PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Known for his lyrical and long-form verse, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the
most highly regarded English Romantic poets of the
19th century. His works include The Masque of
Anarchy and Queen Mab.

Synopsis

Born in Broadbridge Heath, England, on August 4,

1792, Percy Bysshe Shelley is one of the epic poets
of the 19th century, and is best known for his classic
anthology verse works such as Ode to the West
Wind and The Masque of Anarchy. He is also well known for his long-form
poetry, including Queen Mab and Alastor. He went on many adventures with his
second wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. He drowned in a sudden
storm while sailing in Italy in 1822.

Childhood and Adolescence

Percy Bysshe Shelley, a controversial English writer of great personal

conviction, was born on August 4, 1792. He grew up in the country, in the
village Broadbridge Heath, just outside of West Sussex. He learned to fish and
hunt in the meadows surrounding his home, often surveying the rivers and fields
with his cousin and good friend Thomas Medwin. His parents were Timothy
Shelley, a squire and member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Pilfold. As the oldest
of their seven children, Shelley left home at age of 10 to study at Syon House
Academy, roughly 50 miles north of Broadbridge Heath and 10 miles west of
central London. After two years, he enrolled at Eton College. While there, he
was severely bullied, both physical and mentally, by his classmates. Shelley
retreated into his imagination. Within a year’s time he had published two novels
and two volumes of poetry, including St Irvyne and Posthumous Fragments of
Margaret Nicholson.

In the fall of 1810, Shelly entered University College, Oxford. It seemed a better
academic environment for him than Eton, but after a few months, a dean
demanded that Shelley visit his office. Shelley and his friend Thomas Jefferson
Hogg had co-authored a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism. Its premise
shocked and appalled the faculty (“…The mind cannot believe in the existence
of a God.”), and the university demanded that both boys either acknowledge or
deny authorship. Shelley did neither and was expelled.

In addition to long-form poetry, Shelley also began writing political pamphlets,

which he distributed by way of hot air balloons, glass bottles and paper boats. In
1812 he met his hero, the radical political philosopher William Godwin, author
of Political Justice.
Harriet and Mary

Although Shelley’s relationship with Harriet remained troubled, the young

couple had two children together. Their daughter, Elizabeth Ianthe, was born in
June of 1813, when Shelley was 21. Before their second child was born,
Shelley abandoned his wife and immediately took up with another young
woman. Well-educated and precocious, his new love interest was named Mary,
the daughter of Shelley’s beloved mentor, William Godwin, and Mary
Wollstonecraft, the famous feminist author of A Vindication of the Rights of
Women. To Shelley’s surprise, Godwin was not in favor of Shelley dating his
daughter. In fact, Godwin so disapproved that he would not speak with Mary for
the next three years. Shelley and Mary fled to Paris, taking Mary’s sister, Jane,
with them. They departed London by ship and, mostly traveling by foot, toured
France, Switzerland, Germany and Holland, often reading aloud to each other
from the works of Shakespeare and Rousseau.

A dedicated vegetarian, Shelley authored several works on the diet and spiritual
practice, including "A Vindication of Natural Diet" (1813). In 1815, Shelley
wrote Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude, a 720-line poem, now recognized as his
first great work. That same year, Shelley’s grandfather passed away and left
him an annual allowance of 1,000 British pounds.

Friendship with Lord Byron

In 1816, Mary’s step-sister, Claire Clairmont, invited Shelley and Mary to join
her on a trip to Switzerland. Claire had begun dating the Romantic poet Lord
Byron and wished to show him off to her sister. By the time they commenced
the trip, Lord Byron was less interested in Claire. Nevertheless, the three stayed
in Switzerland all summer. Shelley rented a house on Lake Geneva very near to
Lord Bryon’s and the two men became fast friends. Shelley wrote incessantly
during his visit. After a long day of boating with Byron, Shelley returned home
and wrote Hymn to Intellectual Beauty. After a trip through the French Alps with
Byron, he was inspired to write Mont Blanc, a pondering on the relationship
between man and nature.

Harriet’s Death and Shelley’s Second Marriage

In the fall of 1816, Shelley and Mary returned to England to find that Mary’s half-
sister, Fanny Imlay, had committed suicide. In December of that year it was
discovered that Harriet had also committed suicide. She was found drowned in
the Serpentine River in Hyde Park, London. A few weeks later, Shelley and
Mary finally married. Mary’s father, William Godwin, was delighted by the news
and accepted his daughter back into the family fold. Amidst their celebration,
however, loss pursued Shelley. Following Harriet’s death, the courts ruled not to
give Shelley custody of their children, asserting that they would be better off
with foster parents.
With these matters settled, Shelley and Mary moved to Marlow, a small village
in Buckinghamshire. There, Shelley befriended John Keats and Leigh Hunt,
both talented poets and writers. Shelley’s conversations with them encouraged
his own literary pursuits. Around 1817, he wrote Laon and Cythna; or, The
Revolution of the Golden city. His publishers balked at the main storyline,
however, which centers on incestuous lovers. He was asked to edit it and to find
a new title for the work. In 1818, he reissued it as The Revolt of Islam. Though
the title suggests the subject of Islam, the poem’s focus is religion in general
and features socialist, political themes.

