lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

SCOTT, BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATSbut the difference between Blake and Shelley has beenso well described by Mr Arthur Symons, that I shallquote his words because it will save me from muchtalk about the content of Shelley's lyric: "All his lifeShelley was a dreamer, never a visionary. We imaginehim, like his Asia on the pinnacle, saying:my brainGrows dizzy ; see'st thou shapes within the mist ?The mist to Shelley was part of what he saw; henever saw anything, in life or art, except through amist. Blake lived in a continual state of vision,Shelley in a continual state of hallucination. WhatBlake saw was what Shelley wanted to see; Blakenever dreamed, but Shelley never wakened out of thatshadow of a dream which was his life. 55 A mistinessofcontent, the absence of the final vividness of vision,and with all the ardour of his humanitarian feelinga want of the convincing human touch of the verseI have quoted above from Blake, these are the thingsthat must be discounted in Shelley's poetry if one isto enjoy its ineffable music.For of Shelley's poetry more than that of any of theromantics is Mr Drinkwater's dictum true, that allpoetry is lyrical. In two longer poems, followingHunt and Byron, he essayed to talk in verse—Julianand Maddalo and the Letter to Maria Gisborne; and nothere alone but also, though this has not been emphasised,in some of his last most intimate lyrics—"Doyou not hear the Aziola cry? 55 , "The Serpent is shutout from Paradise," "Now the last day of many days,""Ariel to Miranda." These are in the tone of onewho talks in gentle, winning accents. But evenShelley's talk is winged. The albatross moves across47