To that water—cause of my woes, perhaps now to be their cure, I would betake myself. Farewell, Italy!—farewell, thou ornament of the world, matchless Rome, the retreat of the solitary one during long months!—to civilized life—to the settled home and succession of monotonous days, farewell! Peril will now be mine; and I hail her as a friend—death will perpetually cross my path, and I will meet him as a benefactor; hardship, inclement weather, and dangerous tempests will be my sworn mates. Ye spirits of storm, receive me! ye powers of destruction, open wide your arms, and clasp me forever! if a kinder power have not decreed another end, so that after long endurance I may reap my reward, and again feel my heart beat near the heart of another like to me.
Tiber, the road which is spread by nature’s own hand, threading her continent, was at my feet, and many a boat was tethered to the banks. I would with a few books, provisions, and my dog, embark in one of these and float down the current of the stream into the sea; and then, keeping near land, I would coast the beauteous shores and sunny promontories of the blue Mediterranean, pass Naples, along Calabria, and would dare the twin perils of Scylla and Charybdis; then, with fearless aim, (for what had I to lose?) skim ocean’s surface towards Malta and the further Cyclades. I would avoid Constantinople, the sight of whose well-known towers and inlets belonged to another state of existence from my present one; I would coast Asia Minor, and Syria, and, passing the seven-mouthed Nile, steer northward again, till losing sight of forgotten Carthage and deserted Libya, I should reach the pillars of Hercules. And then—no matter where—the oozy caves, and soundless depths of ocean may be my dwelling, before I accomplish this long-drawn voyage, or the arrow of disease find my heart as I float singly on the weltering Mediterranean; or, in some place I touch at, I may find what I seek—a companion; or if this may not be—to endless time, decrepit and grey headed—youth already in the grave with those I love—the lone wanderer will still unfurl his sail, and clasp the tiller—and, still obeying the breezes of heaven, forever round another and another promontory, anchoring in another and another bay, still ploughing seedless ocean, leaving behind the verdant land of native Europe, adown the tawny shore of Africa, having weathered the fierce seas of the Cape, I may moor my worn skiff in a creek, shaded by spicy groves of the odorous islands of the far Indian ocean.
These are wild dreams. Yet since, now a week ago, they came on me, as I stood on the height of St. Peter’s, they have ruled my imagination. I have chosen my boat, and laid in my scant stores. I have selected a few books; the principal are Homer and Shakespeare—But the libraries of the world are thrown open to me—and in any port I can renew my stock. I form no expectation of alteration for the better; but the monotonous present is intolerable to me. Neither hope nor joy are my pilots—restless despair and fierce desire of change lead me on. I long to grapple with danger, to be excited by fear, to have some task, however slight or voluntary, for each day’s fulfilment. I shall witness all the variety of appearance, that the elements can assume—I shall read fair augury in the rainbow—menace in the cloud—some lesson or record dear to my heart in everything. Thus around the shores of deserted earth, while the sun is high, and the moon waxes or wanes, angels, the spirits of the dead, and the ever-open eye of the Supreme, will behold the tiny bark, freighted with Verney—the last man.
Endnotes
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Lord Byron’s Fourth Canto of Childe Harolde. ↩
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Shakespeare’s Sonnets. ↩
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Calderon de la Barca. ↩
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See an ingenious Essay, entitled, “The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated,” by Mackey, a shoemaker, of Norwich printed in 1822. ↩
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Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. ↩
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Elton’s translation of Hesiod’s Works. ↩
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Shakespeare’s Sonnets. ↩
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Calderon de la Barca. ↩
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Coleridge’s Translation of Schiller’s Wallenstein. ↩
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Calderon de la Barca. ↩
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Wordsworth. ↩
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Keats. ↩
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Andrew Marvell. ↩
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The Cenci. ↩
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The Brides’ Tragedy, by T. L. Beddoes, Esq. ↩
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Wordsworth. ↩
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Prior’s Solomon. ↩
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Cleveland’s Poems. ↩
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Elton’s translation of Hesiod. ↩
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Cleveland’s Poems. ↩
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Chorus in Oedipus Coloneus. ↩
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Shakespeare—Julius Caesar. ↩
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Elton’s Translation of Hesiod’s Shield of Hercules. ↩
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Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. ↩
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Mary Wollstonecraft’s Letters from Norway. ↩
-
Solomon’s Song. ↩
Colophon
The Last Man
was published in 1826 by
Mary Shelley.
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