"Men wondered, and some sneered to see One sow what he could never reap: 'For he is rich,' they said, 'and young, And might drink from the depths of luxury. If he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned The champion of a trampled creed: If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned 'Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil Those who would sit near Power must toil.'" The reaction comes: "None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated Safely on her ancestral throne; And Faith, the python, undefeated. Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on Her foul and wounded train; and men Were trampled and deceived again." Lionel's enemies succeed in imprisoning him because he has blasphemed their gods. He passes a long time in solitary confinement, separated from the woman he loves. Then he meets her again, and they celebrate their nuptials under the starry sky. _Rosalind and Helen_ is a poem which bears traces of having been written in a mood of profound despair; in no other work does Shelley go to such extremes in his war upon all traditional law and convention. We have, in a previous volume of this work, touched upon the fact that many writers at the beginning of this century occupied themselves with the theory that the horror of incest has its source in prejudice. Both in _Rosalind and Helen_ and in _The Revolt of Islam_, the hero and heroine of which would, but for the earnest entreaties of the publisher, have been brother and sister, Shelley wasted much eloquence on this sinister paradox--which also greatly occupied Byron's mind, and was to give occasion to a foolish and revolting attack upon his memory.