Life in Italy

Shortly after the publication of The Revolt of Islam, Shelley, Mary and Claire left
for Italy. Lord Bryon was living in Venice, and Claire was on a mission to bring
their daughter, Allegra, to visit with him. For the next several years, Shelley and
Mary moved from city to city. While in Rome, their first-born son William died of
a fever. A year later, their baby daughter, Clara Everina, died as well. Around
this time, Shelley wrote Prometheus Unbound. During their residency in
Livorno, in 1819, he wrote The Cenci and The Masque of Anarchy and Men of
England, a response to the Peterloo Massacre in England.

Death and Significance

On July 8, 1822, just shy of turning 30, Shelley drowned while sailing his
schooner back from Livorno to Lerici, after having met with Leigh Hunt to
discuss their newly printed journal, The Liberal. Despite conflicting evidence,
most papers reported Shelley’s death as an accident. However, based on the
scene that was discovered on the boat’s deck, others speculated that he might
have been murdered by an enemy who detested his political beliefs.

Shelley’s body was cremated on the beach in Viareggio, where his body had
washed ashore. Mary Shelley, as was the custom for women during the time,
did not attend her husband’s funeral. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s ashes were
interred in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. More than a century later, he was
memorialized in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.
I FEAR YOUR KISSES

I fear your kisses, sweet lady.

You do not need to fear mine;

My spirit is so deeply overwhelmed,

That can not overwhelm yours.

I fear your bearing, your ways, your movement.

You do not need to fear mine;

The devotion of the heart is innocent

with which I adore you.

FAIRY WINE

I got drunk with that honey wine

of the lunar cocoon of zarzarrosa,

that the fairies collect in hyacinth glasses:

the dormice, bats and moles

they sleep between the walls or in the grass,

in the deserted and sad courtyard of the castle;

when the wine spills in the summer land

or in the midst of the dew their vapors rise,

of joy are filled with their happy dreams

and, asleep, they murmur their joy; so few

they are the fairies that bring these chalices so new.

OZYMANDIAS

I saw a traveler, from remote lands.

He told me: there are two legs in the desert,

Stone and without trunk. On his true side

Face in the sand lies: the broken face,

His lips, his cold tyrant gesture,

They tell us that the sculptor has been able

Save the passion, which has survived

To the one who could carve it with his hand.

Something has been written on the pedestal:

«I am Ozymandias, the great king. Behold

My work, powerful! Desperate !:

The ruin is of a colossal shipwreck.

At his side, infinite and legendary

Only the lonely sand remains ».

PROMETHEUS RELEASED
You fell, among all the gusts of the sky:

to the way of a spirit or of a thought, that crush

unexpected tears in insensitive eyes,

or like the beating of a bitter heart

that peace should already have, you descended

in the cradle of storms; so you woke up,

Spring, oh, born of a thousand winds! So sudden

you arrive, like some memory of a dream

that has become sad, because it was sweet someday,

and as the genius or as the joy that lifts

of the earth, wearing the golden clouds

the wilderness of life.

The station arrived already, and the day: this is the hour;

You have to come when the sun rises, sweet sister:

Comes, at last, desired so much time, and remiss!

How slow, like worms of death, instants!

The point e a white star still trembles, deep down

of that yellow light of the day that enlarges

behind mountains of purple: through a chasm

from the mist that the wind divides, the dark lake

reflects it; turns off; already re-rutilar

when the water fades, while burning threads

from the woven clouds the pale air rips:

It is lost! And in the snow peaks, like clouds,

sunlight, pink, already trembles. Can not you hear

the wind music of its feathers, of a green
marine, fanning the crimson dawn?
I AM LIKE A SPIRIT THAT DWELLS

I am like a spirit that dwells

in the deepest part of the heart.

I feel your feelings,

I think your thoughts

and I listen to the most intimate conversations of the soul,

the voice that is only heard in the rumor of blood,

when the beat of the beats

it resembles the calm waves of the summer ocean.

I have unleashed the golden melody

of his deep soul and I plunged into it

and, like the eagle in the middle of the mist and the storm,

I have let my wings adorn

with the glare of the rays.

 JOHN KEATS
English Romantic lyric poet John Keats was dedicated to the perfection of
poetry marked by vivid imagery that expressed a
philosophy through classical legend.

Synopsis

Born in London, England, on October 31, 1795,

John Keats devoted his short life to the perfection
of poetry marked by vivid imagery, great sensuous
appeal and an attempt to express a philosophy
through classical legend. In 1818 he went on a
walking tour in the Lake District. His exposure and
overexertion on that trip brought on the first symptoms of the tuberculosis,
which ended his life.

Early Years

A revered English poet whose short life spanned just 25 years, John Keats was
born October 31, 1795, in London, England. He was the oldest of Thomas and
Frances Keats’ four children.

Keats lost his parents at an early age. He was eight years old when his father, a
livery stable-keeper, was killed after being trampled by a horse.

His father's death had a profound effect on the young boy's life. In a more
abstract sense, it shaped Keats' understanding for the human condition, both its
suffering and its loss. This tragedy and others helped ground Keats' later
poetry—one that found its beauty and grandeur from the human experience.

In a more mundane sense, Keats' father's death greatly disrupted the family's
financial security. His mother, Frances, seemed to have launched a series of
missteps and mistakes after her husband’s death; she quickly remarried and
just as quickly lost a good portion of the family's wealth. After her second
marriage fell apart, Frances left the family, leaving her children in the care of her
mother.

