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And to receive upon her chaste white body
Dews of Apotheosis from this BAG.

[A great confusion is heard of the Pigs out of
Doors, which communicates itself to those within.
During the first Strophe, the doors of the Sty are
staved in, and a number of exceedingly lean Pigs
and Sows and Boars rush in.

SEMICHORUS I.

No! Yes!

SEMICHORUS II.

Yes! No!

SEMICHORUS I.

A law!

SEMICHORUS II.

A flaw!

SEMICHORUS I.

Porkers, we shall lose our wash,
Or must share it with the lean pigs!

FIRST BOAR.

Order! order! be not rash!
Was there ever such a scene, Pigs!
AN OLD sow (rushing in.)

I never saw so fine a dash
Since I first began to wean pigs.

SECOND BOAR (solemnly.)

The Queen will be an angel time enough.
I vote, in form of an amendment, that
Purganax rub a little of that stuff
Upon his face-

PURGANAX.

[His heart is seen to beat through his waistcoat. Gods! What would ye be at?

SEMICHORUS I.

Purganax has plainly shown a Cloven foot and jack-daw feather.

SEMICHORUS II.

I vote Swellfoot and Iona
Try the magic test together;
Whenever royal spouses bicker,
Both should try the magic liquor.

AN OLD BOAR (aside.)

A miserable state is that of pigs,

For if their drivers would tear caps and wigs,
The swine must bite each other's ear therefore.

AN OLD SOW (aside.)

A wretched lot Jove has assigned to swine, Squabbling makes pig-herds hungry, and they dine On bacon, and whip sucking-pigs the more.

CHORUS.

Hog-wash has been ta'en away:

If the Bull-Queen is divested,
We shall be in every way

Hunted, stript, exposed, molested;
Let us do whate'er we may,

That she shall not be arrested.
QUEEN, we entrench you with walls of brawn,
And palisades of tusks, sharp as a bayonet:
Place your most sacred person here. We pawn
Our lives that none a finger dare to lay on it.

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IONA TAURINA (coming forward.)
Gentlemen swine, and gentle lady-pigs,
The tender heart of every boar acquits
Their QUEEN, of any act incongruous
With native piggishness, and she reposing
With confidence upon the grunting nation,
Has thrown herself, her cause, her life, her all,
Her innocence, into their hoggish arms;
Nor has the expectation been deceived

Of finding shelter there. Yet know, great boars, (For such who ever lives among you finds you, And so do I) the innocent are proud!

I have accepted your protection only
In compliment of your kind love and care,
Not for necessity. The innocent

Are safest there where trials and dangers wait;
Innocent Queens o'er white-hot ploughshares

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[fat,

Who rule by viziers, sceptres, bank-notes, words,
The earth pours forth its plenteous fruits,
Corn, wool, linen, flesh, and roots-
Those who consume these fruits through thee grow
Those who produce these fruits through thee
grow lean,

Whatever change takes place, oh, stick to that!
And let things be as they have ever been:
At least while we remain thy priests,
And proclaim thy fasts and feasts!
Through thee the sacred SWELLFOOT dynasty
Is based upon a rock amid that sea
Whose waves are swine-so let it ever be!
[SWELLFOOT, &c. seat themselves at a table, magnifi-
cently covered at the upper end of the temple. Attend-
ants pass over the stage with hog-wash in pails. A
number of Pigs, exceedingly lean, follow them licking
up the wash.

MAMMON.

I fear your sacred Majesty has lost

The appetite which you were used to have.
Allow me now to recommend this dish-

A simple kickshaw by your Persian cook,
Such as is served at the great King's second table.
The price and pains which its ingredients cost,
Might have maintained some dozen families
A winter or two-not more-so plain a dish
Could scarcely disagree.—

SWELLFOOT.

After the trial,

DAKRY.

No heel-taps-darken day-lights!

LAOCTONOS.

Claret, somehow,

Puts me in mind of blood, and blood of claret!

SWELLFOOT.

Laoctonos is fishing for a compliment,
But 'tis his due. Yes, you have drunk more wine,
And shed more blood, than any man in Thebes.
(TO PURGANAX.)

