The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 67

13.

His sister, wife, and children yawned, With a long, slow, and drear ennui, All human patience far beyond; _715 Their hopes of Heaven each would have p.a.w.ned, Anywhere else to be.

14.

But in his verse, and in his prose, The essence of his dulness was Concentred and compressed so close, _720 'Twould have made Guatimozin doze On his red gridiron of bra.s.s.

15.

A printer's boy, folding those pages, Fell slumbrously upon one side; Like those famed Seven who slept three ages. _725 To wakeful frenzy's vigil--rages, As opiates, were the same applied.

16.

Even the Reviewers who were hired To do the work of his reviewing, With adamantine nerves, grew tired;-- _730 Gaping and torpid they retired, To dream of what they should be doing.

17.

And worse and worse, the drowsy curse Yawned in him, till it grew a pest-- A wide contagious atmosphere, _735 Creeping like cold through all things near; A power to infect and to infest.

18.

His servant-maids and dogs grew dull; His kitten, late a sportive elf; The woods and lakes, so beautiful, _740 Of dim stupidity were full.

All grew dull as Peter's self.

19.

The earth under his feet--the springs, Which lived within it a quick life, The air, the winds of many wings, _745 That fan it with new murmurings, Were dead to their harmonious strife.

20.

The birds and beasts within the wood, The insects, and each creeping thing, Were now a silent mult.i.tude; _750 Love's work was left unwrought--no brood Near Peter's house took wing.

21.

And every neighbouring cottager Stupidly yawned upon the other: No jacka.s.s brayed; no little cur _755 c.o.c.ked up his ears;--no man would stir To save a dying mother.

22.

Yet all from that charmed district went But some half-idiot and half-knave, Who rather than pay any rent, _760 Would live with marvellous content, Over his father's grave.

23.

No bailiff dared within that s.p.a.ce, For fear of the dull charm, to enter; A man would bear upon his face, _765 For fifteen months in any case, The yawn of such a venture.

24.

Seven miles above--below--around-- This pest of dulness holds its sway; A ghastly life without a sound; _770 To Peter's soul the spell is bound-- How should it ever pa.s.s away?

NOTES: (_8 To those who have not duly appreciated the distinction between Whale and Russia oil, this attribute might rather seem to belong to the Dandy than the Evangelic. The effect, when to the windward, is indeed so similar, that it requires a subtle naturalist to discriminate the animals. They belong, however, to distinct genera.--[Sh.e.l.lEY's NOTE.)

(_183 One of the attributes in Linnaeus's description of the Cat. To a similar cause the caterwauling of more than one species of this genus is to be referred;--except, indeed, that the poor quadruped is compelled to quarrel with its own pleasures, whilst the biped is supposed only to quarrel with those of others.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

(_186 What would this husk and excuse for a virtue be without its kernel prost.i.tution, or the kernel prost.i.tution without this husk of a virtue? I wonder the women of the town do not form an a.s.sociation, like the Society for the Suppression of Vice, for the support of what may be called the 'King, Church, and Const.i.tution' of their order. But this subject is almost too horrible for a joke.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

(_222 This libel on our national oath, and this accusation of all our countrymen of being in the daily practice of solemnly a.s.severating the most enormous falsehood, I fear deserves the notice of a more active Attorney General than that here alluded to.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

_292 one Fleay cj., Rossetti, Forman, Dowden, Woodberry; out 1839, 2nd edition.

_500 Betty]Emma 1839, 2nd edition. See letter from Sh.e.l.ley to Ollier, May 14, 1820 (Sh.e.l.ley Memorials, page 139).

(_512 Vox populi, vox dei. As Mr. G.o.dwin truly observes of a more famous saying, of some merit as a popular maxim, but totally dest.i.tute of philosophical accuracy.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

(_534 Quasi, Qui valet verba:--i.e. all the words which have been, are, or may be expended by, for, against, with, or on him. A sufficient proof of the utility of this history. Peter's progenitor who selected this name seems to have possessed A PURE ANTIc.i.p.aTED COGNITION of the nature and modesty of this ornament of his posterity.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

_602-3 See Editor's Note.