She eventually returned to her children's life, but her life was in tatters. In early
1810, she died of tuberculosis.

During this period, Keats found solace and comfort in art and literature. At
Enfield Academy, where he started shortly before his father's passing, Keats
proved to be a voracious reader. He also became close to the school's
headmaster, John Clarke, who served as a sort of a father figure to the
orphaned student and encouraged Keats' interest in literature.
Back home, Keats' maternal grandmother turned over control of the family's
finances, which was considerable at the time, to a London merchant named
Richard Abbey. Overzealous in protecting the family's money, Abbey showed
himself to be reluctant to let the Keats children spend much of it. He refused to
be forthcoming about how much money the family actually had and in some
cases was downright deceitful.

There is some debate as to whose decision it was to pull Keats out of Enfield,
but in the fall of 1810, Keats left the school for studies to become a surgeon. He
eventually studied medicine at a London hospital and became a licensed
apothecary in 1816.

Early Poetry

But Keats' career in medicine never truly took off. Even as he studied medicine,
Keats’ devotion to literature and the arts never ceased. Through his friend,
Cowden Clarke, whose father was the headmaster at Enfield, Keats met
publisher, Leigh Hunt of The Examiner.

Hunt's radicalism and biting pen had landed him in prison in 1813 for libeling
Prince Regent. Hunt, though, had an eye for talent and was an early supporter
of Keats poetry and became his first publisher. Through Hunt, Keats was
introduced to a world of politics that was new to him and had greatly influenced
what he put on the page. In honor of Hunt, Keats wrote the sonnet, "Written on
the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison."

In addition to affirming Keats' standing as a poet, Hunt also introduced the

young poet to a group of other English poets, including Percy Bysshe Shelley
and Williams Wordsworth.

In 1817 Keats leveraged his new friendships to publish his first volume of
poetry, Poems by John Keats. The following year, Keats' published "Endymion,"
a mammoth four-thousand line poem based on the Greek myth of the same
name.

Keats had written the poem in the summer and fall of 1817, committing himself
to at least 40 lines a day. He completed the work in November of that year and
it was published in April 1818.

Keats' daring and bold style earned him nothing but criticism from two of
England's more revered publications, Blackwood's Magazine and the Quarterly
Review. The attacks were an extension of heavy criticism lobbed at Hunt and
his cadre of young poets. The most damning of those pieces had come from
Blackwood's, whose piece, "On the Cockney School of Poetry," shook Keats
and made him nervous to publish "Endymion."
Keats' hesitation was warranted. Upon its publication the lengthy poem received
a lashing from the more conventional poetry community. One critic called the
work, the "imperturbable driveling idiocy of Endymion." Others found the four-
book structure and its general flow hard to follow and confusing.

Recovering Poet

How much of an effect this criticism had on Keats is uncertain, but it is clear that
he did take notice of it. But Shelley's later accounts of how the criticism
destroyed the young poet and led to his declining health, however, have been
refuted.

Keats in fact, had already moved beyond "Endymion" even before it was
published. By the end of 1817, he was reexamining poetry's role in society. In
lengthy letters to friends, Keats outlined his vision of a kind of poetry that drew
its beauty from real world human experience rather than some mythical
grandeur.

The Mature Poet

In the summer of 1818, Keats took a walking tour in Northern England and
Scotland. He returned home later that year to care for his brother, Tom, who'd
fallen deeply ill with tuberculosis.

Keats, who around this time fell in love with a woman named Fanny Brawne,
continued to write. He'd proven prolific for much of the past year. His work
included his first Shakespearean sonnet, "When I have fears that I may cease
to be," which was published in January 1818.

Two months later, Keats published "Isabella," a poem that tells the story of a
woman who falls in love with a man beneath her social standing, instead of the
man her family has chosen her to marry. The work was based on a story from
Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio, and it's one Keats himself would grow to
dislike.
TO LONELINESS

Oh, Soledad! If I have to live with you,

That is not in the messy suffer

Of murky and gloomy dwellings,

Let's climb the steep staircase together;

Observatory of nature,

Contemplating the delicacy of the valley,

Its flowery slopes,

Its crystalline river running;

Allow me to watch, sleepy,

Under the roof of green branches,

Where the deer pass like flies,

Waving the bees in their bells.

But, although with pleasure I imagine

These sweet scenes with you,

The smooth conversation of a mind,

Whose words are innocent images,

It is the pleasure of my soul; and certainly must be

The greatest joy of humanity,

Dream that your race may suffer

For two spirits that together decide to flee.

THIS LIVING HAND

This living hand, now warm and capable

To grasp firmly, if it is cold

And in the frozen silence of the tomb,

It would be so bewitching your days and freezing your dreams

That you would wish your own heart to dry of blood

So that in my veins red life would run again,

And you quieten your conscience-you see, here it is-

I hold it in front of you.

ODE TO MELANCHOLY

Do not go to Leteo or squeeze the purple

aconite looking for his intoxicating wine;

Do not let your pale forehead be kissed

at night, violet grape of Proserpina.

Do not make your rosary with the fruits of the yew

Do not let moth or beetle be

your plaintive soul, nor that the nocturnal owl

contemplate the mysteries of your deep sadness.

For the shade in the shade returns, sleepy,

and drowns the anguished vigil of the spirit.

