Fragment: A Wanderer.

He wanders, like a day-appearing dream,
Through the dim wildernesses of the mind;
Through desert woods and tracts, which seem
Like ocean, homeless, boundless, unconfined.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric and philosophical poets in the English language. Born on August 4, 1792, Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his own wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. His poetic themes mainly explored radical social reform, personal liberation, and the power of human creativity and imagination. Tragically, he died young at the age of 29 in a boating accident in 1822. Though he faced criticism during his lifetime, his work garnered acclaim posthumously.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sonnet. To A Balloon Laden With Knowledge.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Love's Philosophy.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Fragment: Thoughts Come And Go In Solitude.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

To The Queen Of My Heart.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Fragment: The Deserts Of Dim Sleep.

I went into the deserts of dim sleep -
That world which, like an unknown wilderness,
Bounds this with its recesses wide and deep -

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: Thoughts Come And Go In Solitude.

My thoughts arise and fade in solitude,
The verse that would invest them melts away
Like moonlight in the heaven of spreading day:
How beautiful they were, how firm they stood,
Flecking the starry sky like woven pearl!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: 'My Head Is Wild With Weeping'.

My head is wild with weeping for a grief
Which is the shadow of a gentle mind.
I walk into the air (but no relief
To seek, - or haply, if I sought, to find;
It came unsought); - to wonder that a chief
Among men's spirits should be cold and blind.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: To The Moon.

Bright wanderer, fair coquette of Heaven,
To whom alone it has been given
To change and be adored for ever,
Envy not this dim world, for never
But once within its shadow grew
One fair as -

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: "Igniculus Desiderii".

To thirst and find no fill - to wail and wander
With short unsteady steps - to pause and ponder -
To feel the blood run through the veins and tingle
Where busy thought and blind sensation mingle;
To nurse the image of unfelt caresses
Till dim imagination just possesses
The half-created shadow, then all the night
Sick...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: To The Mind Of Man.

Thou living light that in thy rainbow hues
Clothest this naked world; and over Sea
And Earth and air, and all the shapes that be
In peopled darkness of this wondrous world
The Spirit of thy glory dost diffuse
... truth ... thou Vital Flame
Mysterious thought that in this mortal frame
Of things, with unextinguished lustre burnest
Now pale and faint now high to Heaven upcurled
That eer as thou dost languish still returnest
And ever
Before the ... before the Pyramids

So soon as from the Earth formless and rude
One living step had chased drear Solitude
Thou wert, Thought; thy brightness charmed the lids
Of the vast snake Eternity, who kept
The tree of good and evil. -

Percy Bysshe Shelley