No More Learning

We
were not, as our wont had been, alone; friends had gathered round us.
Nearly all are dead, and, when Memory recurs to the past, she wanders
among tombs. The genius, with all his blighting errors and mighty
powers; the companion of Shelley's ocean-wanderings, and the sharer of
his fate, than whom no man ever existed more gentle, generous, and
fearless; and others, who found in Shelley's society, and in his great
knowledge and warm sympathy, delight, instruction, and solace; have
joined him beyond the grave. A few survive who have felt life a desert
since he left it. What misfortune can equal death? Change can convert
every other into a blessing, or heal its sting--death alone has no
cure. It shakes the foundations of the earth on which we tread; it
destroys its beauty; it casts down our shelter; it exposes us bare to
desolation. When those we love have passed into eternity, 'life is the
desert and the solitude' in which we are forced to linger--but never
find comfort more.

There is much in the "Adonais" which seems now more applicable to
Shelley himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The
poetic view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards
his calumniators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received
among immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished
into emptiness before the fame he inherits.

Shelley's favourite taste was boating; when living near the Thames or
by the Lake of Geneva, much of his life was spent on the water. On the
shore of every lake or stream or sea near which he dwelt, he had a boat
moored. He had latterly enjoyed this pleasure again. There are no
pleasure-boats on the Arno; and the shallowness of its waters (except
in winter-time, when the stream is too turbid and impetuous for
boating) rendered it difficult to get any skiff light enough to float.
Shelley, however, overcame the difficulty; he, together with a friend,
contrived a boat such as the huntsmen carry about with them in the
Maremma, to cross the sluggish but deep streams that intersect the
forests,--a boat of laths and pitched canvas.
It held three persons;
and he was often seen on the Arno in it, to the horror of the Italians,
who remonstrated on the danger, and could not understand how anyone
could take pleasure in an exercise that risked life. 'Ma va per la
vita! ' they exclaimed. I little thought how true their words would
prove. He once ventured, with a friend, on the glassy sea of a calm
day, down the Arno and round the coast to Leghorn, which, by keeping
close in shore, was very practicable. They returned to Pisa by the
canal, when, missing the direct cut, they got entangled among weeds,
and the boat upset; a wetting was all the harm done, except that the
intense cold of his drenched clothes made Shelley faint. Once I went
down with him to the mouth of the Arno, where the stream, then high and
swift, met the tideless sea, and disturbed its sluggish waters. It was
a waste and dreary scene; the desert sand stretched into a point
surrounded by waves that broke idly though perpetually around; it was a
scene very similar to Lido, of which he had said--

'I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
More barren than its billows. '

Our little boat was of greater use, unaccompanied by any danger, when
we removed to the Baths. Some friends lived at the village of Pugnano,
four miles off, and we went to and fro to see them, in our boat, by the
canal; which, fed by the Serchio, was, though an artificial, a full and
picturesque stream, making its way under verdant banks, sheltered by
trees that dipped their boughs into the murmuring waters. By day,
multitudes of Ephemera darted to and fro on the surface; at night, the
fireflies came out among the shrubs on the banks; the cicale at
noon-day kept up their hum; the aziola cooed in the quiet evening. It
was a pleasant summer, bright in all but Shelley's health and
inconstant spirits; yet he enjoyed himself greatly, and became more and
more attached to the part of the country were chance appeared to cast
us. Sometimes he projected taking a farm situated on the height of one
of the near hills, surrounded by chestnut and pine woods, and
overlooking a wide extent of country: or settling still farther in the
maritime Apennines, at Massa. Several of his slighter and unfinished
poems were inspired by these scenes, and by the companions around us.
It is the nature of that poetry, however, which overflows from the soul
oftener to express sorrow and regret than joy; for it is when oppressed
by the weight of life, and away from those he loves, that the poet has
recourse to the solace of expression in verse.

Still, Shelley's passion was the ocean; and he wished that our summers,
instead of being passed among the hills near Pisa, should be spent on
the shores of the sea.