A power from the unknown God,
    A Promethan conqueror came;
    Like a triumphal path he trod
    The thorns of death and shame. 
    A mortal shape to him
    Was like the vapour dim
    Which the orient planet animates with light. 
    Hell, Sin, and Slavery came,
    Like bloodhounds mild and tame,
    Nor preyed until their Lord had taken flight. 
    The moon of Mahomet
    Arose, and it shall set: 
    While blazoned as on heaven’s immortal noon
    The cross leads generations on.

    Swift as the radiant shapes of sleep
    From one whose dreams are paradise,
    Fly, when the fond wretch wakes to weep,
    And day peers forth with her blank eyes;
    So fleet, so faint, so fair,
    The Powers of earth and air
    Fled from the folding star of Bethlehem: 
    Apollo, Pan, and Love
    And even Olympian Jove,
    Grew weak, for killing Truth had glared on them. 
    Our hills, and seas, and streams,
    Dispeopled of their dreams,
    Their waters turned to blood, their dew to tears,
    Wailed for the golden years.

In the autumn of this year Shelley paid Lord Byron a visit at Ravenna, where he made acquaintance with the Countess Guiccoli.  It was then settled that Byron, who had formed the project of starting a journal to be called “The Liberal” in concert with Leigh Hunt, should himself settle in Pisa.  Leigh Hunt was to join his brother poets in the same place.  The prospect gave Shelley great pleasure, for he was sincerely attached to Hunt; and though he would not promise contributions to the journal, partly lest his name should bring discredit on it, and partly because he did not choose to appear before the world as a hanger-on of Byron’s, he thoroughly approved of a plan which would be profitable to his friend by bringing him into close relation with the most famous poet of the age. (See the Letter to Leigh Hunt, Pisa, August 26, 1821.) That he was not without doubts as to Byron’s working easily in harness with Leigh Hunt, may be seen in his correspondence; and how fully these doubts were destined to be confirmed, is only too well known.

At Ravenna he was tormented by the report of some more than usually infamous calumny.  What it was, we do not know; but that it made profound impression on his mind, appears from a remarkable letter addressed to his wife on the 16th and 17th of August from Ravenna.  In it he repeats his growing weariness, and his wish to escape from society to solitude; the weariness of a nature wounded and disappointed by commerce with the world, but neither soured nor driven to fury by cruel wrongs.  It is noticeable at the same time that he clings to his present place of residence:—­“our roots never struck so deeply as at Pisa, and the transplanted tree flourishes not.”  At Pisa he had found real rest and refreshment in the society of his two friends, the Williamses.  Some of his saddest