Famous Shelley Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Shelley poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous shelley poems. These examples illustrate what a famous shelley poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Henry Van Dyke
Knight-errant of the Never-ending Quest,
And Minstrel of the Unfulfilled Desire;
For ever tuning thy frail earthly lyre
To some unearthly music, and possessed
With painful passionate longing to invest
The golden dream of Love's immortal fire
In mortal robes of beautiful attire,
And fold perfection to thy throbbing breast!
What wonder, Shelley, if the restless wave
Should claim thee and the leaping flame consume
Thy...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I FEAR thy kisses gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.
I fear thy mien thy tones thy motion; 5
Thou needest not fear mine;
Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine. ...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
THE wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray,
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion, own the potent...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
A WIDOW bird sate mourning for her Love
Upon a wintry bough;
The frozen wind crept on above
The freezing stream below.
There was no leaf upon the forest bare. 5
No flower upon the ground
And little motion in the air
Except the mill-wheel's sound. ...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
ARIEL to Miranda:¡ªTake
This slave of music for the sake
Of him who is the slave of thee;
And teach it all the harmony
In which thou canst and only thou 5
Make the delighted spirit glow
Till joy denies itself again
And too intense is turn'd to pain.
For by permission and command
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand 10...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.
How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood --
Then it will be -- good night.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is...Read more of this...
by
Oscar Wilde
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed
Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
In the still chamber of yon pyramid
Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they,
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a day?
Poets are on this cold earth,
As chameleons...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
And like a dying lady, lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapped in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly! -yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever:
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -- A dream has...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
RARELY rarely comest thou
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day 5
'Tis since thou art fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain. 10
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All...Read more of this...
by
Gregory Corso
My hands did numb to beauty
as they reached into Death and tightened!
O sovereign was my touch
upon the tan-inks's fragile page!
Quickly, my eyes moved quickly,
sought for smell for dust for lace
for dry hair!
I would have taken the page
breathing in the crime!
For no evidence have I wrung from dreams--
yet what triumph is there in private credence?
Often, in some steep ancestral book,
when...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Poet of Nature, thou hast wept to know
That things depart which never may return:
Childhood and youth, friendship and love's first glow,
Have fled like sweet dreams, leaving thee to mourn.
These common woes I feel. One loss is mine
Which thou too feel'st, yet I alone deplore.
Thou wert as a lone star, whose light did shine...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing Heaven, and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,--
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Rarely, rarely, comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?
Many a weary night and day
'Tis since thou are fled away.
How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.
Spirit false! thou hast forgot
All but those who need thee not.
As a lizard with the shade
Of a...Read more of this...
by
Mary Shelley
——— for what should I do here,
Like a decaying flower, still withering
Under his bitter words, whose kindly heat
Should give my poor heart life?...Read more of this...
by
Mary Shelley
The bubble floats before,
The shadow stalks behind....Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
I
AND, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The mood arose up in the murky east, 5
A white and shapeless mass.
II
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
She left me at the silent time
When the moon had ceas'd to climb
The azure path of Heaven's steep,
And like an albatross asleep,
Balanc'd on her wings of light,
Hover'd in the purple night,
Ere she sought her ocean nest
In the chambers of the West.
She left me, and I stay'd alone
Thinking over every tone
Which, though silent to the ear,
The enchanted heart could...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
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...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being¡ª
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!¡ªO thou 5
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wing¨¨d seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave,...Read more of this...
by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane.
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.
As the moon's soft splendour
O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.
The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;
No leaf...Read more of this...
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