Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and he is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the English language. He is perhaps more famous for such anthology pieces as “Ozymandias”, “Ode to the West Wind”, “To a Skylark” and “The Masque of Anarchy” . However, his major works were long visionary poems. And as his contemporaries did, the poems that he produced were dealing with: nature, to see the artist as a creator, to believe in the goodness of human being and to be against rationalism and exaltate the feelings. Above all, it was the effects of the French Revolution; furthermore Shelley was influenced by Keats' death too. (< http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1879.html > from Amazon.com).

But now, we are going to talk about an other of his poems, “Queen Mab” , which was written in 1812 and it was published in 1813 celebrating the atheism, free love, vegetarianism and republicanism. As “Queen Mab” is one of the Romantic poets' works that deals with the topic of the love and worship of nature in Romanticism , therefore we can use it as an example for our paper. (< http://www.bartelby.com/65/ro/romantic.html > from Amazon.com).

We can see that the poem is an ode to Nature because the poet, Shelley, talks about Nature as if it was God. He treats it as an << universal spirit>> that is in all places like God, and as an << eternal universe>> that never can die because Nature is the mother of all: <<thou mother of the world!>> , it creates and destroys what it wants; therefore, the poem is a worship of Nature because the poet loves Nature. Furthermore, a lot of words that deal with Nature appear in “Queen Mab” as: earth (the world when all human beings live) ; tempest, lightnings and storm dealing with the weather (which sometimes we are afraid of it because it can destroy and kill us); and groves, clouds, rock, sunbeams ... There is a feeling of darkness and death <<on the darkness of our prison>> that contrasts with the feeling of brightness and life <<the lamp of earthly life>> that deals with Nature <<eternal spring of life and death, of happyness and woe>>; <<where pain and pleasure, good and evil join>> . Human beings cannot control Nature but we depend on it; without water there is no life and then we die and Nature seizes of our bodies and souls. Then we build graves to keep our bodies and temples or altars to protect and keep our souls, as we do in churches when somebody dies, we pray for the salvation of his/her soul. But in the poem Shelley says Nature does not need we pray for it <<no prayers or praises>> as we do with God, but as the poem is a worship, then it is a contradiction. (From the poem).

The poem itself is divided into different parts. Firstly, the three first lines are an introduction where Shelley introduces to the reader “Queen Mab” , but Who is Queen Mab? It is the spirit of activity and decay: <<A Spirit of activity and light>>, with <<no cessation>> , with <<no term>> , no condition, it has not to follow any rules, and it has not to die because it/she (Queen Mab) is a spirit.

Secondly, in the following large sentence the poet is describing to us which is the power that Nature has, a power that can <<strengthens in healthy, and poisons in disease>> , << The strom of change>> changes are storms, and we are surrounded by natural influence (of the moon, weather “storms”).

Thirdly, the next sentence is a worship of Nature: <<The universal spirit>> , <<soul of the Universe! Eternal spring of life and death, of happiness and woe>> and a comparison between God and Nature, because we can feel the Nature's and God's spirits but we cannot see them: <<We feel, but cannot see>> . Thee is incredibility of the Christian religion and Shelley says in the poem “There is no God”, but God sends the storm and everything happens because of God will. For human beings God became a man with human qualities and he governs the universe as a monarch governs his kingdom and people address to him as those of subjects to a king; we acknowledge his benevolence, deprecate his anger and supplicate his favour. But without some insight into its will respecting our actions religion is vain. Then, here, “There is no God” in the poem, and because of it maybe Shelley put “Queen Mab” as the title of his poem.

1.< http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1879.html > from Amazon.com).

2. < http://www.bartelby.com/65/ro/romantic.html > from Amazon.com).

3.< http://www.bartleby.com/139/shel111.html > from Amazon.com).