by Homer
To echo all harmonious thought,
Fell’d a tree, while on the steep 45
The woods were in their winter sleep,
Rock’d in that repose divine
On the wind-swept Apennine;
And dreaming, some of autumn past,
And some of spring approaching fast, 50
And some of April buds and showers,
And some of songs in July bowers,
And all of love: And so this tree, —
Oh that such our death may be! —
Died in sleep, and felt no pain, 55
To live in happier form again:
From which, beneath Heaven’s fairest star,
The artist wrought this loved Guitar;
And taught it justly to reply
To all who question skilfully 60
In language gentle as thine own;
Whispering in enamour’d tone
Sweet oracles of woods and dells,
And summer winds in sylvan cells;
— For it had learnt all harmonies 65
Of the plains and of the skies,
Of the forests and the mountains,
And the many-voice´d fountains;
The clearest echoes of the hills,
The softest notes of falling rills, 70
The melodies of birds and bees,
The murmuring of summer seas,
And pattering rain, and breathing dew
And airs of evening; and it knew
That seldom-heard mysterious sound 75
Which, driven on its diurnal round,
As it floats through boundless day,
Our world enkindles on its way:
— All this it knows, but will not tell
To those who cannot question well 80
The spirit that inhabits it;
It talks according to the wit
Of its companions; and no more
Is heard than has been felt before
By those who tempt it to betray 85
These secrets of an elder day.
But, sweetly as its answers will
Flatter hands of perfect skill,
It keeps its highest holiest tone
For our beloved Friend alone. 90
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
One Word is Too Often Profaned
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
ONE word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdain’d
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair 5
For prudence to smother,
And Pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not 10
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar 15
From the sphere of our sorrow?
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ozymandias of Egypt
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command 5
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Flight of Love
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
WHEN the lamp is shatter’d
The light in the dust lies dead —
When the cloud is scatter’d,
The rainbow’s glory is shed.
When the lute is broken, 5
Sweet tones are remember’d not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour
Survive not the lamp and the lute, 10
The heart’s echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute —
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruin’d cell,
Or the mournful surges 15
That ring the dead seaman’s knell.
When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
The weak one is singled
To endure what it once possesst. 20
O Love! who bewailest
The frailty of all things here,
Why choose you the frailest
For your cradle, your home, and your bier?
Its passions will rock thee 25
As the storms rock the ravens on high;
Bright reason will mock thee
Like the sun from a wintry sky.
From thy nest every rafter
Will rot, and thine eagle home 30
Leave thee naked to laughter,
When leaves fall and cold winds come.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Cloud
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 5
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under, 10
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white, 15
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits,
In a cavern under is fretted the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits; 20
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, 25
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 30
The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead,
As on the jag of a mountain crag, 35
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardours of rest and of love, 40
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of he
aven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, 45
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear, 50
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 55
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the moon’s with a girdle of pearl; 60
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 65
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow; 70
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; 75
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air, 80
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Stanzas — April, 1814
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
AWAY! the moor is dark beneath the moon,
Rapid clouds have drunk the last pale beam of even:
Away! the gathering winds will call the darkness soon,
And profoundest midnight shroud the serene lights of heaven.
Pause not! The time is past! Every voice cries, ‘Away!’ 5
Tempt not with one last tear thy friend’s ungentle mood:
Thy lover’s eye, so glazed and cold, dares not entreat thy stay:
Duty and dereliction guide thee beck to solitude.
Away, away! to thy sad and silent home;
Pour bitter tears on its desolated hearth; 10
Watch the dim shades as like ghosts they go and come,
And complicate strange webs of melancholy mirth.
The leaves of wasted autumn woods shall float around thine head:
The blooms of dewy spring shall gleam beneath thy feet:
But thy soul or this world must fade in the frost that binds the dead, 15
Ere midnight’s frown and morning’s smile, ere thou and peace may meet.
The cloud shadows of midnight possess their own repose,
For the weary winds are silent, or the moon is in the deep:
Some respite to its turbulence unresting ocean knows;
Whatever moves, or toils, or grieves, hath its appointed sleep. 20
Thou in the grave shalt rest — yet, till the phantoms flee,
Which that house and heath and garden made dear to thee erewhile,
Thy remembrance, and repentance, and deep musings are not free
From the music of two voices and the light of one sweet smile.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Music, When Soft Voices Die
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory —
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, 5
Are heap’d for the beloved’s bed;
And so thy thoughts, when Thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The Poet’s Dream
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
ON a Poet’s lips I slept
Dreaming like a love-adept
In the sound his breathing kept;
Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses,
But feeds on the ae¨rial kisses 5
Of shapes that haunt Thought’s wildernesses.
He will watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,
Nor heed nor see what things they be — 10
But from these create he can
Forms more real than living Man,
Nurslings of Immortality!
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
The World’s Wanderers
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
TELL me, thou Star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?
Tell me, Moon, thou pale and gray 5
Pilgrim of heaven’s homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?
Weary Mind, who wanderest
Like the world’s rejected guest, 10
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Adonais
An Elegy on the Death of John Keats
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 5
And teach them thine own sorrow! Say: ‘With me
Died Adonais; till the Future dares
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be
An echo and a light unto eternity!’
Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 10
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies
In darkness? where was lorn Urania
When Adonais died? With veilèd eyes,
‘Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 15
Rekindled all the fading melodies
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath,
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death.
Oh weep for Adonais — he is dead!
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep! 20
Yet wherefore? Quench within their burning bed
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep,
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep;
For he is gone, where all things wise and fair
Descend; — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 25
Will yet restore him to the vital air;
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our despair.
Most musical of mourners, weep again!
Lament anew, Urania! — He died,
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 30
; Blind, old, and lonely, when his country’s pride,
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide,
Trampled and mocked with many a loathèd rite
Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified,
Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite 35
Yet reigns o’er earth; the third among the sons of light.
Most musical of mourners, weep anew!
Not all to that bright station dared to climb;
And happier they their happiness who knew,
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 40
In which suns perished; others more sublime,
Struck by the envious wrath of man or god,
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime;
And some yet live, treading the thorny road,
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame’s serene abode. 45
But now, thy youngest, dearest one has perished,
The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew,
Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished,
And fed with true-love tears, instead of dew;
Most musical of mourners, weep anew! 50
Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and last,
The bloom, whose petals nipt before they blew
Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste;
The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast.
To that high Capital, where kingly Death 55
Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay,
He came; and bought, with price of purest breath,
A grave among the eternal — Come away!
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day
Is yet his fitting charnel-roof! while still 60
He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay;
Awake him not! surely he takes his fill
Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill.