derful power of thought and expression. Sometimes this obscurity seems to heighten the sublimity of his poetry. Curses were on his lips, and poverty stung him to madness, and made him blaspheme the more. He was called to his great account at thirty years of age. He was drowned, and Byron erected and fired his funeral pile, and watched it as the flames ascended; but in admiring the classical beauty of the scene, he forgot to shed "the tear to friendship due.”

There is a possibility that such a mind as Shelley's might have worked itself free from the vile stuff about it, if he had been spared to a mature age. Shelley's principles were too much involved in metaphysics to have had a very deleterious effect on society. The poison lies deep in his works when there is any; it will not be sucked in by the cursory reader, and the wise one will have an antidote for it when he is in danger. There is a charm in sound principles worth all other talismans.

It is painful to see youthful virtue cut off in the early summer of life, but the pang is tenfold when misguided genius is called to depart “unanointed, unannealed." Shelley rather strove to vindicate his absurdities than to propagate his principles. His example will not be infectious, for his short life proved that disobedience and transgression are sources of misery, and that he who defies the community will find himself bound hand and foot and thrown away with contempt. Life to him is without enjoyment, and death comes without hope; he departs without the lamentations of the good, and rests without the praises of the eloquent. If those bound by the ties of consanguinity or alliance shed a tear upon his grave, it flows not

from the fountain of pure affection, but is a scalding drop, wrung from painful recollections of his worse than useless course.

DEDICATION OF THE REVOLT OF ISLAM.

TO MARY

So now my summer task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart's home;
As to his queen some victor knight of faery,
Earning bright spoils for her enchanted dome;
Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,

Its doubtful promise thus I would unite

With thy beloved name, thou child of love and light.

The toil which stole from thee so many an hour

Is ended. And the fruit is at thy feet!

No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet
Water-falls leap among wild islands green
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen:
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.

Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear friend, when first

The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass. I do remember well the hour which burst

My spirit's sleep: a fresh Maydawn it was,

When I walked forth upon the glittering grass;

And wept I knew not why; until there rose
From the near school-room, voices, that alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes,

The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

And then I clasped my hands and looked around-
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
Which poured the warm drops on the sunny ground-
So without shame, I spake:—“I will be wise,
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power; for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannize

Without reproach or check." I then controlled
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and
bold.

And from that hour did I with earnest thought
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore;
Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
I cared to learn, but from that secret store
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind;
Thus power and hope were strengthened more and
Within me, till there came upon my mind

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A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.

Alas, that love should be a blight and snare
To those who seek all sympathies in one !—
Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
Over the world in which I moved alone:-
Yet never found I one not false to me,

Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone,

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Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be
Aught but a lifeless clog until revived by thee.

Thou friend, whose presence on my wintry heart
Fell like bright spring upon some herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,
And walked as free as light the clouds among,
Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain
From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung

To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long.

No more alone through the world's wilderness,
Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went.-,
There is the wisdom of a stern content,
When poverty can blight the just and good,
When infamy dares mock the innocent,

And cherished friends turn with the multitude

To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!

Now has descended a serener hour,

And with inconstant fortune friends return;

Though suffering leaves the knowledge and the power,
Which says:-let scorn be not repaid with scorn.
And from thy side two gentle babes are born
To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we
Most fortunate beneath life's beaming morn;
And these delights, and thou, have been to me,
The parents of the song I consecrate to thee.

Is it that now my inexperienced fingers
But strike the prelude to a loftier strain?
Or must the lyre on which my spirit lingers
Soon pause in silence ne'er to sound again,
Though it might shake the anarch Custom's reign,
And charm the minds of men to Truth's own sway,
Holier than was Amphion's? it would fain

Reply in hope-but I am worn away,

And death and love are yet contending for their prey.

And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak:

Time may interpret to his silent years.

Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek,
And in the light thine ample forehead wears,
And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears,
And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy
Is whispered to subdue my fondest fears:
And through thine eyes, even in thy soul I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning internally.

They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring child.

I wonder not-for one then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
Of its departing glory; still her fame

Shines on thee, through the tempest dark and wild
Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim
The shelter from thy sire, of an immortal name.

One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit,
Which was the echo of three thousand years;
And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it,