Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1819)
ROSALIND AND HELEN.
Lately published in 8vo. 10s. 6d.
The REVOLT OF ISLAM: a Poem in twelve Cantos: by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Also, in 12mo. 5s.
ALASTOR ; or, the Spirit of Solitude: by the same Author.
C. H. REYNELL, Broad-street,
Golden-square, London
ROSALIND AND HELEN,
A MODERN ECLOGUE;
WITH
OTHER POEMS
BY
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR C. AND J. OLLIER,
VERE STREET, BOND STREET.
1819.
ADVERTISEMENT.
The story of "Rosalind and Helen" is, undoubtedly, not an attempt in the highest style of poetry. It is in no degree calculated to excite profound meditation; and if, by interesting the affections and amusing the imagination, it awaken a certain ideal melancholy favourable to the reception of more important impressions, it will produce in the reader all that the writer experienced in the composition. I resigned myself, as I wrote, to the impulse of the feelings which moulded the conception of the story; and this impulse determined the pauses of a measure, which only pretends to be regular inasmuch as it corresponds with, and expresses, the irregularity of the imaginations which inspired it.
I do not know which of the few scattered poems I left in England will be selected by my bookseller, to add to this collection. One, which I sent from Italy, was written after a day's excursion among those lovely mountains which surround what was once the retreat, and where is now the sepulchre, of Petrarch. If any one is inclined to condemn the insertion of the introductory lines, which image forth the sudden relief of a state of deep despondency by the radiant visions disclosed by the sudden burst of an Italian sunrise in autumn on the highest peak of those delightful mountains, I can only offer as my excuse, that they were not erased at the request of a dear friend, with whom added years of intercourse only add to my apprehension of its value, and who would have had more right than any one to complain, that she has not been able to extinguish in me the very power of delineating sadness.
- Naples, Dec. 20, 1818.
CONTENTS.