The Triumph Of Life

  Swift as a spirit hastening to his task

  Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth

  Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask

  Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth.

  The smokeless altars of the mountain snows

  Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth

  Of light, the Ocean's orison arose

  To which the birds tempered their matin lay,

  All flowers in field or forest which unclose

  Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day,

  Swinging their censers in the element,

  With orient incense lit by the new ray

  Burned slow & inconsumably, & sent

  Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air,

  And in succession due, did Continent,

  Isle, Ocean, & all things that in them wear

  The form & character of mortal mould

  Rise as the Sun their father rose, to bear

  Their portion of the toil which he of old

  Took as his own & then imposed on them;

  But I, whom thoughts which must remain untold

  Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem

  The cone of night, now they were laid asleep,

  Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem

  Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep

  Of a green Apennine: before me fled

  The night; behind me rose the day; the Deep

  Was at my feet, & Heaven above my head

  When a strange trance over my fancy grew

  Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread

  Was so transparent that the scene came through

  As clear as when a veil of light is drawn

  O'er evening hills they glimmer; and I knew

  That I had felt the freshness of that dawn,

  Bathed in the same cold dew my brow & hair

  And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn

  Under the self same bough, & heard as there

  The birds, the fountains & the Ocean hold

  Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air.

  And then a Vision on my brain was rolled.

  As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay

  This was the tenour of my waking dream.

  Methought I sate beside a public way

  Thick strewn with summer dust, & a great stream

  Of people there was hurrying to & fro

  Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam,

  All hastening onward, yet none seemed to know

  Whither he went, or whence he came, or why

  He made one of the multitude, yet so

  Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky

  One of the million leaves of summer's bier.—

  Old age & youth, manhood & infancy,

  Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear,

  Some flying from the thing they feared & some

  Seeking the object of another's fear,

  And others as with steps towards the tomb

  Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath,

  And others mournfully within the gloom

  Of their own shadow walked, and called it death…

    And some fled from it as it were a ghost,

  Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath.

  But more with motions which each other crost

  Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw

  Or birds within the noonday ether lost,

  Upon that path where flowers never grew;

  And weary with vain toil & faint for thirst

  Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew

  Out of their mossy cells forever burst

  Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told

  Of grassy paths, & wood lawns interspersed

  With overarching elms & caverns cold,

  And violet banks where sweet dreams brood, but they

  Pursued their serious folly as of old….

  And as I gazed methought that in the way

  The throng grew wilder, as the woods of June

  When the South wind shakes the extinguished day.—

  And a cold glare, intenser than the noon

  But icy cold, obscured with [[blank]] light

  The Sun as he the stars. Like the young moon

  When on the sunlit limits of the night

  Her white shell trembles amid crimson air

  And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might

  Doth, as a herald of its coming, bear

  The ghost of her dead Mother, whose dim form

  Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair,

  So came a chariot on the silent storm

  Of its own rushing splendour, and a Shape

  So sate within as one whom years deform

  Beneath a dusky hood & double cape

  Crouching within the shadow of a tomb,

  And o'er what seemed the head, a cloud like crape,

  Was bent a dun & faint etherial gloom

  Tempering the light; upon the chariot's beam

  A Janus-visaged Shadow did assume

  The guidance of that wonder-winged team.

  The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings

  Were lost: I heard alone on the air's soft stream

  The music of their ever moving wings.

  All the four faces of that charioteer

  Had their eyes banded . . . little profit brings

  Speed in the van & blindness in the rear,

  Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun

  Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere

  Of all that is, has been, or will be done.—

  So ill was the car guided, but it past

  With solemn speed majestically on . . .

  The crowd gave way, & I arose aghast,

  Or seemed to rise, so mighty was the trance,

  And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast

  The million with fierce song and maniac dance

  Raging around; such seemed the jubilee

  As when to greet some conqueror's advance

  Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea

  From senatehouse & prison & theatre

  When Freedom left those who upon the free

  Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear.

