"Alastor" is written in a very different tone from "Queen Mab". In the
latter, Shelley poured out all the cherished speculations of his
youth--all the irrepressible emotions of sympathy, censure, and hope, to
which the present suffering, and what he considers the proper destiny of
his fellow-creatures, gave birth. "Alastor", on the contrary, contains
an individual interest only. A very few years, with their attendant
events, had checked the ardour of Shelley's hopes, though he still
thought them well-grounded, and that to advance their fulfilment was the
noblest task man could achieve.
This is neither the time nor place to speak of the misfortunes that
chequered his life. It will be sufficient to say that, in all he did, he
at the time of doing it believed himself justified to his own
conscience; while the various ills of poverty and loss of friends
brought home to him the sad realities of life. Physical suffering had
also considerable influence in causing him to turn his eyes inward;
inclining him rather to brood over the thoughts and emotions of his own
soul than to glance abroad, and to make, as in "Queen Mab", the whole
universe the object and subject of his song. In the Spring of
1815, an eminent physician pronounced that he was dying rapidly of a
consumption; abscesses were formed on his lungs, and he suffered acute
spasms. Suddenly a complete change took place; and though through life
he was a martyr to pain and debility, every symptom of pulmonary disease
vanished. His nerves, which nature had formed sensitive to an unexampled
degree, were rendered still more susceptible by the state of his health.
As soon as the peace of 1814 had opened the Continent, he went abroad.
He visited some of the more magnificent scenes of Switzerland, and
returned to England from Lucerne, by the Reuss and the Rhine. The
river-navigation enchanted him. In his favourite poem of "Thalaba", his
imagination had been excited by a description of such a voyage. In the
summer of 1815, after a tour along the southern coast of Devonshire and
a visit to Clifton, he rented a house on Bishopsgate Heath, on the
borders of Windsor Forest, where he enjoyed several months of
comparative health and tranquil happiness. The later summer months were
warm and dry. Accompanied by a few friends, he visited the source of the
Thames, making a voyage in a wherry from Windsor to Crichlade. His
beautiful stanzas in the churchyard of Lechlade were written on that
occasion. "Alastor" was composed on his return. He spent his days under
the oak-shades of Windsor Great Park; and the magnificent woodland was a
fitting study to inspire the various descriptions of forest scenery we
find in the poem.
None of Shelley's poems is more characteristic than this. The solemn
spirit that reigns throughout, the worship of the majesty of nature, the
broodings of a poet's heart in solitude--the mingling of the exulting
joy which the various aspects of the visible universe inspires with the
sad and struggling pangs which human passion imparts--give a touching
interest to the whole. The death which he had often contemplated during
the last months as certain and near he here represented in such colours
as had, in his lonely musings, soothed his soul to peace. The
versification sustains the solemn spirit which breathes throughout: it
is peculiarly melodious. The poem ought rather to be considered didactic
than narrative: it was the outpouring of his own emotions, embodied in
the purest form he could conceive, painted in the ideal hues which his
brilliant imagination inspired, and softened by the recent anticipation
of death.