BOOKS BY EDWARD CARPENTER (continued 2)

I do not think that anyone who has studied the writings of some of the greater mystics will fail to see much that is similar in Shelley’s poetry; although, on the other hand, it is not likely that Shelley ever attained the full state of complete ecstasy.

In comparing the lives and records of different mystics we find, according to Dr. Bucke,[24] a certain substratum of common features, which seem to be essential characteristics of the mystical disposition. Before reaching the state of cosmic consciousness, the subject must be of an earnest, truth-seeking nature; he must perceive the evils of this life, and suffer acutely in spirit; he must be moved by compassion for the fate of mankind, and by an ardent yearning after a more spiritual existence. Usually more passionate than the average man, he yet has to renounce much of the so-called pleasures of the world, and, in solitude, to wring from his own heart the meaning and purpose of life.

There is so much in Shelley’s poetry which shows him in these typical preliminary stages which precede illumination, that I will only refer to the Ode to the West Wind—a poem in which the intensity of passion, the despair with this life, and the overwhelming yearning for identification with nature, which are typical of the mystic, find such poignant expression.

At the age of twenty-three Shelley wrote the poem Alastor. This poem is important to us, in that it forms a record of the early spiritual adventures of the poet, at a time when he pursued the half-revealed images of Truth and Beauty, which tempted him, and yet eluded his grasp. The “argument” of the poem is, in fact, the essence of Shelley’s own inner history. Alastor, a young poet, having seen, in half-revealing visions, glimpses of the Ideal, sets out on his quest for a mortal “prototype of his conception.”

“His mind is at length suddenly awakened and thirsts for intercourse with an intelligence similar to itself.” Now I have previously shown that Shelley set out on a similar quest, and have explained how inevitable was its failure. The poet instinctively recognised this as a fact, for he makes Alastor, “blasted by his disappointment, descend to an untimely grave.”

Alastor shows clearly that, even in 1815, Shelley had turned to inward meditation and mystical reverie, and had cultivated his imaginative faculty.

He wrestled with his visions and

And in another passage he says:

All this deep contemplation, however, did not then bring to Shelley any overwhelming revelation, such as Boehme experienced. Possibly his youth sufficiently accounts for this, but I think also that the erotic conflict, previously discussed, hindered the fuller development of these states. There is, in Alastor, a considerable admixture of erotic emotion which, we may suppose, inhibited the higher state of calm ecstasy. For some years after this poem was written Shelley’s life seems to have been too crowded with incident, too occupied with intellectual activities, and too much dominated by the effort to repress the homogenic tendencies, of his nature, to allow any further development of mystical experiences; although, scattered throughout his poems, there are still indications of such experience.

In 1822, however, it would seem that a definite development in this direction was taking place, and being recorded in that remarkable and intricate poem The Triumph of Life.

In this poem Shelley apparently attempted to describe a mystical vision, in which he saw the pageant of life pass before him, and in which he was about to penetrate into the heart of the mystery of creation. I do not, however, intend to attempt an analysis of this poem, but only to point out some of the features in it which throw light on Shelley’s spiritual adventures. The poem begins with a description of a “strange trance” into which the poet fell; a trance

In this preliminary “trance of wondrous thought,” the poet sees, as in a waking dream, the human multitudes thronging a public way; a chariot, driven by a four-faced shape, rushes by, passing heedlessly over the crowd. The poet converses with the shade of Rousseau, who describes one of his own visions, in which a shape (“all light”) gave him to drink from a crystal glass.

In this phrase “my brain became as sand,” Shelley describes one of the crucial points in mystical experience, namely, the blotting-out of intellect, and the suspension of the functioning of the senses. It is well known, of course, that the Eastern mystics deliberately practise this effacement of thought in order to penetrate into the abyss of their inner souls and attain the cosmic state. For Shelley’s two waves of mystical sensation, which obliterate first the more superficial, and then the deeper elements of consciousness, leaving the mind as blank as a clean sheet of wet sand, are only the precursors of a new vision.

This sense of subjective light is a constant feature of mystical experience, from which in fact, the word “Illumination” derives its significance. It is shown, for example, in the instance of Moses, who saw the bush wrapt in flames, and yet it was not consumed. William Blake’s visions were full of bright angels and of flames of fire; and his letter to Thomas Butts describes his “first vision of light.”

In their essence these experiences of ecstasy are condensed into one phrase by St. John of the Cross:

“On this road, to have our faculties in darkness is to see the light.”

It would seem, then, that Shelley had, at the end of his life, arrived very near to the final stage of mystical illumination, in which the soul seems united to the infinite spirit of the universe, and whereby the mystery of life is solved. Yet he never actually achieved this final state; for his untimely death occurred before The Triumph of Life was completed. What he had achieved, however, was sufficiently remarkable for so young a man; and it may well explain his extraordinary indifference as to whether he lived or died.

The Triumph of Life ends with the query “Then what is Life?” and the reader guesses that Shelley’s vision broke off even as suddenly as the poem breaks, and that no answer was vouchsafed him. But the poet had himself already attempted to answer the same question.

