If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Once again I find myself visiting a familiar name from blogs of the past.  I guess that if you choose a certain career path then you are bound to meet people with a vision similar to your own. 

Although I’m not a big poetry fan, a line from a Shelley poem came to mind with the recent cold snap and snow fall that we experienced in London. The actual poem is Ode to the West Wind and there is a mural in Soho which is kind of like a dedication to the poem. Of course, the writer of the poem needs no introduction.

Mural in Soho - Noel St, London

Percy Bysshe Shelley who is credited as being one of the major romantic poets was born on the 4^th of August in 1792 near Horsham in West Sussex. Having grown up with sisters, when Shelley entered Eton he was bullied constantly.  He was slight of build and bookish, not having played sports or just done the types of things that other boys his age had. Shelley went on to Oxford, but due to his more progressive view (he was somewhat of a radical), they kicked him out which is kind of cool because not everybody can say they were expelled from Oxford.

Shelley eloped with his first wife Harriet Westbrook in 1811.  It seems that eloping was the thing to do back then because when that marriage fizzled he eloped with Mary Godwin.  From what I can gather, they used to rendezvous in the cemetery where her mother was buried which is kind of cool too. He actually threatened to commit suicide if she didn’t return his affections because he was madly in love with Mary. I probably would have just let him die, but Mary ran off with him and we all know what became of her.

Blue Plague on the house that they live in together in London

The Shelleys moved around quite a bit travelling through Europe and all the while he continued to write both romantic and political poetry. Most of the later travel was throughout Italy and in 1822 when he was sailing back from Livorno to Lerici, Shelley drowned in a storm.  There are all sorts of stories which tell that his death may not have been accidental, some say he wanted to die, others say he was murdered. It’s kind of sad to think that he was only 29 though.

Shelley was cremated on the beach where his body washed ashore but apparently his heart was snatched from the funeral pyre by his friend Edward Trelawny and is now buried with Shelley’s son in Bournemouth. Another account tells us that it is just the ashes of the heart.  I kind of like to picture someone reaching into the fire and pulling out his heart before it burnt so I’m going to ignore the latter.

When I think about the life of this particular writer, it makes me wonder what would have happened if he didn’t have the kind of mind that he had.  Would we still have the wonderful poetry that he has bequeathed to the world, or would he have gone through Oxford and chosen a more ordinary path? I guess I’ll never know, but what I do know is that Once upon a time in the 1700’s, a child that grew into a poet was born and from that day until he died, he remained the free thinker that produced some of the greatest poetry of his time.