  Nor wanted here the true similitude

  Of a triumphal pageant, for where'er

  The chariot rolled a captive multitude

  Was driven; althose who had grown old in power

  Or misery,—all who have their age subdued,

  By action or by suffering, and whose hour

  Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe,

  So that the trunk survived both fruit & flower;

  All those whose fame or infamy must grow

  Till the great winter lay the form & name

  Of their own earth with them forever low,

  All but the sacred few who could not tame

  Their spirits to the Conqueror, but as soon

  As they had touched the world with living flame

  Fled back like eagles to their native noon,

  Of those who put aside the diadem

  Of earthly thrones or gems, till the last one

  Were there;—for they of Athens & Jerusalem

  Were neither mid the mighty captives seen

  Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them

  Or fled before . . Now swift, fierce & obscene

  The wild dance maddens in the van, & those

  Who lead it, fleet as shadows on the green,

  Outspeed the chariot & without repose

  Mix with each other in tempestuous measure

  To savage music…. Wilder as it grows,

  They, tortured by the agonizing pleasure,

  Convulsed & on the rapid whirlwinds spun

  Of that fierce spirit, whose unholy leisure

  Was soothed by mischief since the world begun,

  Throw back their heads & loose their streaming hair,

  And in their dance round her who dims the Sun

  Maidens & youths fling their wild arms in air

  As their feet twinkle; they recede, and now

  Bending within each other's atmosphere

  Kindle invisibly; and as they glow

  Like moths by light attracted & repelled,

  Oft to new bright destruction come & go.

  Till like two clouds into one vale impelled

  That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle

  And die in rain,—the fiery band which held

  Their natures, snaps . . . ere the shock cease to tingle

  One falls and then another in the path

  Senseless, nor is the desolation single,

  Yet ere I can say  where the chariot hath

  Past over them; nor other trace I find

  But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath

  Is spent upon the desert shore.—Behind,

  Old men, and women foully disarrayed

  Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind,

  Limp in the dance & strain, with limbs decayed,

  Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still

  Farther behind & deeper in the shade.

  But not the less with impotence of will

  They wheel, though ghastly shadows interpose

  Round them & round each other, and fulfill

  Their work and to the dust whence they arose

  Sink & corruption veils them as they lie

  And frost in these performs what fire in those.

  Struck to the heart by this sad pageantry,

  Half to myself I said, "And what is this?

  Whose shape is that within the car? & why"-

  I would have added—"is all here amiss?"

  But a voice answered . . "Life" . . . I turned & knew

  (O Heaven have mercy on such wretchedness!)

  That what I thought was an old root which grew

  To strange distortion out of the hill side

  Was indeed one of that deluded crew,

  And that the grass which methought hung so wide

  And white, was but his thin discoloured hair,

  And that the holes it vainly sought to hide

  Were or had been eyes.—"lf thou canst forbear

  To join the dance, which I had well forborne,"

  Said the grim Feature, of my thought aware,

  "I will now tell that which to this deep scorn

  Led me & my companions, and relate

  The progress of the pageant since the morn;

  "If thirst of knowledge doth not thus abate,

  Follow it even to the night, but I

  Am weary" . . . Then like one who with the weight

  Of his own words is staggered, wearily

  He paused, and ere he could resume, I cried,

  "First who art thou?" . . . "Before thy memory

  "I feared, loved, hated, suffered, did, & died,

  And if the spark with which Heaven lit my spirit

  Earth had with purer nutriment supplied

  "Corruption would not now thus much inherit

  Of what was once Rousseau—nor this disguise

  Stained that within which still disdains to wear it.—

  "If I have been extinguished, yet there rise

  A thousand beacons from the spark I bore."—

  "And who are those chained to the car?" "The Wise,

  "The great, the unforgotten: they who wore

  Mitres & helms & crowns, or wreathes of light,

  Signs of thought's empire over thought; their lore

  "Taught them not this—to know themselves; their might

  Could not repress the mutiny within,

  And for the morn of truth they feigned, deep night

  "Caught them ere evening." "Who is he with chin

  Upon his breast and hands crost on his chain?"