It always appears to the mystic as if the Eternal Spirit limited and hindered Itself by dwelling in this world of form and substance; and Shelley expresses this idea rather strikingly by his image of many-coloured glass, filtering and delimiting the various partial aspects of the pure spirit.

The Triumph of Life, and to some extent also Prometheus Unbound, point in the direction of mystical prophecy rather than of pure poetry, and I am entirely of Professor Dowden’s opinion “that The Triumph of Life may have been but the starting-point for a new and higher development of the writer’s genius.”[25] The incompleteness of the poem, and its lack of any final and comprehensive solution of the mystery of existence, signify little. Nor should we expect that Shelley, at the age of twenty-nine, could have experienced anything more than a partial fore-taste of illumination. We have to bear in mind the fact that as a general rule such illumination usually occurs when the subject is past thirty; whereas Shelley never reached that age. William Blake was thirty-three when he commenced his series of Prophetic Books with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell; previous to this turning-point in his career his mystical utterances and experiences had hardly been more pronounced than those of Shelley.

I have previously contrasted Blake with Shelley in respect of the polarity of their sexual natures. But, apart from this important difference, the two poets had much in common. Both were highly sensitive and passionate natures, revolutionary pioneers of freedom, and champions of a new morality—especially in sex matters. In both men there was a strong desire for solitude and for companionship with nature, and also an ardent yearning for communion with some more spiritual universe. Both had, even in boyhood, a marked tendency to experience visions, which are commonly described as hallucinations. Blake studied the Bible, Swedenborg, and Boehme intensively; while Shelley, with all his varied reading and rationalistic proclivities, yet showed a strong predilection for mystical and occult writers.

In later years he grew out of the more childish fancies of occultism, and turned to a more subtle mysticism. Yet, curiously enough, during the very last year of his life he seems, for the first time, to have actually undergone experiences which were occult rather than mystical. I refer to the strange apparitions which he saw shortly before his death. One of these is thus recorded in Mrs. Shelley’s Memorials (Chapter 12).

“One night loud cries were heard issuing from the saloon. The Williamses rushed out of their room in alarm; Mrs. Shelley fainted at the door. Entering the saloon, the Williamses found Shelley staring horribly into the air, and evidently in a state of trance. They waked him, and he related that a figure wrapped in a mantle came to his bedside and beckoned him. He must then have risen in his sleep, for he followed the imaginary figure into the saloon, when it lifted the hood of its mantle, ejaculated ‘siete sodisfatto,’ and vanished.”

A little later (May 6, 1822), he was one day walking with Edward Williams when he suddenly caught hold of Williams’ arm, stared at the sea, and exclaimed, “There it is again! There!” Afterwards he explained to his friend that he had seen the child Allegra, naked, rising from the sea and smiling at him.

At another time he dreamed that Edward Williams appeared like a corpse, and warned him that the sea was flooding the house.

Now, although it is possible, and to most people will appear probable, that these strange visions were mere subjective figments of the poet’s overheated brain, yet they were curiously prophetic. Shelley and Edward Williams were drowned together in July 1822—within a few weeks of these apparitions. There is, indeed, much evidence in favour of the objective reality of such apparitions. Myers, Gurney, Flamarion, and several other well-known investigators have shown that before, or shortly after death such phantasms have frequently been seen; sometimes by the person whose death is impending, sometimes by near friends. It would seem that they are even perceived by animals in some instances. In the particular case which we are discussing, scientific evidence is, of course, not available, and we have to rely on quite ordinary witnesses. But it would seem that the phenomena affected at least one person besides Shelley. When relating these events, Mary says that:

“Shelley had often seen these figures when ill; but the strangest thing is that Mrs. Williams saw him. Now Jane, though a woman of sensibility, has not much imagination, and is not in the slightest degree nervous, neither in dreams or otherwise.”

Mary then narrates that Jane, while standing at a window with Trelawny, saw Shelley twice pass in front of the window, although he was, as a matter of fact, nowhere near the place at the time; and, of course, Trelawny could not see the phantom.

I have said enough, perhaps, to indicate that Shelley may have possessed the germs of powers and faculties that are at once vaster and subtler than those familiar to us all. It is true that he never attained that more extended consciousness which characterises the great mystics, and that he died before his latent faculties were fully established; but he gave many indications of these faculties. That those indications were to some extent pathological is but natural, and redounds more to the discredit of society than of the poet. Given a nature fundamentally disposed to experience Love as an ardent and exalted comradeship towards those of his own sex, and given an environment in which that disposition is persecuted mercilessly; granted also a considerable liability to mental decentralisation to begin with; and one sees that a strong repression was bound to follow, and that some degree of paranoia would be the probable result of that repression.

But there were other things in Shelley’s nature, psychic faculties of tremendous significance which, having first been revealed by the intuitions which inspired his poetry and his thought, were gradually growing in power, and but for his death would doubtless have established themselves. Shelley, had he lived, would have taken his place beside the great mystics.