(_583 A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophylic Pantisocratists.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

(_588 See the description of the beautiful colours produced during the agonizing death of a number of trout, in the fourth part of a long poem in blank verse, published within a few years. ["The Excursion", 8 2 568-71.--Ed.] That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circ.u.mscribed sensibility, of the perversion of a penetrating but panic-stricken understanding. The author might have derived a lesson which he had probably forgotten from these sweet and sublime verses:--

'This lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she (Nature) shows and what conceals, Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.'--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

(_652 It is curious to observe how often extremes meet. Cobbett and Peter use the same language for a different purpose: Peter is indeed a sort of metrical Cobbett. Cobbett is, however, more mischievous than Peter, because he pollutes a holy and how unconquerable cause with the principles of legitimate murder; whilst the other only makes a bad one ridiculous and odious.

If either Peter or Cobbett should see this note, each will feel more indignation at being compared to the other than at any censure implied in the moral perversion laid to their charge.--[Sh.e.l.lEY'S NOTE.])

NOTE ON PETER BELL THE THIRD, BY MRS. Sh.e.l.lEY.

In this new edition I have added "Peter Bell the Third". A critique on Wordsworth's "Peter Bell" reached us at Leghorn, which amused Sh.e.l.ley exceedingly, and suggested this poem.

I need scarcely observe that nothing personal to the author of "Peter Bell" is intended in this poem. No man ever admired Wordsworth's poetry more;--he read it perpetually, and taught others to appreciate its beauties. This poem is, like all others written by Sh.e.l.ley, ideal.

He conceived the idealism of a poet--a man of lofty and creative genius--quitting the glorious calling of discovering and announcing the beautiful and good, to support and propagate ignorant prejudices and pernicious errors; imparting to the unenlightened, not that ardour for truth and spirit of toleration which Sh.e.l.ley looked on as the sources of the moral improvement and happiness of mankind, but false and injurious opinions, that evil was good, and that ignorance and force were the best allies of purity and virtue. His idea was that a man gifted, even as transcendently as the author of "Peter Bell", with the highest qualities of genius, must, if he fostered such errors, be infected with dulness. This poem was written as a warning--not as a narration of the reality. He was unacquainted personally with Wordsworth, or with Coleridge (to whom he alludes in the fifth part of the poem), and therefore, I repeat, his poem is purely ideal;--it contains something of criticism on the compositions of those great poets, but nothing injurious to the men themselves.

No poem contains more of Sh.e.l.ley's peculiar views with regard to the errors into which many of the wisest have fallen, and the pernicious effects of certain opinions on society. Much of it is beautifully written: and, though, like the burlesque drama of "Swellfoot", it must be looked on as a plaything, it has so much merit and poetry--so much of HIMSELF in it--that it cannot fail to interest greatly, and by right belongs to the world for whose instruction and benefit it was written.

LETTER TO MARIA GISBORNE.

[Composed during Sh.e.l.ley's occupation of the Gisbornes' house at Leghorn, July, 1820; published in "Posthumous Poems", 1824. Sources of the text are (1) a draft in Sh.e.l.ley's hand, 'partly illegible'

(Forman), amongst the Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.scripts; (2) a transcript by Mrs.

Sh.e.l.ley; (3) the editio princeps, 1824; the text in "Poetical Works", 1839, let and 2nd editions. Our text is that of Mrs. Sh.e.l.ley's transcript, modified by the Bos...o...b.. ma.n.u.script. Here, as elsewhere in this edition, the readings of the editio princeps are preserved in the footnotes.]

LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.]

The spider spreads her webs, whether she be In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree; The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves; So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, _5 Sit spinning still round this decaying form, From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought-- No net of words in garish colours wrought To catch the idle buzzers of the day-- But a soft cell, where when that fades away, _10 Memory may clothe in wings my living name And feed it with the asphodels of fame, Which in those hearts which must remember me Grow, making love an immortality.

