Note Books Of Percy Bysshe Shelley (Volume 2); From The Originals In The Library Of W. K. Bixby by.. details from bookadda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... TO WILLIAM GODWIN Mighty Eagle thou that soarest Oer the misty mountain forest And amid the blaze of morning Like a cloud of glory hiest And when night descends defiest The embattled tempests warning Leaves thy habitation On the verge of desolation . The auction catalogue describes this little composition thus: "Lines--'Mighty eagle, thou that soarest', &c. Has been incorrectly printed." If the reference is to my version of 1882, the first published version of the scrap, followed by other editors ever since, the suggestion of incorrectness is not justified. The version of Note Book II is very roughly written in pencil; and I did not use it in 1882. I found the first six lines well written by Shelley on a letter addressed to him by Godwin, proposing an investment for the poet which was to benefit the philosopher, and suggesting a subscription for the payment of a fine inflicted on the Hunts. In that version of the poem Shelley wrote light of morning, not blaze of morning, and ended with warning/--not adding the uncompleted fourth couplet, which he may be presumed to have thought not worth putting to rights. I suspect it was at all events only a jotting for a couplet to be added after something else that he was going to write about Godwin, whose intellectual qualities he still respected greatly at a later date than that of the letter mentioned above, which was headed "Skinner Street, Apr. 29, 1817." On July 1, 1820, he wrote, in the renowned Letter to Maria Gis borne--v... You will see That which was Godwin, --greater none than he Though fallen--and fallen on evil times--to stand Among the spirits of our age and land, Before the dread tribunal of to come The foremost, --while Rebuke cowers pale and dumb. There is but one verbal variation...