"Thou know'st what a thing is poverty Among the fallen on evil days. 'Tis crime, and fear, and infamy, And houseless want in frozen ways Wandering ungarmented, and pain, And, worse than all, that inward stain, Foul self-contempt, which drowns in sneers Youth's starlight smile, and makes its tears First hot like gall, then dry for ever. And well thou know'st a mother never Could doom her children to this ill,-- And well he knew the same."
Rosalind's fate serves, above all else, to show the misery of an unhappy marriage, more particularly the wife's condition of dependence on a bad and tyrannical husband. Shelley's own grief over the loss of his children is also distinctly perceptible in the poem; and Helen's fate recalls the persecution to which the author in his character of philosopher was subjected. The whole representation of Lionel's life and ideas is self-representation. Could there be a better description of Shelley's own love of his fellow-man than this:--
"For love and life in him were twins, Born at one birth. In every other, First life, then love, its course begins, Though they be children of one mother."
Young, rich, well-born, Lionel at the time of the Revolution enthusiastically takes his place in the ranks of the reformers whose aim it is to emancipate humanity from the tyranny of creeds.
"Men wondered, and some sneered to see One sow what he could never reap: 'For he is rich,' they said, 'and young, And might drink from the depths of luxury. If he seeks Fame, Fame never crowned The champion of a trampled creed: If he seeks Power, Power is enthroned 'Mid ancient rights and wrongs, to feed Which hungry wolves with praise and spoil Those who would sit near Power must toil.'"
"None now hoped more. Grey Power was seated Safely on her ancestral throne; And Faith, the python, undefeated. Even to its blood-stained steps dragged on Her foul and wounded train; and men Were trampled and deceived again."
Lionel's enemies succeed in imprisoning him because he has blasphemed their gods. He passes a long time in solitary confinement, separated from the woman he loves. Then he meets her again, and they celebrate their nuptials under the starry sky.
_Rosalind and Helen_ is a poem which bears traces of having been written in a mood of profound despair; in no other work does Shelley go to such extremes in his war upon all traditional law and convention. We have, in a previous volume of this work, touched upon the fact that many writers at the beginning of this century occupied themselves with the theory that the horror of incest has its source in prejudice. Both in _Rosalind and Helen_ and in _The Revolt of Islam_, the hero and heroine of which would, but for the earnest entreaties of the publisher, have been brother and sister, Shelley wasted much eloquence on this sinister paradox--which also greatly occupied Byron's mind, and was to give occasion to a foolish and revolting attack upon his memory.