Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/48

30 And bursting, in its beauty and its might, From trees, and beasts, and men, into the Heaven's light."

And, again—

"The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.—Die If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!"

And, finally—

"That Light, whose smile kindles the Universe, That Beauty, in which all things work and move, That Benediction, which the eclipsing curse Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love, Which through the web of being blindly wove By man, and beast, and earth, and air, and sea, Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality."

Such doctrine as is expressed and implied in these lines differs little from what is called pure Theism. It simply dwells so continually on the Infinity of God as to overlook, or slightly regard, His Personality: it is Spiritualism and Theism, but of the Greeks rather than the Hebrews. The fact is that Shelley, like every other brave Recusant, is credited with much more infidelity than he really had. Finding a vast State-Church, based upon politico-theology, everywhere in the ascendant, he was naturally more occupied in negativing dominant assumptions than in affirming his own positive convictions. If a man asserts his right to crush me under his feet, it is not probable that my reply will contain an exact recognition of whatever wisdom and goodness he may really have.