FRANCIS THOMPSON ON SHELLEY

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 288, 29 August 1908, Page 12

FRANCIS THOMPSON ON SHELLEY

Readers of the "Dublin Review" will turn with interest to a posthumous article by Mr. Francis Thompson on Shelley,, which appears in the latest number. It was found among the'papers of its author,' and appears by the oourtesy of his literary executor, Mr. Wilfred Meynell. Mr. Thompson lays stress upon the fact that Shelley was to tho last the enchanted child—a fact which was patent in his life and manifest in his poetry. _ "Peeping over the wild mask of revolutionary metaphysics," says Mr. Thompson, "wo see tho winsome face of the child": Perhaps none of his poems is more purely and typically Slielleian than "The Cloud," and it is interesting to note how essentially it springs from'the faculty of make-believe. The same thing is conspicuous, though less purely conspicuous, throughout his singing; it is 1 tho child's faculty of make-believe raised to tho nth power. He is still at play, save only that his play is such as manhood stops to watch, and his playthings aro those whioh the gods give their children. This quality' it was which, in spite of his essentially modern character, qualified Shelley to be tlie poet of "Prometheus Unbound," for it mado him in tho truest sense of the word a mythological' poet. ! "Prometheus Unbound" Mr. Thompson holds to be "unquestionably the greatest and most prodigal exhibition of Shelley's powers, and he goes on to say: .Were we aslted to name the most perfect amoiig his longer effects we should name tho poem ill which be lamented Keats; under the shed petals of his lowly fancy, giving the slain bard a silken burial. Seldom is the death of a poet mourned in true poetry. Not ofton is tho singer coffined in laurelwood. Among the very few exceptions to eucli a rule the greatest is "Adonais." In the English language only "Lycidas" competes with it. . . . The ono thing which, in Mr. Thompson's opinion, prevents "Adonais" from being ideally perfect is its "lack of Christian hope. But the poems on which the lover of Sholley loams most lovingly, which ho has oftenest in his mind, which best represent Shelley to him, and which he instinctivoly reverts to when Shelley's name is mentioned are, Mr. Thompson says, somo of the shorter poems and detached lyrics: Here Shelley forgots for a while all that over makes his verso turbid; forgets that ho is anything but a poet; forgets sometimes that he is anything but a child; lies back in his skiff and looks at the clouds. Ho plays truant from earth, slips through tho wicket of fancy into heaven's moadow, and goes gathering stars. Hero wo have that absolute virgin-gold of song which is the secret among human products, and for which wo can go to but three poets—Coleridge, Shelley, Chopin, and perhaps wo should add Keats. ... In this and in other passages we have a piece of typical criticism of a poet by a poet.—"Westminster Gazetto."