It was a place to quote Alastor in, and nothing but a bad memory prevented my affrighting the oaks and rills with declamation.
advancing to me eagerly along the causeway seemed the very sprite of Alastor himself!
Nothing so good had happened to me, I replied--but I believed that I had seen a copy of Alastor! For a moment my meaning was lost on him; then he flushed and smiled, thanked me and was off again, saying that he must find his Shelley, as he wouldn't lose it for the world!
With this he left them and went onward to Nestor, the facile speaker of the Pylians, who was marshalling his men and urging them on, in company with Pelagon,
Alastor, Chromius, Haemon, and Bias shepherd of his people.
His first really fine poem is
Alastor. It is written in blank verse, and represents a poet seeking in vain for his ideal of what is truly lovely and beautiful.
Much less satisfactory but still fascinating are the longer poems, narrative or philosophical, such as the early '
Alastor,' a vague allegory of a poet's quest for the beautiful through a gorgeous and incoherent succession of romantic wildernesses; the 'Hymn to Intellectual Beauty'; 'Julian and Maddalo,' in which Shelley and Byron (Maddalo) are portrayed; and 'Epipsychidion,' an ecstatic poem on the love which is spiritual sympathy.
Assuring quality standards are maintained is hard to do on the cheap and requires a culture in which all involved employees understand and accept the importance of compliance, as well as, to borrow a phrase from the Harry Potter realm, "constant vigilance." (That's what
Alastor "Mad-Eye Moody" tells Harry is needed to protect oneself against bad wizards.
(17) At the conference "Fernando Pessoa's English Poetry" held at the Fernando Pessoa House on July 3rd, 2014, Richard Zenith argued that Alexander Search is the son of Shelley, particularly the Shelley of the poem "
Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude." More recently, in a conversation, Susan Margaret Brown has suggested a further connection to Shelley, his description of the companion in the 617-line poem "Julian and Maddalo" (cf.
His father is Brendan Gleeson, who also starred in the wizard film franchise as
Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody.
But we might also remember from the Harry Potter series the character of
Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, who sports a prosthetic leg and a magical glass eye the result of fighting the Dark Arts.