For God's sake stop the grunting of those pigs!

PURGANAX.

We dare not, sire! 'tis Famine's privilege.

CHORUS OF SWINE.

Hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!

Thy throne is on blood, and thy rope is of rags; Thou devil which livest on damning;

Saint of new churches, and cant, and GREEN
Till in pity and terror thou risest, [BAGS;
Confounding the schemes of the wisest.
When thou liftest thy skeleton form,

When the loaves and the skulls roll about, We will greet thee-the voice of a storm Would be lost in our terrible shout!

Then hail to thee, hail to thee, Famine!
Hail to thee, Empress of Earth!
When thou risest, dividing possessions;
When thou risest, uprooting oppressions;

In the pride of thy ghastly mirth.
Over palaces, temples, and graves,
We will rush as thy minister-slaves,
Trampling behind in thy train,
Till all will be made level again!

MAMMON.

I hear a crackling of the giant bones
Of the dread image, and in the black pits
Which once were eyes, I see two livid flames:
These prodigies are oracular, and show

The presence of the unseen Deity.
Mighty events are hastening to their doom!

SWELLFOOT.

I only hear the lean and mutinous swine Grunting about the temple.

DAKRY.

In a crisis

Of such exceeding delicacy, I think
We ought to put her Majesty the QUEEN,
Upon her trial without delay.

And these fastidious pigs are gone, perhaps

I may recover my lost appetite,

I feel the gout flying about my stomach-
Give me a glass of Maraschino punch.

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MAMMON.

The BAG

PURGANAX.

I have rehearsed the entire scene With an ox-bladder and some ditch-water, On Lady P.-it cannot fail.

[Taking up the bag.

Your Majesty (to SWELLFOOT) In such a filthy business had better Stand on one side, lest it should sprinkle you. A spot or two on me would do no harm; Nay, it might hide the blood, which the sad genius Of the Green Isle has fixed, as by a spell, Upon my brow-which would stain all its seas, But which those seas could never wash away!

IONA TAURINA.

My Lord, I am ready-nay I am impatient,
To undergo the test.

[A graceful figure in a semi-transparent veil passes
unnoticed through the Temple; the word LIBERTY
is seen through the veil, as if it were written in fire
upon its forehead. Its words are almost drowned in
the furious grunting of the Pigs, and the business
of the trial. She kneels on the steps of the Altar,
and speaks in tones at first faint and low, but which
ever become louder and louder.

Mighty Empress! Death's white wife!
Ghastly mother-in-law of life!

By the God who made thee such,

By the magic of thy touch,

By the starving and the cramming,

Of fasts and feasts!-by thy dread self, O Famine!
I charge thee! when thou wake the multitude,
Thou lead them not upon the paths of blood.
The earth did never mean her foizon
For those who crown life's cup with poison
Of fanatic rage and meaningless revenge-
But for those radiant spirits, who are still
The standard-bearers in the van of Change.
Be they th' appointed stewards, to fill
The lap of Pain, and toil, and Age!—
Remit, O Queen! thy accustom'd rage!

Be what thou art not! In voice faint and low
FREEDOM calls Famine,-her eternal foe,
To brief alliance, hollow truce.-Rise now!
[Whilst the veiled Figure has been chaunting this
strophe, MAMMON, DAKRY, LAOCTONOS,
and
SWELLFOOT, have surrounded IONA TAURINA,
who, with her hands folded on her breast, and her
eyes lifted to Heaven, stands, as with saint-like
resignation, to wait the issue of the business, in
perfect confidence of her innocence.

PURGANAX, after unsealing the GREEN BAG, is gravely about to pour the liquor upon her head, when suddenly the whole expression of her figure and countenance changes; she snatches it from his hand with a loud laugh of triumph, and empties it over SWELLFOOT and his whole Court, who are instantly changed into a number of filthy and ugly animals, and rush out of the Temple. The image of FAMINE then arises with a tremendous sound, the Pigs begin scrambling for the loaves, and are tripped up by

the skulls; all those who eat the loaves are turned into Bulls, and arrange themselves quietly behind the altar. The image of FAMINE sinks through a chasm in the earth, and a MINOTAUR rises.

