From Eton Shelley went to Oxford.  Here he remained for a few months reading hard.  “He was to be found, book in hand, at all hours; reading in season and out of season; at table, in bed, and especially during a walk.”  But he read more what pleased himself than what pleased the college authorities.  He wrote too, and among the things he wrote was a little leaflet of a few pages which seemed to the fellows of his college a dangerous attack upon religion.  They summoned Shelley to appear before them, and as he refused to answer their questions he was expelled.  Shelley had given himself the name of Atheist.  It is a very ugly name, meaning one who denies the existence of God.  Looking back now we can see that it was too harsh and ugly a name for Shelley.  The paper for which he was expelled, even if it was wicked, was the work of a rash, impetuous boy, not the reasoned wickedness of a grown man.  But the deed was done, and Shelley was thrown out into the world, for his father, sorely vexed and troubled, not knowing how to control his wild colt of a son, refused to allow him to return home.  So Shelley remained in London.  Here he went often to visit his sisters at school, and came to known one of their school friends, Harriet Westbrook.  She was a pretty, good-tempered girl of sixteen with “hair like a poet’s dream."* Shelley thought that she too was oppressed and ill-used as he had been.  She loved him, he liked her, so they decided to get married, and ran away to Scotland and were married in Edinburgh.  Shelley was nineteen and his little bride sixteen.

Hogg.

This boy and girl marriage was a terrible mistake, and three years later husband and wife separated.

I can tell you very little more of Shelley’s life, some of it was wrong, much of it was sad, as it could hardly fail to be following on this wrong beginning.  When you grow older you will be able to read it with charity and understanding.  Meantime keep the picture of the kindly big brother, and imagine him growing into a lovable and brave man, into a poet who wins our hearts almost unawares by the beauty of his poetry, his poetry which has been called “a beautiful dream of the future.”  Of some of it I shall now tell you a little.

Very early Shelley began to publish poetry, but most of it was not worthy of a truly great poet.  His first really fine poem is Alastor.  It is written in blank verse, and represents a poet seeking in vain for his ideal of what is truly lovely and beautiful.  Being unable to find that which he seeks, he dies.  The poem is full of beautiful description, but it is sad, and in the picture of the poet we seem to see Shelley himself.  Other long poems followed, poems which are both terrible and beautiful, but many years must pass before you try to read them.  For Shelley’s poetry is more vague, his meaning more elusive, than that of almost any other poet of whom we have spoken.  It is rather for Shelley’s shorter poems, his