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第5节

shelley-第5节

小说: shelley 字数: 每页4000字

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amazing lyric world; where immortal clarities sigh past in the

perfumes of the blossoms; populate the breathings of the breeze;

throng and twinkle in the leaves that twirl upon the bough; where

the very grass is all a…rustle with lovely spirit…things; and a

weeping mist of music fills the air。  The final scenes especially

are such a Bacchic reel and rout and revelry of beauty as leaves one

staggered and giddy; poetry is spilt like wine; music runs to

drunken waste。  The choruses sweep down the wind; tirelessly; flight

after flight; till the breathless soul almost cries for respite from

the unrolling splendours。  Yet these scenes; so wonderful from a

purely poetical standpoint that no one could wish them away; are (to

our humble thinking) nevertheless the artistic error of the poem。

Abstractedly; the development of Shelley's idea required that he

should show the earthly paradise which was to follow the fall of

Zeus。  But dramatically with that fall the action ceases; and the

drama should have ceased with it。  A final chorus; or choral series;

of rejoicings (such as does ultimately end the drama where

Prometheus appears on the scene) would have been legitimate enough。

Instead; however; the bewildered reader finds the drama unfolding

itself through scene after scene which leaves the action precisely

where it found it; because there is no longer an action to advance。

It is as if the choral finale of an opera were prolonged through two


acts。



We have; nevertheless; called Prometheus Shelley's greatest poem

because it is the most comprehensive storehouse of his power。  Were

we asked to name the most PERFECT among his longer efforts; we

should name the poem in which he lamented Keats:  under the shed

petals of his lovely fancy giving the slain bird a silken burial。

Seldom is the death of a poet mourned in true poetry。  Not often is

the singer coffined in laurel…wood。  Among the very few exceptions

to such a rule; the greatest is Adonais。  In the English language

only Lycidas competes with it; and when we prefer Adonais to

Lycidas; we are following the precedent set in the case of Cicero:

Adonais is the longer。  As regards command over abstraction; it is

no less characteristically Shelleian than Prometheus。  It is

throughout a series of abstractions vitalised with daring

exquisiteness; from Morning who sought:





Her eastern watch…tower; and her hair unbound;

Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground;





and who





Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day;





to the Dreams that were the flock of the dead shepherd; the Dreams





Whom near the living streams

Of his young spirit he fed; and whom he taught

The love that was its music;





of whom one sees; as she hangs mourning over him;





Upon the silken fringe of his faint eyes;

Like dew upon a sleeping flower; there lies

A tear some dream has loosened from his brain!

Lost angel of a ruined Paradise!

She knew not 'twas her own; as with no stain

She faded like a cloud which hath outwept its rain。





In the solar spectrum; beyond the extreme red and extreme violet

rays; are whole series of colours; demonstrable; but imperceptible

to gross human vision。  Such writing as this we have quoted renders

visible the invisibilities of imaginative colour。



One thing prevents Adonais from being ideally perfect:  its lack of

Christian hope。  Yet we remember well the writer of a popular memoir

on Keats proposing as 〃the best consolation for the mind pained by

this sad record〃 Shelley's inexpressibly sad exposition of

Pantheistic immortality:





He is a portion of the loveliness

Which once he made more lovely; etc。





What desolation can it be that discerns comfort in this hope; whose

wan countenance is as the countenance of a despair?  What deepest

depth of agony is it that finds consolation in this immortality:  an

immortality which thrusts you into death; the maw of Nature; that

your dissolved elements may circulate through her veins?



Yet such; the poet tells me; is my sole balm for the hurts of life。

I am as the vocal breath floating from an organ。  I too shall fade

on the winds; a cadence soon forgotten。  So I dissolve and die; and

am lost in the ears of men:  the particles of my being twine in

newer melodies; and from my one death arise a hundred lives。  Why;

through the thin partition of this consolation Pantheism can hear

the groans of its neighbour; Pessimism。  Better almost the black

resignation which the fatalist draws from his own hopelessness; from

the fierce kisses of misery that hiss against his tears。



With some gleams; it is true; of more than mock solace; Adonais is

lighted; but they are obtained by implicitly assuming the personal

immortality which the poem explicitly denies; as when; for instance;

to greet the dead youth;





The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 'thought

Rose from their thrones; built beyond mortal

Far in the unapparent。





And again the final stanza of the poem:





The breath whose might I have invoked in song

Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven

Far from the shore; far from the trembling throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest riven;

The massy earth; the sphered skies are given:

I am borne darkly; fearfully afar;

Whilst; burning through the inmost veil of heaven;

The soul of Adonais like a star

Beacons from the abode where the eternal are。





The Soul of Adonais?Adonais; who is but





A portion of the loveliness

Which once he made more lovely。





After all; to finish where we began; perhaps the poems on which the

lover of Shelley leans most lovingly; which he has oftenest in his

mind; which best represent Shelley to him and which he instinctively

reverts to when Shelley's name is mentioned are some of the shorter

poems and detached lyrics。  Here Shelley forgets for a while all

that ever makes his verse turbid; forgets that he is anything but a

poet; forgets sometimes that he is anything but a child; lies back

in his skiff; and looks at the clouds。  He plays truant from earth;

slips through the wicket of fancy into heaven's meadow; and goes

gathering stars。  Here we have that absolute virgin…gold of song

which is the scarcest among human products; and for which we can go

to but three poetsColeridge; Shelley; Chopin; {8} and perhaps we

should add Keats。  Christabel and Kubla…Khan; The Skylark; The

Cloud; and The Sensitive Plant (in its first two parts)。  The Eve of

Saint Agnes and The Nightingale; certain of the Nocturnes;these

things make very quintessentialised loveliness。  It is attar of

poetry。



Remark; as a thing worth remarking; that; although Shelley's diction

is at other times singularly rich; it ceases in these poems to be

rich; or to obtrude itself at all; it is imperceptible; his Muse has

become a veritable Echo; whose body has dissolved from about her

voice。  Indeed; when his diction is richest; nevertheless the poetry

so dominates the expression that we feel the latter only as an

atmosphere until we are satiated with the former; then we discover

with surprise to how imperial a vesture we had been blinded by

gazing on the face of his song。  A lesson; this; deserving to be

conned by a generation so opposite in tendency as our own:  a lesson

that in poetry; as in the Kingdom of God; we should not take thought

too greatly wherewith we shall be clothed; but seek first {9} the

spirit; and all these things will be added unto us。



On the marvellous music of Shelley's verse we need not dwell; except

to note that he avoids that metronomic beat of rhythm which Edgar

Poe introduced into modern lyric measures; as Pope introduced it

into the rhyming heroics of his day。  Our varied metres are becoming

as painfully over…polished as Pope's one metre。  Shelley could at

need sacrifice smoothness to fitness。  He could write an anapaest

that would send Mr。 Swinburne into strong shudders (e。g。; 〃stream

did glide〃) when he instinctively felt that by so forgoing the more

obvious music of melody he would better secure the higher music of

harmony。  If we have to add that in other ways he was far from

escaping the defects of his merits; and would sometimes have to

acknowledge that his Nilotic flood too often overflowed its banks;

what is this but saying that he died young?





It may be thought that in our casual comments on Shelley's life we

have been blind to its evil side。  That; however; is not the case。

We see clearly that he committed grave sins; and one cruel crime;

but we remember also that he was an Atheist from his boyhood; we

reflect how gross must have been the moral neglect in the training

of a child who COULD be an Atheist from his boyhood:  and we decline

to judge so unhappy a being by the rules which we should apply to a

Catholic。  It seems to us that Shelley was strugglingblindly;

weakly; stumblingly; but still struggling

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