  "The Child of a fierce hour; he sought to win

  "The world, and lost all it did contain

  Of greatness, in its hope destroyed; & more

  Of fame & peace than Virtue's self can gain

  "Without the opportunity which bore

  Him on its eagle's pinion to the peak

  From which a thousand climbers have before

  "Fall'n as Napoleon fell."—I felt my cheek

  Alter to see the great form pass away

  Whose grasp had left the giant world so weak

  That every pigmy kicked it as it lay—

  And much I grieved to think how power & will

  In opposition rule our mortal day—

  And why God made irreconcilable

  Good & the means of good; and for despair

  I half disdained mine eye's desire to fill

  With the spent vision of the times that were

  And scarce have ceased to be . . . "Dost thou behold,"

  Said then my guide, "those spoilers spoiled, Voltaire,

  "Frederic, & Kant, Catherine, & Leopold,

  Chained hoary anarch, demagogue & sage

  Whose name the fresh world thinks already old—

  "For in the battle Life & they did wage

  She remained conqueror—I was overcome

  By my own heart alone, which neither age

  "Nor tears nor infamy nor now the tomb

  Could temper to its object."—"Let them pass"—

  I cried—"the world & its mysterious doom

  "Is not so much more glorious than it was

  That I desire to worship those who drew

  New figures on its false & fragile glass

  "As the old faded."—"Figures ever new

  Rise on the bubble, paint them how you may;

  We have but thrown, as those before us threw,

  "Our shadows on it as it past away.

  But mark, how chained to the triumphal chair

  The mighty phantoms of an elder day—

  "All that is mortal of great Plato there

  Expiates the joy & woe his master knew not;

  That star that ruled his doom was far too fair—

  "And Life, where long that flower of Heaven grew not,

  Conquered the heart by love which gold or pain

  Or age or sloth or slavery could subdue not—

  "And near [[blank]] walk the [[blank]] twain,

  The tutor & his pupil, whom Dominion

  Followed as tame as vulture in a chain.—

  "The world was darkened beneath either pinion

  Of him whom from the flock of conquerors

  Fame singled as her thunderbearing minion;

  "The other long outlived both woes & wars,

  Throned in new thoughts of men, and still had kept

  The jealous keys of truth's eternal doors

  "If Bacon's spirit [[blank]] had not leapt

  Like lightning out of darkness; he compelled

  The Proteus shape of Nature's as it slept

  "To wake & to unbar the caves that held

  The treasure of the secrets of its reign—

  See the great bards of old who inly quelled

  "The passions which they sung, as by their strain

  May well be known: their living melody

  Tempers its own contagion to the vein

  "Of those who are infected with it—I

  Have suffered what I wrote, or viler pain!—

  "And so my words were seeds of misery—

  Even as the deeds of others."—"Not as theirs,"

  I said—he pointed to a company

  In which I recognized amid the heirs

  Of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine,

  The Anarchs old whose force & murderous snares

  Had founded many a sceptre bearing line

  And spread the plague of blood & gold abroad,

  And Gregory & John and men divine

  Who rose like shadows between Man & god

  Till that eclipse, still hanging under Heaven,

  Was worshipped by the world o'er which they strode

  For the true Sun it quenched.—"Their power was given

  But to destroy," replied the leader—"I

  Am one of those who have created, even

  "If it be but a world of agony."—

  "Whence camest thou & whither goest thou?

  How did thy course begin," I said, "& why?

  "Mine eyes are sick of this perpetual flow

  Of people, & my heart of one sad thought.—

  Speak."—"Whence I came, partly I seem to know,

  "And how & by what paths I have been brought

  To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;

  Why this should be my mind can compass not;

  "Whither the conqueror hurries me still less.

  But follow thou, & from spectator turn

  Actor or victim in this wretchedness,

  "And what thou wouldst be taught I then may learn

  From thee.—Now listen . . . In the April prime

  When all the forest tops began to burn

  "With kindling green, touched by the azure clime

  Of the young year, I found myself asleep

  Under a mountain which from unknown time

  "Had yawned into a cavern high & deep,

  And from it came a gentle rivulet

  Whose water like clear air in its calm sweep

  "Bent the soft grass & kept for ever wet

  The stems of the sweet flowers, and filled the grove

  With sound which all who hear must needs forget

  "All pleasure & all pain, all hate & love,

  Which they had known before that hour of rest:

  A sleeping mother then would dream not of

  "The only child who died upon her breast

  At eventide, a king would mourn no more

  The crown of which his brow was dispossest

  "When the sun lingered o'er the Ocean floor

  To gild his rival's new prosperity.—

  Thou wouldst forget thus vainly to deplore

  "Ills, which if ills, can find no cure from thee,

  The thought of which no other sleep will quell

  Nor other music blot from memory—

  "So sweet & deep is the oblivious spell.—

  Whether my life had been before that sleep

  The Heaven which I imagine, or a Hell

  "Like this harsh world in which I wake to weep,

  I know not. I arose & for a space

  The scene of woods & waters seemed to keep,

  "Though it was now broad day, a gentle trace

  Of light diviner than the common Sun

  Sheds on the common Earth, but all the place

  "Was filled with many sounds woven into one

  Oblivious melody, confusing sense

  Amid the gliding waves & shadows dun;

  "And as I looked the bright omnipresence

  Of morning through the orient cavern flowed,

  And the Sun's image radiantly intense

  "Burned on the waters of the well that glowed

  Like gold, and threaded all the forest maze

  With winding paths of emerald fire—there stood

  "Amid the sun, as he amid the blaze

  Of his own glory, on the vibrating

  Floor of the fountain, paved with flashing rays,

  "A shape all light, which with one hand did fling

  Dew on the earth, as if she were the Dawn

  Whose invisible rain forever seemed to sing

  "A silver music on the mossy lawn,

  And still before her on the dusky grass

  Iris her many coloured scarf had drawn.—

  "In her right hand she bore a crystal glass

  Mantling with bright Nepenthe;—the fierce splendour

  Fell from her as she moved under the mass

  "Of the deep cavern, & with palms so tender

  Their tread broke not the mirror of its billow,

  Glided along the river, and did bend her

  "Head under the dark boughs, till like a willow

  Her fair hair swept the bosom of the stream

  That whispered with delight to be their pillow.—

  "As one enamoured is upborne in dream

  O'er lily-paven lakes mid silver mist

  To wondrous music, so this shape might seem

  "Partly to tread the waves with feet which kist

  The dancing foam, partly to glide along

  The airs that roughened the moist amethyst,

  "Or the slant morning beams that fell among

  The trees, or the soft shadows of the trees;

  And her feet ever to the ceaseless song

  "Of leaves & winds & waves & birds & bees

  And falling drops moved in a measure new

  Yet sweet, as on the summer evening breeze

  "Up from the lake a shape of golden dew

  Between two rocks, athwart the rising moon,

  Moves up the east, where eagle never flew.—

  "And still her feet, no less than the sweet tune

  To which they moved, seemed as they moved, to blot

  The thoughts of him who gazed on them, & soon

  "All that was seemed as if it had been not,

  As if the gazer's mind was strewn beneath

  Her feet like embers, & she, thought by thought,

  "Trampled its fires into the dust of death,

  As Day upon the threshold of the east

  Treads out the lamps of night, until the breath

  "Of darkness reillumines even the least

  Of heaven's living eyes—like day she came,

  Making the night a dream; and ere she ceased

  "To move, as one between desire and shame

  Suspended, I said—'If, as it doth seem,

  Thou comest from the realm without a name,

  " 'Into this valley of perpetual dream,

  Shew whence I came, and where I am, and why—

  Pass not away upon the passing stream.'

  " 'Arise and quench thy thirst,' was her reply,

  And as a shut lily, stricken by the wand

  Of dewy morning's vital alchemy,

  "I rose; and, bending at her sweet command,

  Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,

  And suddenly my brain became as sand

  "Where the first wave had more than half erased

  The track of deer on desert Labrador,

  Whilst the fierce wolf from which they fled amazed

  "Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore

  Until the second bursts—so on my sight

  Burst a new Vision never seen before.—

  "And the fair shape waned in the coming light

  As veil by veil the silent splendour drops

  From Lucifer, amid the chrysolite

  "Of sunrise ere it strike the mountain tops—

  And as the presence of that fairest planet

  Although unseen is felt by one who hopes

  "That his day's path may end as he began it

  In that star's smile, whose light is like the scent

  Of a jonquil when evening breezes fan it,

  "Or the soft note in which his dear lament

  The Brescian shepherd breathes, or the caress

  That turned his weary slumber to content.—

  "So knew I in that light's severe excess

  The presence of that shape which on the stream

  Moved, as I moved along the wilderness,

  "More dimly than a day appearing dream,

  The ghost of a forgotten form of sleep

  A light from Heaven whose half extinguished beam

  "Through the sick day in which we wake to weep

  Glimmers, forever sought, forever lost.—

  So did that shape its obscure tenour keep

  "Beside my path, as silent as a ghost;

  But the new Vision, and its cold bright car,

  With savage music, stunning music, crost

  "The forest, and as if from some dread war

  Triumphantly returning, the loud million

  Fiercely extolled the fortune of her star.—

  "A moving arch of victory the vermilion

  And green & azure plumes of Iris had

  Built high over her wind-winged pavilion,

  "And underneath aetherial glory clad

  The wilderness, and far before her flew

  The tempest of the splendour which forbade

  Shadow to fall from leaf or stone;—the crew

  Seemed in that light like atomies that dance

  Within a sunbeam.—Some upon the new

  "Embroidery of flowers that did enhance

  The grassy vesture of the desart, played,

  Forgetful of the chariot's swift advance;

  "Others stood gazing till within the shade

  Of the great mountain its light left them dim.—

  Others outspeeded it, and others made

  "Circles around it like the clouds that swim

  Round the high moon in a bright sea of air,

  And more did follow, with exulting hymn,

  "The chariot & the captives fettered there,

  But all like bubbles on an eddying flood

  Fell into the same track at last & were

  "Borne onward.—I among the multitude

  Was swept; me sweetest flowers delayed not long,

  Me not the shadow nor the solitude,

  "Me not the falling stream's Lethean song,

  Me, not the phantom of that early form

  Which moved upon its motion,—but among

  "The thickest billows of the living storm

  I plunged, and bared my bosom to the clime

  Of that cold light, whose airs too soon deform.—

  "Before the chariot had begun to climb

  The opposing steep of that mysterious dell,

  Behold a wonder worthy of the rhyme

  "Of him whom from the lowest depths of Hell

  Through every Paradise & through all glory

  Love led serene, & who returned to tell

  "In words of hate & awe the wondrous story

  How all things are transfigured, except Love;

  For deaf as is a sea which wrath makes hoary

  "The world can hear not the sweet notes that move

  The sphere whose light is melody to lovers—-

  A wonder worthy of his rhyme—the grove

  "Grew dense with shadows to its inmost covers,

  The earth was grey with phantoms, & the air

  Was peopled with dim forms, as when there hovers

  "A flock of vampire-bats before the glare

  Of the tropic sun, bring ere evening

  Strange night upon some Indian isle,—thus were

  "Phantoms diffused around, & some did fling

  Shadows of shadows, yet unlike themselves,

  Behind them, some like eaglets on the wing

  "Were lost in the white blaze, others like elves

  Danced in a thousand unimagined shapes

  Upon the sunny streams & grassy shelves;

  "And others sate chattering like restless apes

  On vulgar paws and voluble like fire.

