilst monumental marbles raise
The fame of a departed King?
May not the Muse’s darling theme
30 Gather its glorious garland thence
Whilst some frail tombstone’s Dotard dream
Fades with a monarch’s impotence?
—Yet, ’tis a scene of wondrous awe
To see a coffined Monarch lay,
35That the wide grave’s insatiate maw
Be glutted with a regal prey!
Who now shall public councils guide?
Who rack the poor on gold to dine?
Who waste the means of regal pride
40 For which a million wretches pine?
It is a child of earthly breath,
A being perishing as he,
Who throned in yonder pomp of death
Hath now fulfilled his destiny.
45Now dust to dust restore!… O Pride,
Unmindful of thy fleeting power,
Whose empty confidence has vied
With human life’s most treacherous hour,
One moment feel that in the breast
50 With regal crimes and troubles vext
The pampered Earthworms soon will rest,
One moment feel … and die the next.
Yet deem not in the tomb’s control
The vital lamp of life can fail,
55Deem not that e’er the Patriot’s soul
Is wasted by the withering gale.
The dross which forms the King is gone
And reproductive Earth supplies
As senseless as the clay and stone
60 In which the kindred body lies.
The soul which makes the Man doth soar,
And love alone survives to shed
All that its tide of bliss can pour
Of Heaven upon the blessed dead.
65So shall the Sun forever burn,
So shall the midnight lightnings die,
And joy that glows at Nature’s bourn
Outlive terrestrial misery.
And will the crowd who silent stoop
70 Around the lifeless Monarch’s bier,
A mournful and dejected group,
Breathe not one sigh, or shed one tear?
Ah! no. ’Tis wonder, ’tis not woe;
Even royalists might groan to see
75The Father of the People so
Lost in the Sacred Majesty.
A Winter’s Day
O! wintry day! that mockest spring
With hopes of the reviving year,
That sheddest softness from thy wing
And near the cascade’s murmuring
5 Awakenest sounds so cle
ar
That peals of vernal music swing
Thro’ the balm atmosphere.
Why hast thou given, O year! to May
A birth so premature,
10To live one incompleted day
That the mad whirlwind’s sullen sway
May sweep it from the moor,
And winter reassume the sway
That shall so long endure?
15Art thou like Genius’s matin bloom,
Unwelcome promise of its prime,
That scattereth its rich perfume
Around the portals of the tomb,
Decking the scar of time
20In mockery of the early doom?
Art thou like Passion’s rapturous dream
That o’er life’s stormy dawn
Doth dart its wild and flamy beam
Yet like a fleeting flash doth seem
25 When many chequered years are gone
And tell the illusion of its gleam
Life’s blasted springs alone?
Whate’er thou emblemest, I’ll breathe
Thy transitory sweetness now,
30And whether Health with roseate wreathe
May bind mine head, or creeping Death
Steal o’er my pulse’s flow,
Struggling the wintry winds beneath
I’ll love thy vernal glow.
To the Republicans of North America
Brothers! between you and me
Whirlwinds sweep and billows roar,
Yet in spirit oft I see
On the wild and winding shore
5Freedom’s bloodless banner wave,
Feel the pulses of the brave
Unextinguished by the grave,
See them drenched in sacred gore,
Catch the patriot’s gasping breath