The Complete Poetical Works, vol 1 | Page 6

find extenuation among his fellows, since they prove him to be
human; without them, the exalted nature of his soul would have raised
him into something divine.
The qualities that struck any one newly introduced to Shelley
were,--First, a gentle and cordial goodness that animated his intercourse
with warm affection and helpful sympathy. The other, the eagerness
and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of human
happiness and improvement; and the fervent eloquence with which he
discussed such subjects. His conversation was marked by its happy
abundance, and the beautiful language in which he clothed his poetic
ideas and philosophical notions. To defecate life of its misery and its
evil was the ruling passion of his soul; he dedicated to it every power of
his mind, every pulsation of his heart. He looked on political freedom
as the direct agent to effect the happiness of mankind; and thus any
new-sprung hope of liberty inspired a joy and an exultation more

intense and wild than he could have felt for any personal advantage.
Those who have never experienced the workings of passion on general
and unselfish subjects cannot understand this; and it must be difficult of
comprehension to the younger generation rising around, since they
cannot remember the scorn and hatred with which the partisans of
reform were regarded some few years ago, nor the persecutions to
which they were exposed. He had been from youth the victim of the
state of feeling inspired by the reaction of the French Revolution; and
believing firmly in the justice and excellence of his views, it cannot be
wondered that a nature as sensitive, as impetuous, and as generous as
his, should put its whole force into the attempt to alleviate for others
the evils of those systems from which he had himself suffered. Many
advantages attended his birth; he spurned them all when balanced with
what he considered his duties. He was generous to imprudence, devoted
to heroism.
These characteristics breathe throughout his poetry. The struggle for
human weal; the resolution firm to martyrdom; the impetuous pursuit,
the glad triumph in good; the determination not to despair;--such were
the features that marked those of his works which he regarded with
most complacency, as sustained by a lofty subject and useful aim.
In addition to these, his poems may be divided into two classes,--the
purely imaginative, and those which sprang from the emotions of his
heart. Among the former may be classed the "Witch of Atlas",
"Adonais", and his latest composition, left imperfect, the "Triumph of
Life". In the first of these particularly he gave the reins to his fancy,
and luxuriated in every idea as it rose; in all there is that sense of
mystery which formed an essential portion of his perception of life--a
clinging to the subtler inner spirit, rather than to the outward form--a
curious and metaphysical anatomy of human passion and perception.
The second class is, of course, the more popular, as appealing at once
to emotions common to us all; some of these rest on the passion of love;
others on grief and despondency; others on the sentiments inspired by
natural objects. Shelley's conception of love was exalted, absorbing,
allied to all that is purest and noblest in our nature, and warmed by

earnest passion; such it appears when he gave it a voice in verse. Yet he
was usually averse to expressing these feelings, except when highly
idealized; and many of his more beautiful effusions he had cast aside
unfinished, and they were never seen by me till after I had lost him.
Others, as for instance "Rosalind and Helen" and "Lines written among
the Euganean Hills", I found among his papers by chance; and with
some difficulty urged him to complete them. There are others, such as
the "Ode to the Skylark and The Cloud", which, in the opinion of many
critics, bear a purer poetical stamp than any other of his productions.
They were written as his mind prompted: listening to the carolling of
the bird, aloft in the azure sky of Italy; or marking the cloud as it sped
across the heavens, while he floated in his boat on the Thames.
No poet was ever warmed by a more genuine and unforced inspiration.
His extreme sensibility gave the intensity of passion to his intellectual
pursuits; and rendered his mind keenly alive to every perception of
outward objects, as well as to his internal sensations. Such a gift is,
among the sad vicissitudes of human life, the disappointments we meet,
and the galling sense of our own mistakes and errors, fraught with pain;
to escape from such, he delivered up his soul to poetry, and felt happy
when he sheltered himself, from the influence of human sympathies, in
the wildest regions of fancy. His