The voices / 151 fragments

Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792 AD — 1822 AD

Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.

Author and source reference ↗

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Historical source references

The Revolt of Islam
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Adonais
Ode to the West Wind
The Cloud
To a Skylark
Hellas
Written on hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon
Prometheus Unbound
Julian and Maddalo
Stanzas written in Dejection, near Naples
Peter Bell the Third
The Witch of Atlas
Music, when soft Voices die
Rarely, rarely comest Thou
To Jane
One Word is too often profaned
Translation of Calderon's Magico Prodigioso
Queen Mab
A Defence of Poetry
Poetry · anthology attribution: Shelley
Religion · anthology attribution: Shelley
Printed citation: Shelley
Page 73 · printed citation: Shelley (Adonaïs, an Elegy on Keats, XL)
Page 85 · printed citation: Shelley (Prometheus Unbound)
Page 114 · printed citation: Shelley (Adonaïs XXXIX)
Page 209 · printed citation: Shelley (Prometheus Unbound, III, 3)
Page 210 · printed citation: Shelley (The Cloud)
Page 211 · printed citation: Shelley
Page 214 · printed citation: Shelley (A Defence of Poetry)

Archive entries

01c. 1807 AD

Then black despair, The shadow of a starless night, was thrown Over the world in which I moved alone.

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02c. 1807 AD

With hue like that when some great painter dips His pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.

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03c. 1807 AD

The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats, tho' unseen, amongst us.

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04c. 1807 AD

The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame Over his living head like heaven is bent, An early but enduring monument, Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song In sorrow.

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05c. 1807 AD

A pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift.

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06c. 1807 AD

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity.

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07c. 1807 AD

Oh thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.

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08c. 1807 AD

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss and flowers So sweet, the sense faints picturing them.

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09c. 1807 AD

That orbed maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the moon.

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10c. 1807 AD

We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

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11c. 1807 AD

Kings are like stars,—they rise and set, they have The worship of the world, but no repose.

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12c. 1807 AD

The moon of Mahomet Arose, and it shall set; While, blazoned as on heaven's immortal noon, The cross leads generations on.

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13c. 1807 AD

The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn.

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14c. 1807 AD

What! alive, and so bold, O earth?

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15c. 1807 AD

All love is sweet, Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever. . . . . . They who inspire it most are fortunate, As I am now; but those who feel it most Are happier still.

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16c. 1807 AD

Those who inflict must suffer, for they see The work of their own hearts, and this must be Our chastisement or recompense.

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17c. 1807 AD

Most wretched men Are cradled into poetry by wrong: They learn in suffering what they teach in song.

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18c. 1807 AD

I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne, and yet must bear.

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19c. 1807 AD

Peter was dull; he was at first Dull,—oh so dull, so very dull! Whether he talked, wrote, or rehearsed, Still with this dulness was he cursed! Dull,—beyond all conception, dull.

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20c. 1807 AD

A lovely lady, garmented in light From her own beauty.

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21c. 1807 AD

Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.

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22c. 1807 AD

I love tranquil solitude And such society As is quiet, wise, and good.

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23c. 1807 AD

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

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24c. 1807 AD

The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow.

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Archive entries

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