_Cor cordium_ was his rightful appellation--for what he understood and felt was the innermost heart of things, their soul and spirit; and the feelings to which he gave expression were those inmost feelings, for which words seem too coarse, and which find vent only in music or in such verse as his, which is musical as richly harmonised melodies. The suppressed melancholy of Shelley's lyrics sometimes reminds us of Shakespeare. The little spinning song in _The Cenci_, for example, recalls Amiens' song in _As You like It_ or the songs of Desdemona and Ophelia. But where Shelley is most himself he surpasses Shakespeare in delicacy; and there is no other poet with whom he can be compared; no one surpasses him. The short poems of 1821 and 1822 are, one may venture to say, the most exquisite in the English language. Take as a specimen the little poem entitled _A Dirge_:-- "Rough wind that moanest loud Grief too sad for song; Wild wind when sullen cloud Knells all the night long; Sad storm whose tears are vain, Bare woods whose branches stain. Deep caves and dreary main, Wail for the world's wrong!" And wondrous in melody and restraint of expression is a verse like this:-- "One word is too often profaned For me to profane it; One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother; And pity from thee more dear Than that from another." The words are few, and there is nothing remarkable in the rhythm, yet there is not a line that could have come from any pen but Shelley's. In these short poems we are clearly conscious of the poet's melancholy, a melancholy which in his longer works is veiled, or else overpowered by his belief in a bright future, his faith in the progress of the human race. The inmost recesses of his own being were penetrated by a sadness produced by the feeling of the mutability of everything, and by early experience of the manner in which feeling leads astray, love disappoints, and life deceives. He has given imperishable expression to the feeling of mutability:-- "The flower that smiles to-day To-morrow dies: All that we wish to stay Tempts and then flies. What is this world's delight? Lightning that mocks the night. Brief even as bright. Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss For proud despair! But we, though soon they fall, Survive their joy, and all Which ours we call. Whilst skies are blue and bright, Whilst flowers are gay, Whilst eyes that change ere night Make glad the day, Whilst yet the calm hours creep, Dream thou--and from thy sleep Then wake to weep."