Till done by her own venomous sting | Through life's phantasmal scene in fear 45 lessness, to death, She left the moral world without a With virtue, love, and pleasure, hand law, No longer fettering Passion's fearless wing, Nor searing Reason with the brand of God. in hand. 75 A heap of crumbling ruins stood, and 65 threw How clear its open and unwrinkled brow! Where neither avarice, cunning, pride, nor care, Had stamped the seal of gray deformity On all the mingling lineaments of time. How lovely the intrepid front of youth! Which meek-eyed courage decked with freshest grace ; 71 Courage of soul, that dreaded not a name, And And elevated will, that journeyed on whispered strange tales in the Whirlwind's ear. 'Low through the lone cathedral's roof- | Their elements, wide scattered o'er the less aisles globe, The melancholy winds a death-dirge To happier shapes were moulded, and became rod, Whose iron thongs are red with human gore? Life is its state of action, and the store | Or tamely crouching to the tyrant's And happy regions of eternal hope. Therefore, O Spirit! fearlessly bear on: Though storms may break the primrose on its stalk, 165 Though frosts may blight the freshness of its bloom, Yet Spring's awakening breath will woo the earth, Never but bravely bearing on, thy will Is destined an eternal war to wage With tyranny and falsehood, and uproot 191 The germs of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, To feed with kindliest dews its favour-Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, Watching its wanderings as a friend's ite flower, Again the enchanted steeds were | Snuffed the gross air, and then, their yoked, Again the burning wheels inflame The steep descent of Heaven's untrodden way. Fast and far the chariot flew : Such tiny twinklers as the planet orbs narrower way. Earth floated then below: errand done, 230 NOTES ON QUEEN MAB SHELLEY'S NOTES I. 242, 243: | 5,422,400,000,000 miles, which is a distance 5,707,600 times greater than that of the sun from the earth. I. 252, 253: Whilst round the chariot's way The sun's unclouded orb Rolled through the black concave. BEYOND our atmosphere the sun would appear a rayless orb of fire in the midst of a black concave. The The plurality of worlds, the inequal diffusion of its light on earth is definite immensity of the universe, is owing to the refraction of the rays by a most awful subject of contemplation. the atmosphere, and their reflection He who rightly feels its mystery and from other bodies. Light consists grandeur is in no danger of seduction either of vibrations propagated through from the falsehoods of religious a subtle medium, or of numerous systems, or of deifying the principle minute particles repelled in all direc- of the universe. It is impossible to tions from the luminous body. Its believe that the Spirit that pervades velocity greatly exceeds that of any this infinite machine begat a son upon substance with which we are ac- the body of a Jewish woman; or is quainted: observations on the eclipses angered at the consequences of that of Jupiter's satellites have demon- necessity, which is a synonym of itself. strated that light takes up no more All that miserable tale of the Devil, than 8′ 7′′ in passing from the sun to and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the the earth, a distance of 95,000,000 childish mummeries of the God of the miles. Some idea may be gained of Jews, is irreconcilable with the knowthe immense distance of the fixed ledge of the stars. The works of His stars when it is computed that many fingers have borne witness against Him. years would elapse before light could reach this earth from the nearest of them; yet in one year light travels The nearest of the fixed stars is inconceivably distant from the earth, and they are probably proportion ably distant from each other. By who have been trepanned into the a calculation of the velocity of light, service, or who are dragged unwillingly Sirius is supposed to be at least from their peaceful homes into the field 54,224,000,000,000 miles from the of battle. A soldier is a man whose earth'. That which appears only like business it is to kill those who never a thin and silvery cloud streaking offended him, and who are the innocent the heaven is in effect composed of martyrs of other men's iniquities. innumerable clusters of suns, each Whatever may become of the abstract shining with its own light, and il-question of the justifiableness of war, luminating numbers of planets that it seems impossible that the soldier revolve around them. Millions and should not be a depraved and unmillions of suns are ranged around us, natural being. all attended by innumerable worlds, yet calm, regular, and harmonious, all keeping the paths of immutable necessity. IV. 178, 179:- To employ murder as a means of justice is an idea which a man of an enlightened mind will not dwell upon with pleasure. To march forth in rank and file, and all the pomp of streamers and trumpets, for the purpose of shooting at our fellow-men as a mark; to inflict upon them all the variety of wound and anguish; to leave them weltering in their blood; to wander over the field of desolation, and count the number of the dying and the dead, -are employments which in thesis we may maintain to be necessary, but which no good man will contemplate with gratulation and delight. A battle we suppose is won:-thus truth is established, thus the cause of justice is confirmed! It surely requires no common sagacity to discern the connexion between this immense heap of calamities and the assertion of truth or the maintenance of justice. 'Kings, and ministers of state, the real authors of the calamity, sit unmolested in their cabinet, while those against whom the fury of the storm is directed are, for the most part, persons 1 See Nicholson's Encyclopedia, art. Light. To these more serious and momentous considerations it may be proper to add a recollection of the ridiculousness of the military character. Its first constituent is obedience: a soldier is, of all descriptions of men, the most completely a machine; yet his profession inevitably teaches him something of dogmatism, swaggering, and self-consequence: he is like the puppet of a showman, who, at the very time he is made to strut and swell and display the most farcical airs, we perfectly know cannot assume the most insignificant gesture, advance either to the right or the left, but as he is moved by his exhibitor.'-Godwin's Enquirer, Essay v. I will here subjoin a little poem, so strongly expressive of my abhorrence of despotism and falsehood, that I fear lest it never again may be depictured so vividly. This opportunity is perhaps the only one that ever will occur of rescuing it from oblivion. FALSEHOOD AND VICE |