of spiritual intelligences which interpenetrate the world we see,of those

Ten thousand orbs involving and involved,
Peopled with unimaginable shapes,
Yet each intertranspicuous,'—

...

...

it must needs be that the reflection of these transcendent things should come to us in forms that luxuriate into arabesque, in colours that shimmer into iridescence, in speech that kindles into imagery; while yet we can with little doubt discern whether he who addresses us is merely illuminating the mists of his own mind, or 'has beheld' (as Plato has it) 'and been initiated into the most blessed of initiations, gazing on simple and imperishable and happy visions in a stainless day.'

And, finally, if we are told that, whatever these visions or mysteries may be, Shelley has not revealed them; that he has contributed nothing to the common faith and creed of men,-has only added to their aspiring anthem one keen melodious cry ;— we answer that this common religion of all the world advances by many kinds of prophecy, and is spread abroad by the flying flames of pure emotion as well as by the solid incandescence of eternal truth. Some few souls indeed there are,- -a Plato, a Dante, a Wordsworth,-whom we may without extravagance call stars of the spiritual firmament, so sure and lasting seems their testimony to those realities which life hides from us as sunlight hides the depth of heaven. But we affirm that in Shelley too there is a testimony of like kind, though it has less of substance and definition, and seems to float diffused in an ethereal loveliness. We may rather liken him to the dewdrop of his own song, which

'becomes a winged mist

And wanders up the vault of the blue day,

Outlives the noon, and in the sun's last ray

Hangs o'er the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst.'

For the hues of sunset also have for us their revelation. We look, and the conviction steals over us that such a spectacle can be no accident in the scheme of things; that the whole universe is tending to beauty; and that the apocalypse of that crimsoned heaven may be not the less authentic because it is so fugitive, not the less real because it comes to us in a fantasy wrought but of light and air.

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS.

STANZAS - APRIL 1814.

Away! the moor is dark beneath the moon, Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even : Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon, And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven. Pause not the time is past! Every voice cries 'Away!' Tempt not with one last tear thy friend's ungentle mood: Thy lover's eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay: Duty and dereliction guide thee back to solitude.

Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;

Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth;

Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come, And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth. The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head, The blooms of dewy Spring shall gleam beneath thy feet: But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds

the dead,

Ere midnight's frown and morning's smile, ere thou and peace,

may meet.

The cloud-shadows of midnight possess their own repose, For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep; Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows: Whatever moves or toils or grieves hath its appointed sleep.

Thou in the grave shalt rest :—yet, till the phantoms flee Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee

erewhile,

Thy remembrance and repentance ånd deep musings are not free From the music of two voices, and the light of one sweet smile.

FROM 'ALASTOR; OR, THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE.'

Nondum amabam, et amare amabam, quaerébam quid amarem amans amare. Confess. St. August.

Earth, Ocean, Air, beloved brotherhood!

If our great mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel

Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the grey grass and bare boughs-
If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses-have been dear to me;
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast,
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred; then forgive
This boast, beloved brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favour now!

bed

Mother of this unfathomable world,
Favour my solemn song! for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever `gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my
In charnels and on coffins, where black Death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee;
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale

Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,

When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist

Staking his very life on some dark hope,

Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love; until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmèd night
To render up thy charge. And, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
Enough from incommunicable dream,

And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless (as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome

Of some mysterious and deserted fane)

I wait thy breath, Great Parent; that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,

And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

There was a Poet whose untimely tomb
No human hand with pious reverence reared,
But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds
Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid
Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness.
A lovely youth, no mourning maiden decked
With weeping flowers or votive cypress-wreath
The lone couch of his everlasting sleep:
Gentle and brave and generous, no lorn bard
Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh:
He lived, he died, he sang, in solitude.
Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes;
And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined
And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes.
The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn,
And Silence, too enamoured of that voice,
Locks its mute music in her rugged cell.

By solemn vision and bright silver dream
His infancy was nurtured. Every sight

And sound from the vast earth and ambient air

Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.

The fountains of divine philosophy

Fled not his thirsting lips: and all of great
Or good or lovely which the sacred past

In truth or fable consecrates he felt

And knew. When early youth had passed, he left
His cold fireside and alienated home,

To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps
He like her shadow has pursued, where'er

The red volcano overcanopies

Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice

With burning smoke; or where bitumen-lakes
On black bare pointed islets ever beat

With sluggish surge; or where the secret caves
Rugged and dark, winding among the springs
Of fire and poison, inaccessible

To avarice or pride, their starry domes
Of diamond and of gold expand above
Numberless and immeasurable halls,

Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines
Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty

Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims
To love and wonder. He would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home;
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks,-
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form

More graceful than her own.

His wandering step,

Obedient to high thoughts, has visited