No More Learning

This is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that
chequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did,
he at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own
conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends
brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had
also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward;
inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his
own soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in "Queen Mab", the
whole universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of
1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a
consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute
spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life
he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary
disease vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an
unexampled degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state
of his health.

As soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad.
He visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and
returned to England from Lucerne, by the Reuss and the Rhine. This
river-navigation enchanted him. In his favourite poem of "Thalaba",
his imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In
the summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of
Devonshire and a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopgate
Heath, on the borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several
months of comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer
months were warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the
source of the Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to
Crichlade. His beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were
written on that occasion. "Alastor" was composed on his return.
He
spent his days under the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the
magnificent woodland was a fitting study to inspire the various
descriptions of forest scenery we find in the poem.

None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn
spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature,
the broodings of a poet's heart in solitude--the mingling of the
exulting joy which the various aspects of the visible universe
inspires with the sad and struggling pangs which human passion
imparts--give a touching interest to the whole. The death which he had
often contemplated during the last months as certain and near he here
represented in such colours as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his
soul to peace. The versification sustains the solemn spirit which
breathes throughout: it is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather
to be considered didactic than narrative: it was the outpouring of his
own emotions, embodied in the purest form he could conceive, painted
in the ideal hues which his brilliant imagination inspired, and
softened by the recent anticipation of death.

***


THE REVOLT OF ISLAM.

A POEM IN TWELVE CANTOS.

Osais de Broton ethnos aglaiais aptomestha
perainei pros eschaton
ploon nausi d oute pezos ion an eurois
es Uperboreon agona thaumatan odon.

Pind. Pyth. x.

[Composed in the neighbourhood of Bisham Wood, near Great Marlow,
Bucks, 1817 (April-September 23); printed, with title (dated 1818),
"Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City: A Vision of
the Nineteenth Century", October, November, 1817, but suppressed,
pending revision, by the publishers, C & J. Ollier. (A few copies had
got out, but these were recalled, and some recovered. ) Published, with
a fresh title-page and twenty-seven cancel-leaves, as "The Revolt of
Islam", January 10, 1818.