8 August 2026
(23 October 2015) Returning to Shelley, and his version of Romantic poetry, we begin to examine a poem that expresses well the Romantic inclination toward Nature, and how contemplation of the great works of Nature often leads to poetic compositions in which the poet examines more than just the natural world around him. Most famous of these poems is Shelley’s “Mont Blanc”; here is the first stanza:
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark–now glittering–now reflecting gloom–
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters–with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves
Notice the imagery used as the poet begins his meditation on the mountain by looking at the river (Avre) and letting its motion and sound lull him into this contemplative moment. He notes that the ‘universe of things’, or the natural world, fills his mind with motion and light. The river flows from brilliant patches of light to gloomy shadows, flowing from its invisible source to bring life-giving waters to people, but also becomes a source of thought, bringing to its observer–the poet–the ideas that will become words that will form poetry. The sound of the rushing water begins feebly, but as the river leaps over rocks and cascades over falls, the sound becomes a roar, that fills the space below and penetrates the poet. Thus begins the sublime moment, in a meditative tranquility in which the poet contemplates Nature in all her grandeur. More next time from this incredible poem, with more on the Romantic sublime! Good reading!
Clyde B. Northrup 
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