This line is evidently Shelley's Platonic fashion of referring to the
obscurity of this life as compared to the world of ideas. As the vision
has embodied itself in this world, it is only through love of its
concrete manifestations that the soul may regain it. When it is
regained, it will not be, as in the beginning, a momentary intuition,
but an abiding presence in the soul.
The first step toward this goal was a mistaken one. Shelley describes
his marriage with Harriet as a yielding to the senses merely, in other
words, as slavery to the Venus Pandemos. He describes this false vision,
Whose voice was venomed melody.
* * * * *
The breath of her false mouth was like sweet flowers,
Her touch was as electric poison.
Shelley was more successful in his second love, for Mary, whom he calls
the "cold, chaste moon." The danger of this stage in the ascent toward
beauty is that one is likely to be content with the fragmentary glimpse
of beauty gained through the loved one, and by losing sight of its other
embodiments fail to aspire to more complete vision.
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