an any other, serves to illustrate its
author's mood of feeling about the life beyond the grave. The last lines
of "Adonais" might be read as a prophecy of his own death by drowning.
The frequent recurrence of this thought in his poetry is, to say the
least, singular. In "Alastor" we read:--

A restless impulse urged him to embark
And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste;
For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves
The slimy caverns of the populous deep.

The "Ode to Liberty" closes on the same note:--

As a far taper fades with fading night;
As a brief insect dies with dying day,
My song, its pinions disarrayed of might,
Drooped. O'er it closed the echoes far away
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain,
As waves which lately paved his watery way
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play.

The "Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples", echo the thought with
a slight variation:--

Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,--
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Trelawny tells a story of his friend's life at Lerici, which further
illustrates his preoccupation with the thought of death at sea. He took
Mrs. Williams and her children out upon the bay in his little boat one
afternoon, and starting suddenly from a deep reverie, into which he had
fallen, exclaimed with a joyful and resolute voice, "Now let us together
solve the great mystery!" Too much value must not be attached to what
might have been a mere caprice of utterance. Yet the proposal not
unreasonably frightened Mrs. Williams, for Shelley's friends were
accustomed to expect the realisation of his wildest fancies. It may
incidentally be mentioned that before the water finally claimed its
victim, he had often been in peril of life upon his fatal
element--during the first voyage to Ireland, while crossing the Channel
with Mary in an open boat, again at Meillerie with Byron, and once at
least with Williams.

A third composition of the year 1821 was inspired by the visit of Prince
Mavrocordato to Pisa. He called on Shelley in April, showed him a copy
of Prince Ipsilanti's proclamation, and announced that