objective certainty, but, for a
reason which will appear, it seems capable of a fairly straightforward
application to Shelley's work.

First we may observe that, just as the sight of some real scene--not
necessarily a sunset or a glacier, but a ploughed field or a
street-corner--may call up emotions which "lie too deep for tears" and
cannot be put into words, this same effect can be produced by unstudied
descriptions. Wordsworth often produces it:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils."

Now, in the description of natural scenes that kind of effect is beyond
Shelley's reach, though he has many pictures which are both detailed
and emotional. Consider, for instance, these lines from 'The Invitation'
(1822). He calls to Jane Williams to come away "to the wild woods and
the plains,"

"Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;--
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets,
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue moon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun."

This has a wonderful lightness and radiance. And here is a passage of
careful description from 'Evening: Ponte a Mare, Pisa':

"The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,
And evening's breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Walkes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;
The wind is intermitting, dry and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town."

Evidently he was a good observer, in the sense that he saw details
clearly--unlike Byron, who had for nature but a vague and a preoccupied
eye--and evidently, too, his observation is steeped in strong feeling,
and is expressed in most melodious language. Yet we get the impression
that he neither saw nor felt anything beyond exactly what he ha