Whoever should behold me now, I wist, _15 Would think I were a mighty mechanist, Bent with sublime Archimedean art To breathe a soul into the iron heart Of some machine portentous, or strange gin, Which by the force of figured spells might win _20 Its way over the sea, and sport therein; For round the walls are hung dread engines, such As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch Ixion or the t.i.tan:--or the quick Wit of that man of G.o.d, St. Dominic, _25 To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic, Or those in philanthropic council met, Who thought to pay some interest for the debt They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation, By giving a faint foretaste of d.a.m.nation _30 To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest Who made our land an island of the blest, When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire On Freedom's hearth, grew dim with Empire:-- With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and jag, _35 Which fishers found under the utmost crag Of Cornwall and the storm-encompa.s.sed isles, Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn When the exulting elements in scorn, _40 Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, As panthers sleep;--and other strange and dread Magical forms the brick floor overspread,-- Proteus transformed to metal did not make _45 More figures, or more strange; nor did he take Such shapes of unintelligible bra.s.s, Or heap himself in such a horrid ma.s.s Of tin and iron not to be understood; And forms of unimaginable wood, _50 To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood: Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved blocks, The elements of what will stand the shocks Of wave and wind and time.--Upon the table More knacks and quips there be than I am able _55 To catalogize in this verse of mine:-- A pretty bowl of wood--not full of wine, But quicksilver; that dew which the gnomes drink When at their subterranean toil they swink, Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who _60 Reply to them in lava--cry halloo!

And call out to the cities o'er their head,-- Roofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead, Crash through the c.h.i.n.ks of earth--and then all quaff Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. _65 This quicksilver no gnome has drunk--within The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin, In colour like the wake of light that stains The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains The inmost shower of its white fire--the breeze _70 Is still--blue Heaven smiles over the pale seas.

And in this bowl of quicksilver--for I Yield to the impulse of an infancy Outlasting manhood--I have made to float A rude idealism of a paper boat:-- _75 A hollow screw with cogs--Henry will know The thing I mean and laugh at me,--if so He fears not I should do more mischief.--Next Lie bills and calculations much perplexed, With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint _80 Traced over them in blue and yellow paint.

Then comes a range of mathematical Instruments, for plans nautical and statical, A heap of rosin, a queer broken gla.s.s With ink in it;--a china cup that was _85 What it will never be again, I think,-- A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink The liquor doctors rail at--and which I Will quaff in spite of them--and when we die We'll toss up who died first of drinking tea, _90 And cry out,--'Heads or tails?' where'er we be.

Near that a dusty paint-box, some odd hooks, A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books, Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, _95 Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray Of figures,--disentangle them who may.

Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie, And some odd volumes of old chemistry.

Near those a most inexplicable thing, _100 With lead in the middle--I'm conjecturing How to make Henry understand; but no-- I'll leave, as Spenser says, with many mo, This secret in the pregnant womb of time, Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. _105

And here like some weird Archimage sit I, Plotting dark spells, and devilish enginery, The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind The gentle spirit of our meek reviews _110 Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, Ruffling the ocean of their self-content;-- I sit--and smile or sigh as is my bent, But not for them--Libeccio rushes round With an inconstant and an idle sound, _115 I heed him more than them--the thunder-smoke Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare; The ripe corn under the undulating air Undulates like an ocean;--and the vines _120 Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines-- The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill The empty pauses of the blast;--the hill Looks h.o.a.ry through the white electric rain, And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, _125 The interrupted thunder howls; above One chasm of Heaven smiles, like the eye of Love On the unquiet world;--while such things are, How could one worth your friends.h.i.+p heed the war Of worms? the shriek of the world's carrion jays, _130 Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise?

You are not here! the quaint witch Memory sees, In vacant chairs, your absent images, And points where once you sat, and now should be But are not.--I demand if ever we _135 Shall meet as then we met;--and she replies.

Veiling in awe her second-sighted eyes; 'I know the past alone--but summon home My sister Hope,--she speaks of all to come.'

But I, an old diviner, who knew well _140 Every false verse of that sweet oracle, Turned to the sad enchantress once again, And sought a respite from my gentle pain, In citing every pa.s.sage o'er and o'er Of our communion--how on the sea-sh.o.r.e _145 We watched the ocean and the sky together, Under the roof of blue Italian weather; How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm, And felt the transverse lightning linger warm Upon my cheek--and how we often made _150 Feasts for each other, where good will outweighed The frugal luxury of our country cheer, As well it might, were it less firm and clear Than ours must ever be;--and how we spun A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun _155 Of this familiar life, which seems to be But is not:--or is but quaint mockery Of all we would believe, and sadly blame The jarring and inexplicable frame Of this wrong world:--and then anatomize _160 The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes Were closed in distant years;--or widely guess The issue of the earth's great business, When we shall be as we no longer are-- Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war _165 Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not;--or how You listened to some interrupted flow Of visionary rhyme,--in joy and pain Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain, With little skill perhaps;--or how we sought _170 Those deepest wells of pa.s.sion or of thought Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years, Staining their sacred waters with our tears; Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed!