DEFENSE OF HARRIET SHELLEY
But he will have rest in the grave by and by. Until that time comes, the charms of Bracknell will remain in his memory, along with Mrs. Boinville s voice and Cornelia Turner s smile:
Thou in the grave shalt rest yet, till the phantoms flee Which that house and hearth and garden made dear to thce
erewhile,
Thy remembrance and repentance and deep musings are not free From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.
We cannot wonder that Harriet could not stand it. Any of us would have left. We would not even stay with a cat that was in this condition. Even the Boinvilles could not endure it; and so, as we have seen, they gave this one notice.
Early in May, Shelley was in London. He did not yet despair of reconciliation with Harriet, nor had he ceased to love her.
Shelley s poems are a good deal of trouble to his biographer. They are constantly inserted as "evi dence," and they make much confusion. As soon as one of them has proved one thing, another one follows and proves quite a different thing. The poem just quoted shows that he was in love with Cornelia, but a month later he is in love with Harriet again, and there is a poem to prove it.
In this piteous appeal Shelley declares that he has now no grief but one the grief of having known and lost his wife s love.
Exhibit F
Thy look of love has power to calm The stormiest passion of my soul.
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