But when the access of atrocious melancholy

it suddenly looms, like a cloud from the sky

who cares for the flowers warmed by the sun

and that the green hill blurs in its rain,

Wipe off your sadness in an early rose

or in the rainbow saline of the marine wave

or in the spherical beauty of the peonies;

or, if your beloved expresses the reason for his anger,

Take your hand firmly, let it so long

and contemplates, constant, his eyes without equal.

With Beauty dwells, Beauty that is mortal.

Also with joy, whose hand on your lips

always sketch a goodbye; and with the painful pleasure

that as long as the liba bee becomes poison.

Well, in the same Temple of Pleasure, with its veil

has its sovereign numen Melancholy,

although he can see only him whose anxious

mouth bites the fatal grape of joy.

That soul will prove its sad power

and among its misty trophies it will be exposed.

ABOUT DEATH

Can Death be asleep, if life is only a dream,

And the bliss scenes happen like a ghost?

The ephemeral pleasures to visions resemble each other,

And we still believe that the greatest pain is dying.

II

How strange it is that man must err on earth,

And lead a life of sadness, but do not give up

Its rugged path, nor dare to contemplate alone

His fateful destiny, which is nothing but awakening.

OVER THE SEA

Their eternal murmurs do not cease,

surrounding desolate beaches,

And the brio of its waves

ten thousand caverns filled twice,

and the spell of liècate leaves you your old one is dark.

But often it has such a sweet continent,

barely moved the smallest shell

for many days, from where it fell

When the celestial winds passed, without chains.

Those who have painful or tired eyes,

give them that width of the Janar, like a feast;

and those deafened by harsh clamor

or those who are full of tiresome notes,

sit next to an ancient cave, meditating,

even startle, as when singing the nymphs.

 SAMUEL JOHNSON
Samuel Johnson LL.D. (18 September 1709 [OS 7
September] – 13 December 1784), often referred to
as Dr. Johnson, was an English writer who made
lasting contributions to English literature as a poet,
essayist, moralist, li terary critic, biographer, editor
and lexicographer. He was a devout Anglican and a
generous philanthropist.[1] Politically, he was a
committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most
distinguished man of letters in English history".[2] He
is also the subject of James Boswell's The Life of
Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single
work of biographical art in the whole of literature".[3]

Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford,

for just over a year, but a lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a
teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentleman's
Magazine. His early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the
poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene.

After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was
published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been
acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship".[4] This
work brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of
the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was the pre-eminent
British dictionary.[5]His later works included essays, an influential annotated
edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the widely read tale The
History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell,
with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A
Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he
produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets,
a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Johnson was a tall[a] and robust man. His odd gestures and tics were
disconcerting to some on first meeting him. Boswell's Life, along with other
biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail
that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome,[6] a
condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After a series of
illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried
in Westminster Abbey. In the years following his death, Johnson began to be
recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and he was
claimed by some to be the only truly great critic of English literature.
Life and career

Early life and education

Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September 1709, to Sarah (née Ford) and
Michael Johnson, a bookseller.[8] The birth took place in the family homeabove
his father's bookshop in Lichfield, Staffordshire. His mother was 40 when she
gave birth to Johnson. This was considered an unusually late pregnancy, so
precautions were taken, and a "man-midwife" and surgeon of "great reputation"
named George Hector was brought in to assist.[9] The infant Johnson did not
cry, and there were concerns for the his health. His aunt exclaimed that "she
would not have picked such a poor creature up in the street".[10] The family
feared that Johnson would not survive, and summoned the vicar of St Mary's to
perform a baptism.[11] Two godfathers were chosen, Samuel Swynfen, a
physician and graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford, and Richard Wakefield, a
lawyer, coroner, and Lichfield town clerk.[12]

Johnson's health improved and he was put to wet-nurse with Joan Marklew.
Some time later he contracted scrofula,[13] known at the time as the "King's
Evil" because it was thought royalty could cure it. Sir John Floyer, former
physician to King Charles II, recommended that the young Johnson should
receive the "royal touch",[14] and he did so from Queen Anne on 30 March
1712. However, the ritual proved ineffective, and an operation was performed
that left him with permanent scars across his face and body.[15] With the birth
of Johnson's brother, Nathaniel, a few months later, their father was unable to
pay the debts he had accrued over the years, and the family was no longer able
to maintain its standard of living.

Early career

Little is known about Johnson's life between the end of 1729 and 1731. It is
likely that he lived with his parents. He experienced bouts of mental anguish
and physical pain during years of illness;[41] his tics and gesticulations
associated with Tourette syndrome became more noticeable and were often
commented upon.[42] By 1731 Johnson's father was deeply in debt and had
lost much of his standing in Lichfield. Johnson hoped to get an usher's position,
which became available at Stourbridge Grammar School, but since he did not
have a degree, his application was passed over on 6 September 1731.[41] At
about this time, Johnson's father became ill and developed an "inflammatory
fever" which led to his death in December 1731.[43] Johnson eventually found
employment as undermaster at a school in Market Bosworth, run by Sir Wolstan
Dixie, who allowed Johnson to teach without a degree.[44] Although Johnson
was treated as a servant,[45] he found pleasure in teaching even though he
considered it boring. After an argument with Dixie he left the school, and by
June 1732 he had returned home.
A Dictionary of the English Language

In 1746, a group of publishers approached Johnson with an idea about creating

an authoritative dictionary of the English language.[67] A contract with William
Strahan and associates, worth 1,500 guineas, was signed on the morning of 18
June 1746.[75] Johnson claimed that he could finish the project in three years.
In comparison, the Académie Française had 40 scholars spending 40 years to
complete their dictionary, which prompted Johnson to claim, "This is the
proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen
hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman."[67] Although
he did not succeed in completing the work in three years, he did manage to
finish it in eight.[67] Some criticised the dictionary, including Thomas Babington
Macaulay, who described Johnson as "a wretched etymologist,"[76] but
according to Bate, the Dictionary "easily ranks as one of the greatest single
achievements of scholarship, and probably the greatest ever performed by one
individual who laboured under anything like the disadvantages in a comparable
length of time."[4]

Johnson's dictionary was not the first, nor was it unique. It was, however, the
most commonly used and imitated for the 150 years between its first publication
and the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1928. Other dictionaries,
such as Nathan Bailey's Dictionarium Britannicum, included more words,[5] and
in the 150 years preceding Johnson's dictionary about twenty other general-
purpose monolingual "English" dictionaries had been produced.[77] However,
there was open dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period. In 1741, David
Hume claimed: "The Elegance and Propriety of Stile have been very much
neglected among us. We have no Dictionary of our Language, and scarce a
tolerable Grammar."[78]Johnson's Dictionary offers insights into the 18th
century and "a faithful record of the language people used".[5] It is more than a
reference book; it is a work of literature.

Later career

On 16 March 1756, Johnson was arrested for an outstanding debt of £5 18s.

Unable to contact anyone else, he wrote to the writer and publisher Samuel
Richardson. Richardson, who had previously lent Johnson money, sent him
six guineas to show his good will, and the two became friends.[103] Soon after,
Johnson met and befriended the painter Joshua Reynolds, who so impressed
Johnson that he declared him "almost the only man whom I call a
friend".[104] Reynolds' younger sister Frances observed during their time
together "that men, women and children gathered around him [Johnson]",
laughing at his gestures and gesticulations.[105] In addition to Reynolds,
Johnson was close to Bennet Langton and Arthur Murphy. Langton was a
scholar and an admirer of Johnson who persuaded his way into a meeting with
Johnson which led to a long friendship. Johnson met Murphy during the
summer of 1754 after Murphy came to Johnson about the accidental
republishing of the Rambler No. 190, and the two became friends.[106] Around
this time, Anna Williams began boarding with Johnson. She was a minor poet
who was poor and becoming blind, two conditions that Johnson attempted to
change by providing room for her and paying for a failed cataract surgery.
Williams, in turn, became Johnson's housekeeper.

Legacy

Johnson was, in the words of Steven Lynn, "more than a well-known writer and
scholar";[225] he was a celebrity for the activities and the state of his health in
his later years were constantly reported in various journals and newspapers,
and when there was nothing to report, something was invented.[226] According
to Bate, "Johnson loved biography," and he "changed the whole course of
biography for the modern world. One by-product was the most famous single
work of biographical art in the whole of literature, Boswell's Life of Johnson, and
there were many other memoirs and biographies of a similar kind written on
Johnson after his death."[3] These accounts of his life include Thomas
Tyers's A Biographical Sketch of Dr Samuel
Johnson (1784);[227] Boswell's The Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides (1785); Hester Thrale's Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, which
drew on entries from her diary and other notes;[228] John Hawkins's Life of
Samuel Johnson, the first full-length biography of Johnson;[229] and, in
1792, Arthur Murphy's An Essay on the Life and Genius of Samuel Johnson,
which replaced Hawkins's biography as the introduction to a collection of
Johnson's Works.[230] Another important source was Fanny Burney, who
described Johnson as "the acknowledged Head of Literature in this kingdom"
and kept a diary containing details missing from other biographies.[231] Above
all, Boswell's portrayal of Johnson is the work best known to general readers.
Although critics like Donald Greene argue about its status as a true biography,
the work became successful as Boswell and his friends promoted it at the
expense of the many other works on Johnson's life.
MEETING
CONRAD (POTTER) AIKEN (1889-1978)

Conrad AikenWhy do I look at you? Why do I touch you? What do I seek in you,
woman,
That I should to meet you again?
Why must I sound once more your abysmal anothingnees,
And draw up only pain?
Hard, hard, I stare at you watery ayes; yet am not convinced, Now no more than
ever before,
That they are only two mirrors reflecting the sky’s blank light,
That, and nothing more.
And I press my body against your body, as thoungh I hoped to break
Clean through to another sphere;
And I strive to speak to you with a speech beyond my speech,
In which all things are clear;
Till exhausted I drown once more in your abysmal nothingnees,
And the cold nothignees of me:
You, laughing and crying in this ridiculous room,
With your had upon my knee;
Crying because you think me perverse and unhappy; and laughing
To find our love so strange;
Our eyes fixed hard on each other in a last blind desperate hope
That the whole world might change.
TWO COFFEES IN THE ESPAÑOL
CONRAD (POTTER) AIKEN (1889-1978)

Two coffees in the Español, the last

Bright drops of golden Barsac in a goblet,
Fig paste and candied nuts… Hardy is dead,
And James and Conrad dead, and Shakspere dead
,And old Moore ripens for an obscene grave,
And Yeats for an arid one; and I, and you --
What winding sheet for us, what boards and bricks,
What mummeries, candles, prayers and pious frauds?
You shall be lapped in Syrian scarlet, woman,
And wear your pearls, and your bright bracelets, too,
Your agate ring, and round your neck shall hang
Your dark blue lapis with its specks of gold.
And I, beside you -- ah! But will that be?
For there are dark streams in this dark world, lady,
Gulf Streams and Arctic currrents of the soul;
And I may be, before our consummation
Beds us together, cheek by jowl, in earth,
Swept to another shore, where my white bones
Wil lie unhonored, or defiled by gulls.

