Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats
John Stuart Mill · en
One of Hunt's most perfect poems, _Jaffar_, is inscribed to the memory of
Shelley. The praise of _Jaffar_ and his friend's undying loyalty
immediately suggest to the reader that Hunt may have been celebrating his
own and Shelley's friendship. The last review to appear during Shelley's
lifetime by Hunt was that of _Prometheus Unbound_ in three numbers of _The
Examiner_ of 1822. A projected review of _Adonais_ alluded to in a letter
of Hunt's does not seem to have seen the light of publication, but a
reference in a letter at the time is worth noting: "It is the most Delphic
poety I have seen in a long while: full of those embodyings of the most
subtle and airy imaginations,--those arrestings and explanations of the
most shadowy yearnings of our being."[273] The well-known account of
Shelley's rescue of a woman on Hampstead Heath was told in _The Literary
Examiner_ of August 23, 1823.[274] The same magazine of September 20 of
the same year[275] contained the following _Sonnet to Percy Shelley_,
given here because of its general inaccessibility:
"Hast thou from earth, then, really passed away,
And mingled with the shadowy mass of things
Which were, but are not? Will thy harp's dear strings
No more yield music to the rapid play
Of thy swift thoughts, now turned thou art to clay?
Hark! Is that rushing of thy spirit's wings,
When (like the skylark, who in mounting sings)
Soaring through high imagination's way,
Thou pour'dst thy melody upon the earth,
Silent for ever? Yes, wild ocean's wave
Hath o'er thee rolled. But whilst within the grave
Thou sleepst, let me in the love of thy pure worth
One thing foretell,--that thy great fame shall be
Progressive as Time's flood, eternal as the sea!"