The Complete Poetical Works, vol 2 | Page 8

majestic River,?The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever?Rolls its loud waters to the ocean waves, _125 Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
5.?Mont Blanc yet gleams on high--the power is there,?The still and solemn power of many sights,?And many sounds, and much of life and death.?In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, _130 In the lone glare of day, the snows descend?Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,?Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,?Or the star-beams dart through them:--Winds contend?Silently there, and heap the snow with breath _135 Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home?The voiceless lightning in these solitudes?Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods?Over the snow. The secret strength of things?Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome _140 Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!?And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,?If to the human mind's imaginings?Silence and solitude were vacancy?
July 23, 1816.
NOTES:?_15 cloud-shadows]cloud shadows 1817;
cloud, shadows 1824; clouds, shadows 1839.?_20 Thy 1824; The 1839.?_53 unfurled]upfurled cj. James Thomson ('B.V.').?_56 Spread 1824; Speed 1839.?_69 tracks her there 1824; watches her Boscombe manuscript. _79 But for such 1824; In such a Boscombe manuscript.?_108 boundaries of the sky]boundary of the skies cj. Rossetti
(cf. lines 102, 106).?_121 torrents']torrent's 1817, 1824, 1839.
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CANCELLED PASSAGE OF MONT BLANC.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
There is a voice, not understood by all,?Sent from these desert-caves. It is the roar?Of the rent ice-cliff which the sunbeams call,?Plunging into the vale--it is the blast?Descending on the pines--the torrents pour... _5
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FRAGMENT: HOME.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,?The least of which wronged Memory ever makes?Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.
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FRAGMENT OF A GHOST STORY.
[Published by Garnett, "Relics of Shelley", 1862.]
A shovel of his ashes took?From the hearth's obscurest nook,?Muttering mysteries as she went.?Helen and Henry knew that Granny?Was as much afraid of Ghosts as any, _5 And so they followed hard--?But Helen clung to her brother's arm,?And her own spasm made her shake.
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NOTE ON POEMS OF 1816, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
Shelley wrote little during this year. The poem entitled "The Sunset" was written in the spring of the year, while still residing at Bishopsgate. He spent the summer on the shores of the Lake of Geneva. The "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" was conceived during his voyage round the lake with Lord Byron. He occupied himself during this voyage by reading the "Nouvelle Heloise" for the first time. The reading it on the very spot where the scenes are laid added to the interest; and he was at once surprised and charmed by the passionate eloquence and earnest enthralling interest that pervade this work. There was something in the character of Saint-Preux, in his abnegation of self, and in the worship he paid to Love, that coincided with Shelley's own disposition; and, though differing in many of the views and shocked by others, yet the effect of the whole was fascinating and delightful.
"Mont Blanc" was inspired by a view of that mountain and its surrounding peaks and valleys, as he lingered on the Bridge of Arve on his way through the Valley of Chamouni. Shelley makes the following mention of this poem in his publication of the "History of a Six Weeks' Tour, and Letters from Switzerland": 'The poem entitled "Mont Blanc" is written by the author of the two letters from Chamouni and Vevai. It was composed under the immediate impression of the deep and powerful feelings excited by the objects which it attempts to describe; and, as an undisciplined overflowing of the soul, rests its claim to approbation on an attempt to imitate the untamable wildness and inaccessible solemnity from which those feelings sprang.'
This was an eventful year, and less time was given to study than usual. In the list of his reading I find, in Greek, Theocritus, the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus, several of Plutarch's "Lives", and the works of Lucian. In Latin, Lucretius, Pliny's "Letters", the "Annals" and "Germany" of Tacitus. In French, the "History of the French Revolution" by Lacretelle. He read for the first time, this year, Montaigne's "Essays", and regarded them ever after as one of the most delightful and instructive books in the world. The list is scanty in English works: Locke's "Essay", "Political Justice", and Coleridge's "Lay Sermon", form nearly the whole. It was his frequent habit to read aloud to me in the evening; in this way we read, this year, the New Testament, "Paradise Lost", Spenser's "Faery Queen", and "Don Quixote".
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POEMS WRITTEN IN 1817.
MARIANNE'S DREAM.
[Composed at Marlow, 1817. Published in Hunt's "Literary Pocket-Book", 1819, and reprinted in "Posthumous Poems", 1824.]
1.?A pale Dream came to a Lady fair,?And said, A boon, a boon, I pray!?I know the secrets of the air,?And things are lost in the glare of day,?Which I can make the sleeping