lyrical poetry - OUDL Home

LYRICALPOETRYDante's Paradiso affords. It is a tale of little meaning,though the words are strong and the feeling fervent.There remain the lyrics, and the fragments of lyrics,pure and simple, in which Shelley pours forth all theecstasy of his personal sorrows and joys. Here Shelleysings indeed with no suggestion of declamation orchanting. The lyrical measures set him free to utterwhat he desires or imagines, unhampered by logic ornarrative. He was strangely slow in discovering hisown powers. The first unmistakably Shelleyan lyricis the stanzas of 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.In that he masters for the first time the possibilitiesof the free accentual foot of English verse of whichhe is to employ almost every possible variety—iambic,anapaestic, trochaic, dactylic—understanding also howwithin the same song or verse one may pass fromtrochaic or dactylic to anapaestic and iambic effects:Swiftly walk | over the [ Western | waves,Spirit of I NightOut of the I misty | eastern | caves,Where all | the long | and lone | daylightThou wov|est dreams | of joy | and fear,Which make | thee ter|rible | and dear,—Swift be thy flight.But that belongs to 1821. Before it had come, in1815, " We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon "50