Shelley here compares himself to Actæon, whom the sight of Nature's naked loveliness drove distracted. It is plain that the strength of his strong will was required to keep this man with the fragile, delicate body from positive destruction by the visions and apparitions of his imagination. He often felt as if they were more than his brain could bear; and when he then, an exile in a foreign land, sought alleviation in solitude, he experienced such impressions of nature as that which is preserved in the entrancing _Stanzas Written in Dejection near Naples_, stanzas which contain the very essence of Shelley's poetry. He does not describe the landscape. He never does describe. It is not the outward forms and colours of things which he shows us, but that to which he is extraordinarily alive, what we have called their spirit and soul. One or two touches, and the Bay is before us:-- "The sun is warm, the sky is clear, The waves are dancing fast and bright; Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might." The waves break upon the shore "like light dissolved, in star-showers thrown. "The lightning of the noontide ocean is flashing, and a tone arises from its measured motion. "How sweet," cries the poet, "did any heart now share in my emotion!" "Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around; Nor that content, surpassing wealth, The sage in meditation found, And walked with inward glory crowned; Nor fame nor power nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround-- Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;-- To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 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. Some might lament that I were cold, As I when this sweet day is gone, Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan. They might lament--for I am one Whom men love not, and yet regret; Unlike this day, which, when the sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet." The man over whose dying brain cruel waves were so soon to close, feels, with a gentle mournfulness, his being dissolve into the beneficent elements of nature, and compares his last breath to that of the beautiful southern summer day. He did not, like Byron, love nature only in its agitated, wild moments; simple of heart himself, he loved its simplicity, its holy calm.