Percy Bysshe Shelley
English In 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like
Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici
She left me at the silent time When the moon had ceas’d to climb The azure path of Heaven’s steep, And like an albatross asleep, Balanc’d on her wings of light, Hover’d in the
The Two Spirits: An Allegory
FIRST SPIRIT O thou, who plum’d with strong desire Wouldst float above the earth, beware! A Shadow tracks thy flight of fire Night is coming! Bright are the regions of the air, And among
Night
SWIFTLY walk o’er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and
Mutability
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon; How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly! – yet soon Night closes round, and they are lost for ever: Or
When The Lamp Is Shattered
When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow’s glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the
To The Moon
Art thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth, And ever changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object
The Invitation
Best and brightest, come away, Fairer far than this fair day, Which, like thee, to those in sorrow Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on
Queen Mab: Part VI (excerpts)
“Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light, Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffus’d A Spirit of activity and life, That knows no term, cessation, or decay; That fades not when the
Epipsychidion (excerpt)
Emily, A ship is floating in the harbour now, A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow; There is a path on the sea’s azure floor, No keel has ever plough’d that path before;
The Triumph of Life
Swift as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth. The smokeless altars
To A Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest
Feelings Of A Republican On The Fall Of Bonaparte
I hated thee, fallen tyrant! I did groan To think that a most unambitious slave, Like thou, shouldst dance and revel on the grave Of Liberty. Thou mightst have built thy throne Where it
Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue
ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child. SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como. HELEN Come hither, my sweet Rosalind. ‘T is long since thou and I have met; And yet methinks it were unkind
To The Men Of England
Men of England, wherefore plough For the lords who lay ye low? Wherefore weave with toil and care The rich robes your tyrants wear? Wherefore feed and clothe and save, From the cradle to