Fragment: The Sepulchre Of Memory.

And where is truth? On tombs? for such to thee
Has been my heart - and thy dead memory
Has lain from childhood, many a changeful year,
Unchangingly preserved and buried there.

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

Sister Rosa: A Ballad.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

To William Shelley.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

A Fragment: To Music.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Fragment: The Lady Of The South.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

English

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Fragment: Apostrophe To Silence.

Silence! Oh, well are Death and Sleep and Thou
Three brethren named, the guardians gloomy-winged
Of one abyss, where life, and truth, and joy
Are swallowed up - yet spare me, Spirit, pity me,
Until the sounds I hear become my soul,
And it has left these faint and weary limbs,
To track along the lapses of the air
This wandering melody until it rests
Among lone mountains in some...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: Wedded Souls.

I am as a spirit who has dwelt
Within his heart of hearts, and I have felt
His feelings, and have thought his thoughts, and known
The inmost converse of his soul, the tone
Unheard but in the silence of his blood,
When all the pulses in their multitude
Image the trembling calm of summer seas.
I have unlocked the golden melodies
Of his deep soul, as with a master-key,
And loosened them and bathed myself therein -
Even as an eagle in a thunder-mist
Clothing his wings with lightning.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: Home.

Dear home, thou scene of earliest hopes and joys,
The least of which wronged Memory ever makes
Bitterer than all thine unremembered tears.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

A Fragment: To Music.

Silver key of the fountain of tears,
Where the spirit drinks till the brain is wild;
Softest grave of a thousand fears,
Where their mother, Care, like a drowsy child,
Is laid asleep in flowers.

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

To William Shelley.

(With what truth may I say -
Roma! Roma! Roma!
Non e piu come era prima!)

1.
My lost William, thou in whom
Some bright spirit lived, and did
That decaying robe consume
Which its lustre faintly hid, -
Here its ashes find a tomb,
But beneath this pyramid
Thou art not - if a thing divine
Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine
Is thy mother's grief and mine.

2.
Where art thou, my gentle child?
Let me think thy spirit feeds,
With its life intense and mild,
The love of living leaves and weeds
Among these tombs and ruins wild; -
Let me think that through low seeds
Of sweet flowers and sunny grass
Into their hues and scents may pass
A portion -

Percy Bysshe Shelley