Percy Shelley And Mary (17) Elope: Father Hires A Hack To Slander Them Poem by William F Dougherty

(Mary Shelley, daughter of William Godwin, a radical political
philosopher, and Mary Wollenstonecraft, revolutionary feminist,
eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married man, when she
was 17. In 1816, after Shelley's wife died, Mary married him
and began writing her novel Frankenstein. Verses in the manner
of a Browning monologue.)

(London,1814)

The scandal festers, yet, you plainly see,
our books and tracts and notoriety
may aggravate this lecherous affair;
and thus, for now: I am fully aware
a chance remark might add to our distress
over our daughter's default. Who could guess
such treachery afoot? It's left us sick
at heart. My wife, though never choleric,
quakes that her daughter boldly stole away
to Europe with a married man! I pray
she doesn't blame herself (her maternal part!)
that Mary's fancy conquered Mary's heart
so ferociously—fancy inflamed by verse,
mind you, to brazenness. The act will curse
her nights with monsters. How did hot embrace
sever all sense of duty? She has disgraced
our name! At first, I hoped she might be kept
from ruin by her mind—if she'd accept
a lady's role, subdue her high-strung spirit
to simple arts, but she would not submit.
This: 'Best and brightest, come away with me'
hummed in her ears—his designing poetry!
And he requested my consent—the gall!
I spurned his reckless scheme and, with no small
display of wrath, I thought I moved his mind
to sanity. Even Mary seemed resigned
to common sense—until her painted guile
dropped like a wicked mask. And all the while
this... this Shelley! —a viper coiled in wait,
contrived against my house to violate
its honor, like a common thief. What good
to leave a note? As swift as she could,
my wife, distraught, set off to intercept
the pair outside Calais, but they had kept
the secret of their sinful plot too well
to be undone. Little remains to tell.
My wife and I anticipate we may
want a supportive pen, for none can say
we lack for enemies. Here, you may take
their correspondence—arabesques—to make
the mischief plain, if that's required, although
for now, we prefer that only family know:
better to suffer calumny than do
the girl a disadvantage. I caution you
those are the only copies I possess.
(We value an agent in the London press.)