What dignity can death bestow on us,

Who kiss beneath a streetlamp, or hold hands
Half hidden in a taxi, or replete
With coffee, figs and Barsac make our way
To a dark bedroom in a wormworn house?
The aspidistra guards the door; we enter,
Per aspidistra-then-ad astra-is it?-
And lock ourselves securely in our gloom
And loose ourselves from terror...Here´s my hand,
The white scar on my thumb, and here's my mouth
To stop your murmur; speechless let us lie,
And think of Hardy, Shakspere, Yeats and James;
Comfort our panic hearts with magic names;
Stare at the ceiling, where the taxi lamps
Make ghots of light; and see, beyond this bed,
That other bed in which we will not move;
And, whether joined or separate, will not love.
PORTRAIT OF A GIRL
CONRAD (POTTER) AIKEN (1889-1978)

This is the shape of the leaf, and this of the flower,

And this the pale bole of the tree
Which watches its boughs in a pool of unwavering water
In a land we never shall see.

The thrush on the bough is silent, the dew falls softly,

In the evening is hardly a sound.
And the three beautiful pilgrims who come here together
Touch lightly the dust of the ground,

Touch it with feet that trouble the dust but as wings do,
Come shyly together, are still,
Like dancers who wait, in a pause of the music, for music
The exquisite silence to fill.

This is the thought of the first, and this of the second,

And this the grave thought of the third:
"Linger we thus for a moment, palely expectant,
And silence will end, and the bird

"Sing the pure phrase, sweet phrase, clear phrase in the twilight
To fill the blue bell of the world;

And we, who on music so leaf like have drifted together,

Leaflike apart shall be whirled

Into what but the beauty of silence, silence forever?" . . .

. . . This is the shape of the tree,
And the flower, and the leaf, and the three pale beautiful pilgrims
This is what you are to me.
GOYA
CONRAD (POTTER) AIKEN (1889-1978)

Goya drew a pig on a wall.

The five-year-old hairdresser’s son
Saw, graved on a silver tray,
The lion; and sunsets were begun.

Goya smelt the bull-íight blood.

The pupil of the Carmelite
Gave his hands to a goldsmith, learned
To gild an aureole aright.

Goya saw the Puzzel's eyes:

Sang in the street (with a guitar)
And climbed the balcony; but Keats
(Under the halyards) wrote 'Bright star'.

Goya saw the Great Slut pick

The chirping human puppets up,
And laugh, with pendulous mountain lip,
And drown them in a corlee cup;

Or squeeze their little juices out

In arid hands, insensitive,
To make them gibber... Goya
went Among the catacombs to live.

He saw gross Ronyons of the air,

Harelipped and goitered, raped in flight
By hairless pimps, umbrella-winged:
Tumult above Madrid at night.

He heard the seconds in his clock

Crack like seeds, divulge, and pour
Abysmal filth of Nothingness
Between the pendulum and the floor:

Torrents of dead veins, rotted cells,

Tonsils decayed, and fmgernails:
Dead, hair, dead fur, dead claws, dead skin:
Nostrils and lids; and cauls and veils;

And eyes that still, in death, remained

(Unlidded and unlashed) aware
Of the foul core, and, fouler yet,
The región worm that ravins there.

Stench flowed out of the second's tick

And Goya swam with it through Space,
Sweating the fetor from his limbs,
And stared upon the unfeatured face

That did not see, and sheltered naught,

But was, and is. The second gone,
Goya returned, and drew the face;
And scrawled beneath it, 'This I have known'

And drew four slatterns, in an attic,

Heavy, with heads on arms, asleep:
And underscribed it, 'Let them slumber,
Who, if they woke, could only weep'...
UNSETS
Richard Aldington (England, 1892-1962)

The white body of the evening

Is torn into scarlet,
Slashed and gouged and seared
Into crimson,
And hung ironically
With garlands of mist.

And the wind

Blowing over London from Flanders
Has a bitter taste.
 LORD BYRON
Is regarded as one of the greatest British poets and is best known for his
amorous lifestyle and his brilliant use of the English language.

Who Was Lord Byron?

Born in 1788, Lord Byron was one of the leading figures of the Romantic
Movement in early 19th century England. The notoriety of his sexual escapades
is surpassed only by the beauty and brilliance of his writings. After leading an
unconventional lifestyle and producing a massive amount of emotionally stirring
literary works, Byron died at a young age in Greece pursuing romantic
adventures of heroism.

Poems

'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers'

After receiving a scathing review of his first volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness,
in 1808, Byron retaliated with the satirical poem "English Bards and Scotch
Reviewers." The poem attacked the literary community with wit and satire, and
gained him his first literary recognition. Upon turning 21, Byron took his seat in
the House of Lords. A year later, with John Hobhouse, he embarked on a grand
tour through the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, visiting Portugal, Spain,
Malta, Albania, Greece and Turkey.

