The genius of the Revolution passes by: Napoleon is there, and Rousseau serves for guide.
The great of all ages are arraigned, and the spirit of the world is brought before us, while its heroes pass, unveil their faces for a moment, and are swallowed in the throng that has no ending.

But how Shelley meant to solve the problems he has raised, by what sublime philosophy he purposed to resolve the discords of this revelation more soul-shattering than Daniel's "Mene", we cannot even guess.

The poem, as we have it, breaks abruptly with these words: "Then what is Life?
I cried"-- a sentence of the profoundest import, when we remember that the questioner was now about to seek its answer in the halls of Death.
To separate any single passage from a poem which owes so much of its splendour to the continuity of music and the succession of visionary images, does it cruel wrong.

Yet this must be attempted; for Shelley is the only English poet who has successfully handled that most difficult of metres, terza rima.

His power over complicated versification cannot be appreciated except by duly noticing the method he employed in treating a structure alien, perhaps, to the genius of our literature, and even in Italian used with perfect mastery by none but Dante.