THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Contents.

ib.

Page
Sonnet. Ozymandias

237
• Ye hasten to the dead! What seek
ye there?»

ib.
Political Greatness

ib.
Alas! good friend, what profit can
you see »

• Lift not the painted veil which those
who live ,

ib.
To Wordsworth

ib.
Feelings of a Republican on the Fall
of Bonaparte

ib.
Dante Alighieri to Guido Cavalcanti ib.

Translated from the Greek of Moschus 238
TRANSLATIONS :-

Hymn to Mercury- translated from Homer. ib.
The Cyclops; a Satiric Drama, translated from
the Greek of Euripides,

245

Page Scenes, from the « Magico Prodigioso . of Cal. deron

253 Translation from Moschus

260 Scenes from the « Faust » of Goethe.

- Prologue in Heaven

260 May-Day Night

261 FRAGMENTS:

Ginevra
Charles the First

· 267 From an unfinished Drama

270 Prince Athapase

ib. Mazengbi

273 The Woodman and the Nightingale

274 To the Moon Song for Tasso

ib. Epitaph

ib. The Waning Moon

ib.

.

--

275

The Publishers of the present edition of Mr Shelley's have appealed, therefore, to the most universal of all Poetical Works think it necessary to state, that the first feelings, and have endeavoured to strengthen the moral poem in the collection, The Revolt of Islam,» did sense, by forbidding it to waste its energics in seeking not originally bear that title: it appeared under the to avoid actions which are only crimes of convention. name of «LAON AND Cytona; or the Revolution of the It is because there is so great a multitude of artificial Golden City: a Vision of the Nineteenth Century.. vices, that there are so few real virtues. Those feelings But, with the exception of this change of name, -into alone which are benevolent or malevolent are essenthe reasons that led to which it is now unnecessary to lially good or bad. The circumstance of which I speak inquire-some inconsiderable verbal corrections, and was introduced, however, merely to accustom men to the omission of the following paragraph and note in that charity and toleration, wbich the exhibition of a

the preface, the poem is in all respects the same as when practice widely differing from their own lias a tendency first given to the public.

to promote. Nothing, indeed, can be more mischievous In the personal conduct of my hero and heroine, than many actions innocent in themselves, which might there is one circumstance which was intended to startle bring down upon individuals the bigoted contempt and the reader from the trance of ordinary life. It was my rage of the multitude.» object to break through the crust of those outworn

1 The sentiments connected with and characteristic of this ciropinions on which established institutions depend. Icumstance have no personal reference to the writer.

Memoir of Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Field-Place, in the county of Sussex, was the spot fagging, which pedagogues are bold enough to where Percy Bysshe Shelley first saw the light. defend openly at the present hour. He was born on the 4th of August, 1792; and At Oxford he imprudently printed a dissertawas the eldest son of Sir Timothy Shelley, Bart. tion on the being of a God, which caused his of Castle-Goring. His family is an ancient one, expulsion in his second term, as he refused to and a branch of it has become the representative retract any of his opinions ; and thereby inof the house of the illustrious Sir Philip Sidney curred the marked displeasure of his father, of Penshurst. Despising honours which only rest This expulsion arising, as he believed conscienupou the accidental circumstances of birth, Shel- tiously, from his avowal of what he thought to ley was proud of this connection with an im- be true, did not deeply affect him. His mind mortal name. At the customary age, about thir- seems to have been wandering in a maze of teen, he was sent to Eton School, and before be doubt at times between truth and error, arhad completed his fifteenth year, he published dently desirous of finding the truth, warm in two novels, the Rosicrucian and Zasterozzi. From its pursuit, but without a pole-star to guide Eton he removed to University College, Oxford, him in steering after it. In this state of things to mature his studies, at the age of sixteen, an he met with the Political Justice of Godwin, earlier period than is usual. At Oxford he was, and read it with eagerness and delight. What according to custom, imbued with the elemevts he had wanted he had now found; he determined of logic; and he ventured, in contempt of the that justice should be his sole guide, and justice fiat of the University, to apply them to the in- alone. He regarded not whether what he did vestigation of questions which it is orthodox to was after the fashion of the world; he pursued take for granted. His original and uncompro- the career be had marked out with sincerity, and mising spirit of inquiry could not reconcile the excited censure for some of his actions and praise limited use of logical principles. He boldly for others, bordering upon wonder, in proportion tested, or attempted to test, propositions which as they were singular, or as their motives could he imagined, the more they were obscure, and not be appreciated. His notions at the University the more claim they had upon his credence, the tended to atheism; and in a work which he pubgreater was the necessity for examining them. lished entitled « Queen Mah,» it is evident that His spirit was an inquiring one, and he fearlessly this doctrine had at one time a hold upon his sought after what he believed to be truth, be- mind. This was printed for private circulation fore, it is probable, he had acquired all the in- only, and was pirated by a knavish bookseller formation necessary to guide him, from collateral and given to the public, long after the writer sources-a cominon error of headstrong youth. had altered many of the opinions expressed in it, This is the more likely to be the case, as when disclaimed it, and Jamented its having been time had matured his knowledge, he differed printed. He spoke of the commonly-received much on poiuts upon which, in callow years and notions of God with contenipt; and hence the without an instructor, flung upon the world to idea that he denied the being of any superinform his own principles of action, guileless, and tending first cause. He was not on this head sufvehement, he was wont to advocate strongly. ficievtly explicit. He seemed hopeless, in moShelley possessed the bold quality of inquiring ments of low spirits, of there being such a ruling into the reason of every thing, and of resisting power as he wished, yet he ever clung to the idea what he could not reconcile to be right accord- of some great spirit of intellectual beauty ing to his conscience. In some persons this has being throughout all things. His life was inbeen denominated a virtue, in others a sin--just flexibly moral and benevolent. He acted up to as it might happen to chime in with worldly the theory of his received doctrine of justice; custom or received opinion. At school he formed and, after all the censures that were cast upon a conspiracy for resistance to that most odious him, who shall impugn the man who thus acts and detestable custom of English seminaries, and lives?

a