Page:Shelley, a poem, with other writings (Thomson, Debell).djvu/84

66 the words "languge" and "tongue" are correctly used, as the Earth is speaking in a strange language, with an "inorganic voice." I may be permitted to suggest that Shelley probably wrote this line "Thou art immortal, and this tongue is known," a second time in consequence of having written it before, while forgetting that he had indeed written it before, unconsciously accepting the dictation of reminiscence—a dictation to which he, one of the most original of poets, was remarkably subject, as all his real students must be aware, whether the reminiscence was of his own or another's language. Thus the close of the citation from the Earth's speech has its parallel in the opening of a sonnet written the year before:

(b) In Act IV. Ione, describing the vision of the Spirit of the Moon, begins:—

Surely the crescent moon is borne into her western cave not by ebbing night, but by flowing, advancing night, or by the ebbing day; and surely no one ever knew this better than did that marvellous elemental genius, more at home in the heavens than most men are on earth. Mark, however, the parallel passage from this same poem, in which the ebbing here repeated so inopportunely is the very right word to use. Act III. sc. ii. Ocean says:—