204
Confessions, Livre V (1732).
205
See especially Childe Harold, canto II, XXV ff.
206
Ibid., canto II, XXXVII.
207
Ibid., canto III, LXXII.
208
Ibid., canto IV, CLXXVII.
209
See La Perception du changement, 30.
210
ASIA
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
…
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music’s most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided
The boat of my desire is guided;
Realms where the air we breathe is love —
Prometheus Unbound, Act II, Sc. V.
211
“Si tu souffres plus qu’un autre des choses de la vie, il ne faut pas t’en étonner; une grande âme doit contenir plus de douleurs qu’une petite.”
212
Cf. Shelley, Julian and Maddalo:
I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
213
Cf. for example, the passage of Rousseau in the seventh Promenade (“Je sens des extases, des ravissements inexprimables à me fondre pour ainsi dire dans le système des êtres,” etc.) with the revery described by Wordsworth in The Excursion, I, 200-218.
214
O belles, craignez le fond des bois, et leur vaste silence.
215
Faust (Miss Swanwick’s translation).
216
Artist and Public, 134 ff.
217
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves, etc.
Cf. Lamartine:
Quand la feuille des bois tombe dans la prairie,
Le vent du soir s’élève et l’arrache aux vallons;