Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Love stories
He found among the books the selected poems of Shelley which he had
brought home some mid-summers before as a prize for his English
examination. His own language was indeed the only one for which poor
Harry had shown much aptitude, though for a youth who had scribbled for
his school magazine, and formed the habit of shedding verses in his
thirteenth year, he was wofully ill-read even in that. Let it be
confessed that he took down his Shelley with the cynical and shameless
intention of seeking what he might imitate in those immortal pages. The
redeeming fact remains that he read in them for hours without once
recalling his impious and immoral scheme.
It was years since he had dipped into the book, and its contents caused
him naive astonishment. He had read a little poetry in his desultory
way. Tennyson he loved, and Byron he had imitated at school But in all
his adventurings on the Ægean seas of song, he had never chanced upon
such a cluster of golden islets as the lyrics in this selection. The
epic mainland had always less attraction for him. He found it demand a
concentrative effort, and Harry was very sorry and even ashamed, but he
loved least to read that way. So he left "Alastor" and "The Witch of
Atlas" untouched and untried, and spent half the night in ecstasies
over such discoveries as the "Indian Serenade" and "Love's Philosophy."
These were the things for him; the things that could be written out on
half a sheet of notepaper or learnt in five minutes; the things he
loved to read, and would have died to write.
He forgot his proposed revenge; he forgot his uttered vow. He forgot
the sinister design with which he had taken up his Shelley, and it was
pure love of the lines that left him, when he had blown out his candle,
saying his last-learnt over to himself:
"Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a trembling leaf,
Thou with sorrow art dismayed----"
Here he stuck fast and presently fell asleep, to think no more of it
till he was getting up next morning. He was invaded with a dim
recollection of this poem while the water was running into his bath. As
he took his plunge, the lines sprang out clear as sunshine after rain,
and the man in the bath made a discovery.
They were not Shelley's lines at all. They were his own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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