I sit upon the sands alone, The lightning of the noon-tide ocean Is flashing round me, and a tone Arises from its measured1 motion, How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. III. Alas! I have nor hope nor health, And walked with inward glory crowned- Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;- IV. Yet now despair itself is mild, Even as the winds and waters are; Breathe o'er my dying2 brain its last monotony. in pointing out the omission of the line, gives The purple noon's transparent might,The breath of the west wind is light, and he says he copied the poem from Shelley's MS. into a commonplace book. Those who care to follow up any thread, however frail, in unravelling the growth of Shelley's verse, should read, for what it is worth, Medwin's account of the genesis of this poem (Life of Shelley, Vol. I, p. 324 et seq.), said to have been called forth by the tragic end of an unknown adorer of the poet's. 1 Medwin reads Arises from its mingled motion, How sweet! if any heart could share in my emotion. 2 Medwin reads outworn for dying. This variation commends itself to me as evidence in favour of the authenticity of his transcripts. The epithet is Shelley-like, and yet fits the line imperfectly, so that it would be likely to be removed after Medwin had copied the poem. V. Some might lament that I were cold, Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. AUTUMN: 1 A DIRGE. I. THE warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, And the year On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, Is lying. Come, months, come away, From November to May, In your saddest array; Follow the bier Of the dead cold year, And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 1 Mrs. Shelley places this among poems written in 1820. II. The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling, The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone Come, months, come away; Put on white, black, and grey; Let your light sisters play- Of the dead cold year, And make her grave green with tear on tear. [The Mask of Anarchy was written in 1819 on the occasion of the infamous "Peterloo" affair, and was sent to Leigh Hunt, for publication in The Examiner, before November 1819. Hunt did not publish it then, but issued it in 1832 in a little volume, with a preface of considerable interest, reprinted in the appendix to the present volume. The title of this volume runs as follows: "The Masque of Anarchy. A Poem. By Percy Bysshe Shelley. Now first published, with a Preface by Leigh Hunt." There is a motto from Laon and Cythna,— Hope is strong; Justice and Truth their winged child have found. The imprint is "London: Edward Moxon, 64, New Bond Street, 1832." The MS. from which the poem is now given is that sent to Leigh Hunt; and it is headed, in Shelley's writing, The Mask of Anarchy written on the occasion of the Massacre at Manchester. It is mainly in Mrs. Shelley's handwriting; and I am strongly under the impression that it was dictated by Shelley from his rough notes;-for there are lines filled in in his writing, as if he had, in the ardour of recomposition, told his amanuensis not to wait when there was any hitch, but to go on and leave blanks for him to fill. The insertions and corrections in his writing are made with a much broader pen (or heavier pressure) than was used by Mrs. Shelley; and this fact is valuable in proving that he went over the whole MS. very carefully after her. The corrections in punctuation and minor detail, with the heavier pen, are very numerous. Some of them are specified in my notes; and Mr. G. I. F. Tupper has produced a fac-simile (inserted opposite) of some of the altered stanzas. I am indebted to Mr. Townshend Mayer for the use of this most valuable MS.-H. B. F.] |