Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

VIII.] SHELLEY AS A LYRIC POET. 255
even the lyrics bear some impress of the source whence
they come. Beautiful though they be, they are like
those fine pearls which, we are told, are the products
of disease in the parent shell. All Shelley's poetry is,
as it were, a gale blown from a richly dowered but not
healthy land ; and the taint, though not so perceptible
in the lyrics, still hangs more or less over many of the
finest. Besides this defect, they are very limited in
their range of influence. They cannot reach the hearts
of all men. They fascinate only some of the educated,
and that probably only while they are young. The
time comes when these pass out of that peculiar sphere
of thought, and find little interest in such poetry.
Probably the rare exquisiteness of their workmanship
will always preserve Shelley^s lyrics, even after the
world has lost, as we may hope it will lose, sympathy
with their substance. But better, stronger, more vital
far are those lyrics which lay hold on the permanent,
unchanging emotions of man — those emotions which
all healthy natures have felt, and always will feel, and
which no new deposit of thought or of civilisation can
ever bury out of sight.