Excerpt from Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Vol. 2 of 5 The Poem which I now present to the world, is an attempt from which I scarcely dare to expect success, and in which a writer of estab lished fame might fail without disgrace. It is an experiment on the temper of the public mind, as to how far a thirst for a happier con dition of moral and political society survives, among the enlightened and refined, the tem pests which have shaken the age in which we live. I have sought to enlist the harmony of metrical language, the aetherial combina tions of the fancy, the rapid and subtle tran sitions of human passion, all those elements which essentially compose a Poem, in the cause of a liberal and comprehensive morality, and in the view of kindling within the bosoms of my readers a virtuous enthusiasm for those doctrines of liberty and justice, that faith and hope in something good, which neither violence, nor misrepresentation, nor prejudice, can ever totally extinguish among mankind. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.