1820. — Arethusa  is  dated  Pisa,  1820,  and  was  probably
written  early  in  the  year.  It  was  published  in  Posthumous
Poems,  1824.  It  is  a  poetical  version  of  the  Greek  legend
of  the  pursuit  of  the  nymph  Arethusa  by  the  river  god
Alpheus.  They  start  from  Peloponnesus,  and  pass  under
the  sea  to  their  "  Dorian  home  "  in  Sicily.
The  Cloud,  dated  1820  by  Mrs.  Shelley,  was  published
with  Prometheus  Unbound  the  same  year.  Its  metre  is  the
same  as  that  of  Arethusa,  which  makes  it  probable  that  it


86  SHELLEY  PRIMER.
was  written  at  Pisa  about  the  same  time.  Cloud  scenery
had  at  all  times  a  great  attraction  for  Shelley,  and  from  his
"tower  window"  at  Leghorn  he  had  special  opportunities
of  watching  it.  Mrs.  Shelley  in  her  Preface  speaks  of
Shelley  "  marking  the  cloud  while  he  floated  in  his  boat  on
the  Thames,"  which  has  suggested  the  idea  that  this  poem
was  written  as  early  as  1818.  The  sixth  stanza  of  The
Cloud  should  be  compared  with  a  cancelled  passage  of
Epipsycliidion  (Forman's  Edition  IL,  393).
Ode  to  a  Skylark,  written  at  Leghorn  in  the  summer  of
1820,  while  the  Shelleys  were  staying  at  the  house  of  the
Gisbornes,  and  published  with  Prometheus  Unbound  the
same  year.  The  idea  was  conceived  during  an  evening  walk
among  myrtle  hedges,  while  the  skylark  was  singing  over-
head. Here,  as  in  the  Ode  to  the  West  Wind,  Tlie  Sensitive
Plant,  and  many  other  poems,  we  note  that  strong  personal
element  which  led  Shelley,  like  Wordsworth,  to  draw  hope
and  comfort  for  man  from  the  study  of  nature.  Shelley's
ode  should  be  read  with  Wordsworth's  poem  To  a  Skylark,
and  Keats'  Ode  to  a  Nightingale.