MINOTAUR.

I am the Ionian Minotaur, the mightiest
Of all Europa's progeny-

I am the old traditional man bull;
And from my ancestors having been Ionian,
I am called Ion, which, by interpretation,
Is JOHN; in plain Theban, that is to say,
My name's JOHN BULL: I am a famous hunter
And can leap any gate in all Boeotia,
Even the palings of the royal park,

Or double ditch about the new enclosures;
And if your Majesty will deign to mount me,
At least till you have hunted down your game,
I will not throw you.

IONA TAURINA.

[During this speech she has been putting on boots
and spurs, and a hunting-cap, buckishly cocked on
one side, and tucking up her hair, she leaps nimbly
on his back.

Hoa hoa! tallyho! tallyho! ho! ho!
Come, let us hunt these ugly badgers down,
These stinking foxes, these devouring otters,
These hares, these wolves, these any thing but men.
Hey, for a whipper-in! my loyal pigs,
Now let your noses be as keen as beagles',
Your steps as swift as grayhounds', and your cries
More dulcet and symphonious than the bells
Of village-towers, on sunshine holiday;
Wake all the dewy woods with jangling music.
Give them no law (are they not beasts of blood?)
But such as they gave you. Tallyho! ho!
Through forest, furze, and bog, and den, and desert,
Pursue the ugly beasts! tally ho! ho!

FULL CHORUS OF 10NA AND THE SWINE.

Tallyho! tallyho!

Through rain, hail, and snow, Through brake, gorse, and brier, Through fen, flood, and mire, We go! we go!

Tallyho! tallyho! Through pond, ditch, and slough, Wind them, and find them, Like the Devil behind them,

Tallyho! tallyho!

[Exeunt, in full cry; Iosa driving on the SWINE, with the empty GREEN BAG.

NOTE ON EDIPUS TYRANNUS.

BY THE EDITOR.

66

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 Geo. 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 the pigs would serve as chorus-and Swellfoot was begun. When finished, it was transmitted to England, printed and published anonymously; but stifled at the very dawn of its existence by the "Society for the Suppression of Vice," who threatened to prosecute it, if not immediately withdrawn. The friend who had taken the trouble of bringing it out, of course did not think it worth the annoyance and expense of a contest, and it was laid aside.

Hesitation of whether it would do honour to Shelley prevented my publishing it at first; but I cannot bring myself to keep back anything he ever wrote, for each word is fraught with the peculiar views and sentiments which he believed to be beneficial to the human race; and the bright light of poetry irradiates every thought. The world has a right to the entire compositions of such a man; for it does not live and thrive by the out-worn lesson of the dullard or the hypocrite, but by the original free thoughts of men of Genius, who aspire to pluck bright truth

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from the palefaced 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 from the waters of Lethe, which are so eagerly prescribed as medicinal for all its wrongs and woes. 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 every thing he wrote, it breathes that deep sympathy for the sorrows of humanity, and indignation against its oppressors, which make it worthy of his name.

EARLY POEMS.

MUTABILITY.

WE are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!-yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:

Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings

Give various response to each varying blast, To whose frail frame no second motion brings One mood or modulation like the last.

We rest-A dream has power to poison sleep; We rise-One wandering thought pollutes the day;

We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond wo, or cast our cares away:

It is the same!-For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free;
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

ON DEATH.

There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.-ECCLESIASTES.

THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,

Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul

Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll.

Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow,

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,

Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath

The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?

A SUMMER-EVENING CHURCHYARD, LECHDALE, GLOUCESTERSHIRE.

THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray; And pallid evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day: Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men, Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day, Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea; Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,

Responding to the charm with its own mystery. The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire, Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant Around whose lessening and invisible height [spire, Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound, Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs, Breathed from their wormy beds all living things

around,

And mingling with the still night and mute sky
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:
Here could I hope, like some inquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from
human sight

Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

ΤΟ

ΔΑΚΡΥΕΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ.

On! there are spirits in the air,

And genii of the evening breeze,

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