All this deep contemplation, however, did not then bring to Shelley any overwhelming revelation, such as Boehme experienced. Possibly his youth sufficiently accounts for this, but I think also that the erotic conflict, previously discussed, hindered the fuller development of these states. There is, in Alastor, a considerable admixture of erotic emotion which, we may suppose, inhibited the higher state of calm ecstasy. For some years after this poem was written Shelley’s life seems to have been too crowded with incident, too occupied with intellectual activities, and too much dominated by the effort to repress the homogenic tendencies, of his nature, to allow any further development of mystical experiences; although, scattered throughout his poems, there are still indications of such experience.
In 1822, however, it would seem that a definite development in this direction was taking place, and being recorded in that remarkable and intricate poem The Triumph of Life.
In this poem Shelley apparently attempted to describe a mystical vision, in which he saw the pageant of life pass before him, and in which he was about to penetrate into the heart of the mystery of creation. I do not, however, intend to attempt an analysis of this poem, but only to point out some of the features in it which throw light on Shelley’s spiritual adventures. The poem begins with a description of a “strange trance” into which the poet fell; a trance
Which was not slumber, for the shade it spread
Was so transparent, that the scene came through
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn
O’er evening hills they glimmer.
In this preliminary “trance of wondrous thought,” the poet sees, as in a waking dream, the human multitudes thronging a public way; a chariot, driven by a four-faced shape, rushes by, passing heedlessly over the crowd. The poet converses with the shade of Rousseau, who describes one of his own visions, in which a shape (“all light”) gave him to drink from a crystal glass.
I rose; and bending at her sweet command
Touched with faint lips the cup she raised,
And suddenly my brain became as sand
Where the first wave had more than half erased
The track of deer on desert Labrador;
Whilst the wolf, from which they fled amazed,
Leaves his stamp visibly upon the shore,
Until the second bursts.
In this phrase “my brain became as sand,” Shelley describes one of the crucial points in mystical experience, namely, the blotting-out of intellect, and the suspension of the functioning of the senses. It is well known, of course, that the Eastern mystics deliberately practise this effacement of thought in order to penetrate into the abyss of their inner souls and attain the cosmic state. For Shelley’s two waves of mystical sensation, which obliterate first the more superficial, and then the deeper elements of consciousness, leaving the mind as blank as a clean sheet of wet sand, are only the precursors of a new vision.
So on my sight
Burst a new vision, never seen before,
And the fair shape waned in the coming light,
* * * * *
So knew I, in that light’s severe excess,
The presence of that shape which on the stream
Moved, as I moved along the wilderness.
This sense of subjective light is a constant feature of mystical experience, from which in fact, the word “Illumination” derives its significance. It is shown, for example, in the instance of Moses, who saw the bush wrapt in flames, and yet it was not consumed. William Blake’s visions were full of bright angels and of flames of fire; and his letter to Thomas Butts describes his “first vision of light.”
In particles bright
The jewels of light
Distinct shone and clear.