Fragment: 'I Stood Upon A Heaven-Cleaving Turret'.

I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret
Which overlooked a wide Metropolis -
And in the temple of my heart my Spirit
Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss
The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth -
And with a voice too faint to falter
It shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer
'Twas noon, - the sleeping skies were blue
The city

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

With A Guitar, To Jane.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

From The Greek Of Moschus.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Dirge For The Year.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

To Constantia.

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.

Fragments Written For Hellas.

1.
Fairest of the Destinies,
Disarray thy dazzling eyes:
Keener far thy lightnings are
Than the winged [bolts] thou bearest,
And the smile thou wearest
Wraps thee as a star
Is wrapped in light.

2.
Could Arethuse to her forsaken urn
From Alpheus and the bitter Doris run,
Or could the morning shafts of purest light
Again into the quivers of the Sun
Be gathered - could one thought from its wild flight
Return into the temple of the brain
Without a change, without a stain, -
Could aught that is, ever again
Be what it once has ceased to be,
Greece might again be free!

3.
A star has fallen upon the earth
Mid the benighted nations,
A quenchless atom of immortal light,
A living spark of Night,
A cresset shaken from th...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: Pater Omnipotens.

Serene in his unconquerable might
Endued[,] the Almighty King, his steadfast throne
Encompassed unapproachably with power
And darkness and deep solitude an awe
Stood like a black cloud on some aery cliff
Embosoming its lightning - in his sight
Unnumbered glorious spirits trembling stood
Like slaves before their Lord - prostrate around
Heaven's multitudes hymned everlasting praise.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: 'Methought I Was A Billow In The Crowd'.

Methought I was a billow in the crowd
Of common men, that stream without a shore,
That ocean which at once is deaf and loud;
That I, a man, stood amid many more
By a wayside..., which the aspect bore
Of some imperial metropolis,
Where mighty shapes - pyramid, dome, and tower -
Gleamed like a pile of crags -

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment, Or The Triumph Of Conscience.

'Twas dead of the night when I sate in my dwelling,
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low, -
Around the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,
They bodingly presaged destruction and woe!

'Twas then that I started, the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning that danced on the sky,
Above me the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs the blast wafted by. -

My heart sank within me, unheeded the jar
Of the battling clouds on the mountain-tops broke,
Unheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear,
This heart hard as iron was stranger to fear,
But conscience in low noiseless whispering spoke.
'Twas then that her form on the whirlwind uprearing,
The dark ghost of the...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: 'Unrisen Splendour Of The Brightest Sun'.

Unrisen splendour of the brightest sun,
To rise upon our darkness, if the star
Now beckoning thee out of thy misty throne
Could thaw the clouds which wage an obscure war
With thy young brightness!

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Liberty.

1.
The fiery mountains answer each other;
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.

2.
From a single cloud the lightening flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground.

3.
But keener thy gaze than the lightening's glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp
To thine is a fen-fire damp.

4.
From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted...

Percy Bysshe Shelley