  Some made a cradle of the ermined capes

  "Of kingly mantles, some upon the tiar

  Of pontiffs sate like vultures, others played

  Within the crown which girt with empire

  "A baby's or an idiot's brow, & made

  Their nests in it; the old anatomies

  Sate hatching their bare brood under the shade

  "Of demon wings, and laughed from their dead eyes

  To reassume the delegated power

  Arrayed in which these worms did monarchize

  "Who make this earth their charnel.—Others more

  Humble, like falcons sate upon the fist

  Of common men, and round their heads did soar,

  "Or like small gnats & flies, as thick as mist

  On evening marshes, thronged about the brow

  Of lawyer, statesman, priest & theorist,

  "And others like discoloured flakes of snow

  On fairest bosoms & the sunniest hair

  Fell, and were melted by the youthful glow

  "Which they extinguished; for like tears, they were

  A veil to those from whose faint lids they rained

  In drops of sorrow.—I became aware

  "Of whence those forms proceeded which thus stained

  The track in which we moved; after brief space

  From every form the beauty slowly waned,

  "From every firmest limb & fairest face

  The strength & freshness fell like dust, & left

  The action & the shape without the grace

  "Of life; the marble brow of youth was cleft

  With care, and in the eyes where once hope shone

  Desire like a lioness bereft

  "Of its last cub, glared ere it died; each one

  Of that great crowd sent forth incessantly

  These shadows, numerous as the dead leaves blown

  "In Autumn evening from a popular tree—

  Each, like himself & like each other were,

  At first, but soon distorted, seemed to be

  "Obscure clouds moulded by the casual air;

  And of this stuff the car's creative ray

  Wrought all the busy phantoms that were there

  "As the sun shapes the clouds—thus, on the way

  Mask after mask fell from the countenance

  And form of all, and long before the day

  "Was old, the joy which waked like Heaven's glance

  The sleepers in the oblivious valley, died,

  And some grew weary of the ghastly dance

  "And fell, as I have fallen by the way side,

  Those soonest from whose forms most shadows past

  And least of strength & beauty did abide."—

  "Then, what is Life?" I said . . . the cripple cast

  His eye upon the car which now had rolled

  Onward, as if that look must be the last,

  And answered…. "Happy those for whom the fold

  Of…

Composed at Lerici on the Gulf of Spezzia in the spring and early summer of 1822 -- the poem on which Shelley was engaged at the time of his death. Published by Mrs. Shelley in the Posthumous Poems of 1824, from a MS. (now in the Bodleian library), whose corrections, omitted words, passages of unrevised improvisation, difficult hand, and long inaccessibility have so far prevented much certainty in the establishment of a text. Form: terza rima.The reference to Dante's Divine Comedy in lines 471-76 and to Petrarch's Triumphs in the title (both of which, like The Triumph of Life, are written in terza rima stanzas) suggests two probable models for the poem.132-34.Mary Shelley's text seems impossible, but no textual authority has been adduced for amending it. Misreading or miswriting of some kind must be responsible for that apparently parallel, but conflicting, pair, "were there" and "were neither." W. M. Rossetti makes some sense out of the passage by amending "or" in 132 to "for" and "were there" in 134 to "whether", and by placing a semi-colon at the end of 131.134.Of Athens or Jerusalem. Commentators assume that the renouncing figures of which Shelley is thinking are Socrates in Athens and Jesus in Jerusalem. But the corruption of the text here makes any interpretation doubtful.190.Grim Feature: a reminiscence of Paradise Lost, X, 279, where it represents Death and carries the Latin meaning of "factura" or "creature."204.Rousseau. Compare Byron's portrait of Rousseau in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, III, lxxvii-lxxxii.236.Frederick and Paul, Catherine and Leopold: Frederick the Great of Prussia, Czar Paul and Catherine the Great of Russia, and Leopold II of the Holy Roman Empire.254.Plato. In the lines which follow, Shelley refers to the legend that Plato in his old age fell in love with a boy, whose name, Aster, is Greek for a star as well as for a particular (and short-lived) flower.261.The tutor and his pupil: Aristotle and Alexander the Great.283-84.The heirs of Caesar's crime from him to Constantine. Julius Caesar's crime was to undermine the Roman republic and prepare the way for the Roman emperors ("anarch chiefs" in 286), a procession of which up to Constantine Shelley now observes.288.Gregory and John. "Gregory the Great is appropriate, as the true founder of the independent political power of the papacy. Which of many Johns is involved, there is no way of telling" (H. Bloom).414.Lucifer: the Morning Star.421-22.The soft note in which his dear lament the Brescian shepherd breathes. "The favourite song, 'Stanco di pascolar le peccorelle, [being weary of pasturing the little sheep], is a Brescian national air" (Mrs. Shelley's note).439.Iris: classical goddess of the rainbow.472.Him: Dante in The Divine Comedy.544.Here the MS. breaks off.