ABSTRACT
In 'Alastair' Shelley seems indeed to be beating his wings in the void, an angel without a heaven, and suddenly aware that there is no home for him in the universe, and no future except to tower into nothingness until his wings fail and his heart breaks. 'Alastair' is meant to be a narrative poem, but it has not enough incidents for its length, and constantly tends to become lyrical. The influence of Wordsworth is more general, and shows itself not so much in any tricks of language as in ideas and in the use of blank verse to express them. Keats took the same theme for his 'Belle Dame sans Merci', but his poem is all concentration and conscious and triumphant art. In solitude or in that deserted state when we are surrounded by human beings and yet they sympathies not with us, we love the flowers, the grass, the waters, and the sky.
