Love's Mysteries

By Jerry Rooney

In 1811 Percy Bysshe Shelley was expelled from university For writing "The Necessity of Atheism".

He was 19.

In 1814 he and Mary Wollstonecraft Goodwin, "Eloped" to France.

She was 17.

(At the time he was married to Harriet Westbrook.)

In 1816 Mary and Percy married.

That same year Harriet drowned herself.

She was 21.

In 1818 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly published "Frankenstein".

Her best known novel.

She was 21.

In 1822 during a storm

The Mediterranean Sea took Percy

He was 29.

His friends cremated the body

When it washed up on the beach.

Strangely his heart did not burn.

Thereafter Mary

Carried it in a silken purse

For the rest of her life.

She died in 1851

She was 54.

Jerry Rooney, Corvallis

The Corvallis Gazette-Times and Albany Democrat-Herald are seeking stories and poems from local writers.

Send your short works - stories of no more than 600 words and poems of no more than 200 words - to robin.weber@lee.net.

All works must be original and not published elsewhere.