'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

It was during his journey, filled with inspiration, he began writing "Childe
Harold's Pilgrimage," a poem of a young man's reflections on travel in foreign
lands.

Love Affairs & More Poems

In July 1811, Byron returned to London after the death of his mother, and in
spite of all her failings, her passing plunged him into a deep mourning. High
praise by London society pulled him out of his doldrums, as did a series of love
affairs, first with the passionate and eccentric Lady Caroline Lamb, who
described Byron as "mad, bad and dangerous to know," and then with Lady
Oxford, who encouraged Byron's radicalism. Then, in the summer of 1813,
Byron apparently entered into an intimate relationship with his half sister,
Augusta, now married. The tumult and guilt he experienced as a result of these
love affairs were reflected in a series of dark and repentant poems, "The
Giaour," "The Bride of Abydos" and "The Corsair."
Exile

In April 1816, Byron left England, never to return. He traveled to Geneva,

Switzerland, befriending Percy Bysshe Shelley, his wife Mary and her
stepsister, Claire Clairmont. While in Geneva, Byron wrote the third canto to
"Childe Harold," depicting his travels from Belgium up the Rhine to Switzerland.
On a trip to the Bernese Oberland, Byron was inspired to write the Faustian
poetic-drama Manfred. By the end of that summer the Shelleys departed for
England, where Claire gave birth to Byron's daughter Allegra in January 1817.

Last Heroic Adventure

In 1823 a restless Byron accepted an invitation to support Greek independence

from the Ottoman Empire. Byron spent 4,000 pounds of his own money to refit
the Greek naval fleet and took personal command of a Greek unit of elite
fighters. On February 15, 1824, he fell ill. Doctors bled him, which weakened his
condition further and likely gave him an infection.

Death

Byron died on April 19, 1824, at age 36. He was deeply mourned in England
and became a hero in Greece. His body was brought back to England, but the
clergy refused to bury him at Westminster Abbey, as was the custom for
individuals of great stature. Instead, he was buried in the family vault near
Newstead. In 1969, a memorial to Byron was finally placed on the floor of
Westminster Abbey.

Early Life & Early Poems

Born George Gordon Byron (he later added "Noel" to his name) on January 22,
1788, Lord Byron was the sixth Baron Byron of a rapidly fading aristocratic
family. A clubfoot from birth left him self-conscious most of his life. As a boy,
young George endured a father who abandoned him, a schizophrenic mother
and a nurse who abused him. As a result he lacked discipline and a sense of
moderation, traits he held on to his entire life.
(SO, WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING...)

So, we'll go no more a roving

So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

By the light of the moon.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent!

(I WATCHED THEE...)

I watched thee when the foe was at our side -

Ready to strike at him, -or thee and me-
Were safety hopeless -rather than divide
Aught with one loved -save love and liberty.

I watched thee in the breakers -when the rock

Received our prow -and all was storm and fear
And bade thee cling to me through every shock -
This arm would be thy bark - or breast thy bier.

I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes -

Yielding my couch - and stretched me on the ground -
When overworn with watching - ne'er to rise
From thence - if thou an early grave hadst found.

The Earthquake came and rocked the quivering wall -

And men and Nature reeled as if with wine -
Whom did I seek around the tottering Hall -
For thee - whose safety first provide for - thine.

And when convulsive throes denied my breath

The faintest utterance to my fading thought -
To thee -to thee - even in the grasp of death
My spirit turned - Ah! oftener than it ought.

Thus much and more - and yet thou lov'st me not,

And never wilt - Love dwells not in our will -
Nor can I blame thee - though it be my lot
To strongly - wrongly -vainly - love thee still.
STANZAS FOR MUSIC
There be none of Beauty's daughters

With a magic like thee;

And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:

When, as if its sound were causing

The charmed ocean's pausing,

The waves lie still and gleaming,

And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep;

Whose breast is gently heaving,

As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee,

To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

WHEN WE TWO PARTED

When we two parted

In silence and tears,

Half broken-hearted

To sever for years,

Pale grew thy cheek and cold,

Colder thy kiss;

Truly that hour foretold

Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning

Sunk chill on my brow--

It felt like the warning

Of what I feel now.

Thy vows are all broken,

And light is thy fame;

I hear thy name spoken,

And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,

A knell to mine ear;

A shudder comes o’er me--

Why wert thou so dear?

They know not I knew thee,

Who knew thee too well--

Long, long shall I rue thee,

Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met--

In silence I grieve,

That thy heart could forget,

Thy spirit deceive.

If I should meet thee

After long years,

How should I greet thee?--

With silence and tears.

 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

(1770/04/07 - 1850/04/23)
He was born on April 7, 1770 in Cockermouth.

He studied at Saint John's College in Cambridge.

Although he wrote poetry from his childhood, he

did not publish any poem until 1793, the year in
which A Walk in the Afternoon and Descriptive
Notes appeared.

He collaborated with the poet Samuel Taylor

Coleridge, in a book of poems entitled Lyric
Baladas, published in 1798. During 1798 and
1799, he made some of his best poems, those of
the series "Lucy", and began to write The Prelude.

