I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire."

We have now taken some view of the chief of Shelley's longer
poems. Most of these were published during his life. They
brought him little applause and much execration, but if he had
written nothing else his fame would still be secure. They are,
however, less than half of the verse that he actually wrote.
Besides many completed poems, it remained for his wife to
decipher, from scraps of paper, scribbled over, interlined, and
erased, a host of fragments, all valuable, and many of them
gems of purest ray. We must now attempt a general estimate of
this whole output.



Chapter III The Poet of Rebellion, of Nature, and of Love

It may seem strange that so much space has been occupied in the
last two chapters by philosophical and political topics, and
this although Shelley is the most purely lyrical of English
poets. The fact is that in nearly all English poets there is a
strong moral and philosophical strain, particularly in those of
the period 1770-1830. They are deeply interested in political,
scientific, and religious speculations in aesthetic questions
only superficially, if at all Shelley, with the tap-roots of
his emotions striking deep into politics and philosophy, is
only an extreme instance of a national trait, which was
unusually prominent in the early part of the nineteenth century
owing to the state of our insular politics at the time though
it must be admitted that English artists of all periods have an