Inspirational Poems by Shelley

Inspirational Poems

By

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 - 1822

One of the major English romantic poets, Shelley was widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets in the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and The Masque of Anarchy; but his major works were long visionary poems such as Adonais and Prometheus Unbound. His unconventional life and uncompromising idealism made him a notorious and much denigrated figure in his own life, but Shelley became the idol of the following two or three generations of poets (including the major Victorian poets Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats). Shelley was also famous for his association with contemporaries John Keats and Lord Byron, and, like them, for his untimely death at a young age. Shelley was married to the famous novelist Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein.

Shelley was the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, later the 2nd baronet of Castle Goring, and his wife Elizabeth Pilfold. Shelley grew up in Sussex, and received his early education at home, tutored by Reverend Thomas Edwards of Horsham. In 1802, Shelley entered the Sion House Academy of Brentford. In 1804, Shelley entered Eton College, and on April 10, 1810 he went to the University of Oxford (University College). Shelley's first publication was a Gothic novel, Zastrozzi (1810), in which he gave vent to his atheistic worldview through the villain Zastrozzi. In the same year, Shelley together with his sister Elizabeth published Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire. After going up to Oxford, he issued a collection of (ostensibly burlesque but actually subversive) verse, Posthumous Fragments of Margaret Nicholson. A fellow collegian, Thomas Jefferson Hogg, may have been his collaborator.

In 1811, Shelley published a pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, which gained the attention of the school administration. Shelley's refusal to appear before the school's officials resulted in his expulsion from Oxford on March 25, 1811, along with Hogg. Shelley could have been reinstated, following the intervention of his father, had he recanted his avowed views. Shelley refused, which led to a total break between himself and his father.

It was also during this period at Oxford that Shelley is believed to have been a Chevalier - a member of a secret society within University College. He continued to secretly visit the college for society 'congregations' after his expulsion.

Love's Philosophy

      The fountains mingle with the river,
      And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix for ever
      With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
      All things, by a law divine,
In one another's being mingle--
      Why not I with thine?

      See the mountains kiss high Heaven
      And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
      If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
      And the moonbeams kiss the sea -
What are all these kissings worth
      If thou kiss not me?

 To......

     Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory-
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

To Night

               1

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 dear-
      Swift be thy flight!

           2

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
      Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thy opiate wand--
      Come, long-sought!

           3

When I rose and saw trhe dawn,
      I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
      I sighed for thee.

           4

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
      "Wouldst thou me?"
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
"Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?" -And I replied,
      "No, not thee!"

           5

Death will come when thou art dead,
      Soon, too soon-
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I asked of thee, beloved Night-
Swift be thy approaching flight,
      Come soon, soon!

 When the Lamp is Shatter'd

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,
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,
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
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 possess'd.
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
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
Leave thee naked to laughter
When leaves fall and cold winds come.

To Jane: The Keen Stars Were Twinkling

           1

      The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising above them,
           Dear Jane!
      The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
           Again.

           2

As the moon's soft splendor
      O'er the faint cold starlight of heaven
           Is thrown,
      So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul has then given
           Its own.

           3

      The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later,
           Tonight;
      No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
           Delight.

           4

      Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
           A tone
      Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
           Are one.

  Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,
      The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear
      The purple noon's transparent might,
      The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
      Like many a voice of one delight
The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The city's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor
      With green and purple seaweeds strown;
I see the waves upon the shore,
      Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
      I sit upon the sands alone, -
The lightning of the noontide ocean
      Is flashing round me, and a tone
Arises from its measured motion,
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
      Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
      The sage in meditation found,
      And walked with inward glory crowned -
Nor fame nor power, nor love, nor leisure,
      Others I see whom these surround -
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; -
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild,
      Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
      And weep away the life of care
      Which I have born and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
      And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
      As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
      Insults with this untimely moan;
      They might lament - for I am one
Whom men love not, - and yet regret,
      Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

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