Part 6

I have shown you Shelley in his writings, his life and poetry, only where they trench on his philosophical and reform ideas--I could have related to you much about his inflexibly moral, generous, and unselfishly benevolent character--his pure, gentle and loveable existence--his utter abnegation of self, learnt from the hermetic philosophy, and his despisal of transitory legislative honors--how he, the heir to thousands of dollars annually, and a baronetage, threw aside pecuniary considerations for love of the truth and benevolence,[G] and how, therefrom, he was often nearly dying of hunger in the streets. I could have treated him simply as a poet, full of experienced impetuosity, subtlety of expression, and precision of verse, but I have aimed to exhibit one side of his immortality to you, which lives in and by the race, for humanity.

[Footnote G: "In his heart there was nothing depraved or unsound; those who had opportunities of knowing him best, tell us that his life was spent in the contemplation of nature, in arduous study, or in acts of kindness and affection. A man of learning, who shared the poverty so often attached to it, enjoyed from him at one period a pension of a hundred pounds sterling a year, and continued to enjoy it till fortune rendered it superfluous. To another man of letters, in similar circumstances, he presented fourteen hundred pounds; and many other acts like these are on record to his immortal honor. Himself a frugal and abstemious ascetic, by saving and economising, he was able to assist the industrious poor--and they had frequent cause to bless his name."--_National Magazine._]

Cut short in the youth of manhood, who can tell what Percy Bysshe Shelley might, not have become, living for us even perhaps at this moment? What need we care, though, for does not the "Empire of the dead increase of the living from age to age?" Shelley's terrestrial body may have been cast up by the waves on the lonely Italian shore, in sweet companionship with the souls of Keats and Sophocles. His mundane elements, purified through the fire, may have returned to their kindred elements, and been

"made one with Nature, where is heard His voice in all her music, from the moan Of thunder to the song of night's sweet bird; He is a presence to be felt and known, In darkness and in light, from herb and stone, Spreading itself where'er that Power move, Which has withdrawn his being to its own; Which wields the world with never-wearied love, Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above."

His cinereal ashes may lie beneath the cypresses, near the dust of the "Adonais" of his muse, under Roman sod, and where he said:

"To see the sun shining on its bright grass, and hear the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees, which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil which is stirring in the sun-warm earth, and to mark the tombs, mostly of women and young children, who, buried there, we might, if we were to die, desire a sleep they seem to sleep."

All this may have happened, but why need we repine, for as eternal as the sea, as infinite as Nature, and as the phoenix, he revivifying lives, transmigrated and transfused into humanity, for with certainty we know that

"He lives, he wakes--'tis Death is dead, not he."

Immortal amid immortals, his spirit in communion with the Most High, fully conscious in its individuality--immortal amid mortals, his place need never be refilled, for he stands betwixt the old and the new--immortal amid the sons of song, do poets still breathe his divine afflatus--immortal amid philosophers and the regenerators of the race, with Buddha, with Moses, with Socrates, with Mahomet, with Christ--immortal amid the noble, the virtuous, the good, the wise--immortal as when living here, for from spirit-spheres we hear him bidding us repeat:

"Nor let us weep that our delight is fled Far from these carrion-kites that scream below; He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead; Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. Dust to the dust! but the pure spirit shall flow Back to the burning fountain whence it came, A portion of the Eternal, which must glow Through time and change, unquenchably the same,"

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"Peace! peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep-- He hath awaken'd from the dream of life-- 'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife; And in mad trance, strike with our spirits' knife, Invulnerable nothings!"

FINIS CORONAT OPUS.