To the Volume of Posthumous Poems Published in 1824
In nobil sangue vita umile e queta,
Ed in alto intelletto un puro core
Frutto senile in sul giovenil fibre,
E in aspetto pensoso anima lieta.—PETRARCA.
It had been my wish, on presenting the public with the Posthumous
Poems of Mr. Shelley, to have accompanied them by a biographical
notice; as it appeared to me that at this moment a narration of the
events of my husband’s life would come more gracefully from other
hands than mine, I applied to Mr. Leigh Hunt. The distinguished
friendship that Mr. Shelley felt for him, and the enthusiastic
affection with which Mr. Leigh Hunt clings to his friend’s memory,
seemed to point him out as the person best calculated for such an
undertaking. His absence from this country, which prevented our mutual
explanation, has unfortunately rendered my scheme abortive. I do not
doubt but that on some other occasion he will pay this tribute to his
lost friend, and sincerely regret that the volume which I edit has not
been honoured by its insertion.
The comparative solitude in which Mr. Shelley lived was the occasion
that he was personally known to few; and his fearless enthusiasm in
the cause which he considered the most sacred upon earth, the
improvement of the moral and physical state of mankind, was the chief
reason why he, like other illustrious reformers, was pursued by hatred
and calumny. No man was ever more devoted than he to the endeavour of
making those around him happy; no man ever possessed friends more
unfeignedly attached to him. The ungrateful world did not feel his
loss, and the gap it made seemed to close as quickly over his memory
as the murderous sea above his living frame. Hereafter men will lament
that his transcendent powers of intellect were extinguished before
they had bestowed on them their choicest treasures. To his friends his
loss is irremediable: the wise, the brave, the gentle, is gone for
ever! He is to them as a bright vision, whose radiant track, left
behind in the memory, is worth all the realities that society can
afford. Before the critics contradict me, let them appeal to any one
who had ever known him. To see him was to love him: and his presence,
like Ithuriel’s spear, was alone sufficient to disclose the falsehood
of the tale which his enemies whispered in the ear of the ignorant
world.
His life was spent in the contemplation of Nature, in arduous study,
or in acts of kindness and affection. He was an elegant scholar and a
profound metaphysician; without possessing much scientific knowledge,
he was unrivalled in the justness and extent of his observations on
natural objects; he knew every plant by its name, and was familiar
with the history and habits of every production of the earth; he could
interpret without a fault each appearance in the sky; and the varied
phenomena of heaven and earth filled him with deep emotion. He made
his study and reading-room of the shadowed copse, the stream, the
lake, and the waterfall. Ill health and continual pain preyed upon his
powers; and the solitude in which we lived, particularly on our first
arrival in Italy, although congenial to his feelings, must frequently
have weighed upon his spirits; those beautiful and affecting “Lines
written in Dejection near Naples” were composed at such an interval;
but, when in health, his spirits were buoyant and youthful to an
extraordinary degree.
Such was his love for Nature that every page of his poetry is
associated, in the minds of his friends, with the loveliest scenes of
the countries which he inhabited. In early life he visited the most
beautiful parts of this country and Ireland. Afterwards the Alps of
Switzerland became his inspirers. “Prometheus Unbound” was written
among the deserted and flower-grown ruins of Rome; and, when he made
his home under the Pisan hills, their roofless recesses harboured him
as he composed the “Witch of Atlas”, “Adonais”, and “Hellas”. In the
wild but beautiful Bay of Spezzia, the winds and waves which he loved
became his playmates. His days were chiefly spent on the water; the
management of his boat, its alterations and improvements, were his
principal occupation. At night, when the unclouded moon shone on the
calm sea, he often went alone in his little shallop to the rocky caves
that bordered it, and, sitting beneath their shelter, wrote the
“Triumph of Life”, the last of his productions. The beauty but
strangeness of this lonely place, the refined pleasure which he felt
in the companionship of a few selected friends, our entire
sequestration from the rest of the world, all contributed to render
this period of his life one of continued enjoyment. I am convinced
that the two months we passed there were the happiest which he had
ever known: his health even rapidly improved, and he was never better
than when I last saw him, full of spirits and joy, embark for Leghorn,
that he might there welcome Leigh Hunt to Italy. I was to have
accompanied him; but illness confined me to my room, and thus put the
seal on my misfortune. His vessel bore out of sight with a favourable
wind, and I remained awaiting his return by the breakers of that sea
which was about to engulf him.
He spent a week at Pisa, employed in kind offices toward his friend,
and enjoying with keen delight the renewal of their intercourse. He
then embarked with Mr. Williams, the chosen and beloved sharer of his
pleasures and of his fate, to return to us. We waited for them in
vain; the sea by its restless moaning seemed to desire to inform us of
what we would not learn:—but a veil may well be drawn over such
misery. The real anguish of those moments transcended all the fictions
that the most glowing imagination ever portrayed; our seclusion, the
savage nature of the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, and our
immediate vicinity to the troubled sea, combined to imbue with strange
horror our days of uncertainty. The truth was at last known,—a truth
that made our loved and lovely Italy appear a tomb, its sky a pall.
Every heart echoed the deep lament, and my only consolation was in the
praise and earnest love that each voice bestowed and each countenance
demonstrated for him we had lost,—not, I fondly hope, for ever; his
unearthly and elevated nature is a pledge of the continuation of his
being, although in an altered form. Rome received his ashes; they are
deposited beneath its weed-grown wall, and ‘the world’s sole monument’
is enriched by his remains.
I must add a few words concerning the contents of this volume. “Julian
and Maddalo”, the “Witch of Atlas”, and most of the “Translations”,
were written some years ago; and, with the exception of the “Cyclops”,
and the Scenes from the “Magico Prodigioso”, may be considered as
having received the author’s ultimate corrections. The “Triumph of
Life” was his last work, and was left in so unfinished a state that I
arranged it in its present form with great difficulty. All his poems
which were scattered in periodical works are collected in this volume,
and I have added a reprint of “Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude”:
the difficulty with which a copy can be obtained is the cause of its
republication. Many of the Miscellaneous Poems, written on the spur of
the occasion, and never retouched, I found among his manuscript books,
and have carefully copied. I have subjoined, whenever I have been
able, the date of their composition.
I do not know whether the critics will reprehend the insertion of some
of the most imperfect among them; but I frankly own that I have been
more actuated by the fear lest any monument of his genius should
escape me than the wish of presenting nothing but what was complete to
the fastidious reader. I feel secure that the lovers of Shelley’s
poetry (who know how, more than any poet of the present day, every
line and word he wrote is instinct with peculiar beauty) will pardon
and thank me: I consecrate this volume to them.
The size of this collection has prevented the insertion of any prose
pieces. They will hereafter appear in a separate publication.