A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls When on the threshold of the green recess The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, Did he resign his high and holy soul To images of the majestic past, That paused within his passive being now, Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest, The hovering powers of life. Hope and despair, The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there O, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice For life and power, even when his feeble hand Lifts still its solemn voice ;-but thou art fled: That image sleep in death, upon that form hues Nor, when those Are gone, and those divinest lineaments, Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, NOTE ON ALASTOR. BY THE EDITOR. "ALASTOR" is written in a very different tone from "Queen Mab." In the latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his youth-all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny of his fellowcreatures, gave birth. "Alastor," on the contrary, contains an individual interest only. A very few years, with their attendant events, had checked the ardour of Shelley's hopes, though he still thought them well-grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the noblest task man could achieve. 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 |