Shelley had hymned the dawn of liberty in Spain and Naples, in two odes
dictated by the warmest enthusiasm; he felt himself naturally impelled
to decorate with poetry the uprise of the descendants of that people
whose works he regarded with deep admiration, and to adopt the
vaticinatory character in prophesying their success. "Hellas" was
written in a moment of enthusiasm. It is curious to remark how well he
overcomes the difficulty of forming a drama out of such scant materials.
His prophecies, indeed, came true in their general, not their
particular, purport. He did not foresee the death of Lord Londonderry,
which was to be the epoch of a change in English politics, particularly
as regarded foreign affairs; nor that the navy of his country would
fight for instead of against the Greeks, and by the battle of Navarino
secure their enfranchisement from the Turks. Almost against reason, as
it appeared to him, he resolved to believe that Greece would prove
triumphant; and in this spirit, auguring ultimate good, yet grieving
over the vicissitudes to be endured in the interval, he composed his
drama.
"Hellas" was among the last of his compositions, and is among the most
beautiful. The choruses are singularly imaginative, and melodious in
their versification. There are some stanzas that beautifully exemplify
Shelley's peculiar style; as, for instance, the assertion of the
intellectual empire which must be for ever the inheritance of the
country of Homer, Sophocles, and Plato:--
'But Greece and her foundations are
Built below the tide of war,
Based on the crystalline sea
Of thought and its eternity.
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