P. 251. As when he tramped beside the Otter. A famous river in the new Atlantis of the Dynastophilic Pantisocratists P. 251. Shades like a rainbow's rise and flee, Mixed with a certain hungry wish. 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. That poem contains curious evidence of the gradual hardening of a strong but circumscribed 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: "The lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows and what conceals- With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels." P. 253 It was thou, Devil, dining with pure intent. 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 now 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. Nature. NOTE ON PETER BELL THE THIRD, BY MRS. SHELLEY. In this new edition I have added Peter Bell the Third. A critique on Wordsworth's Peter Bell reached us at Leghorn, which amused Shelley 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 Shelley, ideal. He conceived the idealism of a poeta 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 Shelley 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 dullness. 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 Shelley'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, THE MASQUE OF ANARCHY: WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER. I. As I lay asleep in Italy, There came a voice from over the sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy. II. I met Murder on the way- III. All were fat; and well they might For one by one, and two by two, He tossed them human hearts to chew, IV. Next came Fraud, and he had-on, Like Eldon, an ermined gown. His big tears, for he wept well, V. And the little children who Round his feet played to and fro, Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them. VI. Clothed with the bible, as with light And the shadows of the night, Like Sidmouth next, Hypocrisy VII. And many more Destructions played All disguised, even to the eyes, VIII. Last came Anarchy; he rode On a white horse splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips, IX. And he wore a kingly crown, X. With a pace stately and fast XI. And a mighty troop around With their trampling shook the ground, Waving each a bloody sword For the service of their lord. XII. And with glorious triumph they Rode through England, proud and gay, Drunk as with intoxication Of the wine of desolation. XIII. O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, Passed the pageant swift and free, XIV. And each dweller, panic-stricken, Hearing the tempestuous cry XV. For with pomp to meet him came, XVI. "We have waited, weak and lone, For thy coming, Mighty One! Our purses are empty, our swords are cold; Give us glory, and blood, and gold." XVII. Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd, XVIII. Then all cried with one accord, "Thou art King, and God, and Lord; Anarchy, to thee we bow; Be thy name made holy now!" XIX. And Anarchy the skeleton Bowed and grinned to every one As well as if his education Had cost ten millions to the nation. XX. For he knew the palaces Of our kings were nightly his; And the gold-inwoven robe. |