450 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



C2»d S. V. 127., June 5. '58. 



# own poems which have no prototypes in the whole 

 range of British poesy, except in the hitherto ob- 

 scure pages of that " poet and saint " whose 

 Adonais was not unworthily sung by the " pre- 

 vailing poet" of his day, Abraham Cowley.* 



A few examples will prove this. Nothing is 

 more remarkable in Shelley's poetry than his love 

 of vivifying %nd animating everything in Nature, 

 treating all its manifestations as living beings, 

 shaping them, and endowing them with a daring 

 and a splendour of imagination that have no 

 limits. Calderon's Autos havatnuch of this ; but 

 they are too often less delicately idealised. " The 

 Cloud " is the most popular instance of this in 

 Shelley, but there are many others ; none perhaps 

 more pleasing than those that have a reference to 

 Night. In his exquisite address " To Night," we 

 have the following lines : — 



♦' Wrap thy form in a mantle-grey 

 Star-inwrought ; 

 Blind with thine hair the eyes of day," &c. 



In an earlier poem we have the same idea : — 



" And pallid evening twines its beaming hair 

 In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day." 



The following line from Crasbaw is in perfect 

 unison with these : — 



" Night hangs yet heavy on the lids of day," (p. 60.) 



* While on the subject of Shelley, I may perhaps be 

 permitted to put on record a fact personal to myself, 

 •which, as it indicates an early and boyish enthusiasm for 

 the poet, long before an edition of his works emanated 

 from Dover Street, or indeed before any English edition 

 of his collected poems was in existence, and before I knew 

 of a French one, may be mentioned, as a correct anti- 

 cipation of that later interest in his life and writings 

 which has led in the present year to the publication of 

 three distinct biographical works which, with more or less 

 success, have been devoted to his memorj'. In " The 

 Shelley Papers " by Captain Medwin, which appeared 

 many years ago in the Athenceum, a brief allusion was 

 made to Shelley's visit to Dublin in 1812. By assiduous 

 search among booksellers and in public libraries here, I 

 not only procured a copy of " An Address to the Irish 

 People," which Shellej' published and circulated in Dublin 

 in that year upon " Catholic Emancipation " and a " Re- 

 peal of the Union ; " but I discovered among some old 

 newspapers two or three versions of a speech which the 

 aiathor of Prometheus Unbound delivered in Fishamble 

 Street Theatre upon the 28th February in that year, in 

 the presence of Mr. O'Connell and the other political 

 leaders of the time. All the information thus collected 

 I published about twelve years ago in an Essay on Shelley 

 in the Nation newspaper. Subsequently, Dr. Madden, in 

 the second edition of his Life of Lady Blessington, made 

 use of this Essay, &c. (which I lent him for the purpose) 

 with due acknowledgment of the source whence the in- 

 formation was derived, and with a kindly mention of my 

 name, for which 1 have always felt obliged. The same 

 matter, with additional references supplied by me, has 

 been lately made use of by Mr. Middleton in his Shelley 

 and his Writings, and is erroneously attributed by him, 

 in his Preface to that work, to the gentleman who was 

 merely the medium of communicating the information 

 so collected to his publisher. — D. F. M*C. 



Or this entire stanza from an earlier portion of 

 the same poem : — 



" Now had the night's companion from her den, 

 Where all the busy day she close doth lie, 

 With her soft wing wiped from the brows of men 

 Day's sweat ; and by a gentle tyranny. 

 And sweet oppression, kindly cheating them 

 Of all their cares, tamed the rebellious eye 

 Of sorrow ; with a soft and downy hand 

 Sealing all breasts in a Lethcean band." — P. 56. 



Shelley's 



" Touching all with thine opiate wand," 

 harmonises singularly, even as to rhyme, with the 

 last two lines, while Crashaw's 



" Where all the busy day " 

 and Shelley's 



" Where all the long and lone daylight " 



seem to have a wonderful affinity towards each 

 other. 



Before I part from this particular poem of 

 Crashaw, which, though a translation, is con- 

 ceived and expressed in an original spirit, allow 

 me to give a few extracts, which seem to me 

 written in the very spirit of " The Witch of 

 Atlas." The following stanza, if found detached, 

 most readers would attribute to that poem : — 



" He saw rich nectar-thaws release the rigour 

 Of th' icy North ; from frost-bound Atlas' hands 

 His adamantine fetters fall ; green vigour 

 Gladding the Scythian rocks and Libyian sands ; 

 He saw a vernal smile sweetly disfigure 

 Winter's sad face, and through the flow'ry lands 

 Of fair Engaddi, honey-sweating fountains 

 With manna, milk, and balm new broach the 

 mountains." — P. 46. 



Or this passage : — 



" Art thou not Lucifer ? he to whom the droves 

 Of stars that gild tlie morn in charge were given ? 

 The nimblest of the lightning-winged loves?" — P. 60. 



At p. 60. we have Shelley's favourite word 

 " unrest," which he more than any other modern 

 poet has contributed to revive. Crashaw's line is 

 " The worm of jealous envy and unrest." 

 Shelley's — 



" And that unrest which men miscall delight." 

 But enough has been said of this poem.* 



A favourite expression of endearment which 

 most poets have used towards Nature, and none 

 more than Shelley, is that of Mother. We have 

 repeated instances of it in his poems. In Alastro 

 we have : — 



" If our great Mother have imbued my soul." 



* There is a fine line in this poem which would serve 

 as an admirable motto for Hood's " Song of the Shirt " — 

 " They prick a bleeding heart at every stitch." —P. 54. 



The whole story of that remarkable Ij'ric is told in this 

 line. 



