Shelley writes this poem in response to the feelings, power, and emotions he has encounted in beauty. Beauty isn't a defined object in Shelley's poem, instead it "floats...it visits with inconstant glance each human heart and countenance." Something that is tangible, yet "spiritual" as well. This beauty can be understood by everyone, but it has an inconstant glance which could mean that not everyone will actually look at it and want to understand it.
Throughout the poem, Shelley is trying to discover some form of "realness." He doesn't think that God or anyone has been able to understand the secrets of the deep...as if they are all mysteries. So he decides to search for something meaningful, and takes the reader on a journey into his past. "While yet a boy...I called on poisonous names...I was not heard...suddenly, thy shadow fell on me; I shrieked, and clasped my hands in exstasy!" Shelley finds his Beauty, his meaning in an experience he had as a child. His memory of a past event fails to leave him. Instead of the incident as a boy being just another story - it becomes his life story.
"Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of Nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm - to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all humankind."
I really liked this last line, because it sounds like a hymn. A hymn is something that is made for edifying of the person being sung to. In our meetings on Sunday, we sing hymns to God and His Son Jesus Christ. They hymns are centered around Him - no one else. And we praise Him because we are sinners in need of a Savior, and only Jesus Christ could be our Savior. So we sing hymns to Him! But this hymn that Shelley wrote isn't to God - it's to Intellectual Beauty (which might also be Nature). It just really strikes me as interesting how Shelley uses this experience as a boy to shape who he is and what he thinks about the world. Thus he writes a hymn to share his experience and praise the one who allowed him to discover this. It's similar to my own story - I sing hymns (and have written some "lyrical" pieces) to Jesus. Why? Because I too had a time in my life where I was searching for meaning and truth. And I finally realized, all on my own, that I can't be good enought to get into heaven or try my best to make things right in this world. No - I discovered in the Bible that my sins deserved death. But Jesus died for my sins so I didn't have to die. But what is so neat and life changing is that Jesus didn't die and stay dead - He conquered death. I put my trust in Him. Jesus is real - so I sing hymns to Him, giving Him the glory He deserves. But it was at my "passive youth" of state that I experienced Jesus and took Him as my own. This is where Shelley found Beauty as well, in his "passive youth." Interestingly, Shelley's poem is a neat hymn sharing how he came to see Beauty as something amazing. He didn't find God - he actually didn't think God could answer his problems. But he did find Beauty (which God created) and wrote a poem describing his experience with Intellectual Beauty. "O awful LOVELINESS."