In 1802, he married Mary Hutchinson whom he magnificently portrayed in "She

was a delicious ghost." In 1807 he published Poemas in two volumes. Between
1814 and 1822, it publishes the excursion (1814), continuation of the prelude,
the white rabbit of Rylstone (1815), Peter Bell (1819) and ecclesiastical Sonnets
(1822). Among his other poetic works are Los de la frontera (1796, published in
1842), Michael (1800), El recluso (1800, published in 1888), Laodamia (1815)
and Recuerdos de una tour por el continente (1822). He also wrote some works
in prose, such as The Convention of Cindra (1809) and Description of the
landscape and lakes in the north of England (1810, reprinted with some
additions in 1822).

William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, on April 23, 1850

Selected works

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems (lyrical ballads, 1798)

Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems (Lyrical ballads, 1800)

Poems, in Two Volumes (Poems, in two volumes, 1807)

Memorials of a Tour in Scotland (1803)

Elegiac Stanzas, suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm, painted by

Sir George Beaumont (1805)

The Excursion (The excursion, 1814)

The Recluse
Ecclesiastical Sonnets. In Series (1821)

The Prelude or, Growth of a Poet's Mind: Advertisement (1850, posthumous)

WHY ARE YOU SO QUIET?

Why are you so quiet? Is it a plant

your love, so despicable and tiny,

that the air of absence withers him?

Hey moan the voice in my throat:

I have served you as a royal Infanta.

Beggar I am that loves asks ...

Oh, alms of love! Think and meditate

that without your love my life breaks.

Tell me! there is no torment like doubt:

If my loving chest has lost you

Does your desolate image not move you?

I HEARD A THOUSAND MIXED NOTES
I heard a thousand mixed notes,

While in the grove I sat reclining,

In that sweet mood in which the serene thoughts

They bring ideas of sadness to my thinking.

To his beautiful works, nature united

The human soul that flowed through me;

And my heart was anguished thinking

What man has done to man.

Through the bushes of the sweet enramada

The periwinkle wove its garlands;

And I give my faith that every flower

He delights in the air he breathes.

The birds around me jumped and played,

I can not measure your thoughts,

But the least of its flutter

It seemed like shuddering pleasure.

Branches that sprout extend their fan

To capture the air of the breeze;

And I must think, and do what I can,

In the pleasure that there was in that place.

If I can not avoid such thoughts,

If such were the intention of my beliefs,

I have no reason to regret

What man has done to man?

I HEARD A THOUSAND MIXED NOTES
I heard a thousand mixed notes,

While in the grove I sat reclining,

In that sweet mood in which the serene thoughts

They bring ideas of sadness to my thinking.

To his beautiful works, nature united

The human soul that flowed through me;

And my heart was anguished thinking

What man has done to man.

Through the bushes of the sweet enramada

The periwinkle wove its garlands;

And I give my faith that every flower

He delights in the air he breathes.

The birds around me jumped and played,

I can not measure your thoughts,

But the least of its flutter

It seemed like shuddering pleasure.

Branches that sprout extend their fan

To capture the air of the breeze;

And I must think, and do what I can,

In the pleasure that there was in that place.

If I can not avoid such thoughts,

If such were the intention of my beliefs,

I have no reason to regret

What man has done to man?

IBA SOLITARY LIKE A CLOUD

I went lonely as a cloud

that floats over valleys and hills,

when suddenly I saw a crowd

of golden daffodils: stretched

by the lake, in the shade of the trees,

in dance with the evening breeze.

Gathered as bright stars

in the milky summer sky,

They populated a shore next to the water

drawing an unlimited path.

Thousands were offered to me,

moving their dancing heads.

The water was waving, but they

They showed a more lively joy.

How, if not happy, will he be a poet

in such clear and joyous company?

My eyes were imbibed, ignoring

that this prodigy was a balm.

Because often, lying in my bed,

pensive or with tired spirit,

I see them in the inner eye of the soul

which is the glory of the solitary man.

and my chest recovers its deep rhythm

and dances once more with the narcissus.

NOW, WHILE THE BIRDS

Now, while the birds sing happy melodies

and the little lambs frolic

as if they were dancing to the beat of a drum,

I am overcome with grief: a lament gave me temporary relief

and now I recover the strength.

From above, the trumpets of the waterfalls resound,

a pain of mine will not cloud the spring again.

I hear the echoes that echo in the mountains,

the wind comes to me from dream valleys

and my inner world becomes happy.

The earth and the sea give themselves to happiness,

and in mid-May each animal feels happy.

You, son of that joy, scream around me,

I want to hear you scream, oh, happy shepherd!

THE TWO SEPULTURES

As in a sunny hollow

is hidden, defended from the March winds,

a tender lamb

sheltered by his family,

also that little pile of earth

is under the protection of another very close,

The little mound speaks for itself:

there rests a child

protected by a mound, grave of his mother.

WHY ARE YOU SO QUIET?

Why are you so quiet? Is it a plant

your love, so despicable and tiny,

that the air of absence withers him?

Hey moan the voice in my throat:

I have served you as a royal Infanta.

Beggar I am that loves asks ...

Oh, alms of love! Think and meditate

that without your love my life breaks.

Tell me! there is no torment like doubt:

If my loving chest has lost you

Does your desolate image not move you?

Do not remain silent to my prayers!

that I am more desolate than, in its nest,

the bird that covers white snow