(See Note on Poems of 1819, and compare the lyric "The billows on the beach.") He never returned.

Four years only of life were left to him--years filled with music that will sound as long as English lasts.
It was on the 11th of March that the Shelleys took their departure with Miss Clairmont and the child Allegra.

They went straight to Milan, and after visiting the Lake of Como, Pisa, the Bagni di Lucca, Venice and Rome, they settled early in the following December at Naples.

Shelley's letters to Peacock form the invaluable record of this period of his existence.

Taken altogether, they are the most perfect specimens of descriptive prose in the English language; never over-charged with colour, vibrating with emotions excited by the stimulating scenes of Italy, frank in their criticism, and exquisitely delicate in observation.