Autumn: A Dirge
The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the Year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling.
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black and gray;
Let your light sisters play--
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Lines: We Meet Not As We Parted
I.
We meet not as we parted,
We feel more than all may see;
My bosom is heavy-hearted,
And thine full of doubt for me:--
One moment has bound the free.
II.
That moment is gone for ever,
Like lightning that flashed and died--
Like a snowflake upon the river--
Like a sunbeam upon the tide,
Which the dark shadows hide.
III.
That moment from time was singled
As the first of a life of pain;
The cup of its joy was mingled
—Delusion too sweet though vain!
Too sweet to be mine again.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Song For 'Tasso
I.
I loved—alas! our life is love;
But when we cease to breathe and move
I do suppose love ceases too.
I thought, but not as now I do,
Keen thoughts and bright of linked lore,
Of all that men had thought before.
And all that Nature shows, and more.
II.
And still I love and still I think,
But strangely, for my heart can drink
The dregs of such despair, and live,
And love;...
And if I think, my thoughts come fast,
I mix the present with the past,
And each seems uglier than the last.
III.
Sometimes I see before me flee 15
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Solitary
I.
Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr’s passing wing?
II.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother’s hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.
III.
He smiles--'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks--the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl,--
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Remembrance
I.
Swifter far than summer's flight--
Swifter far than youth’s delight--
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone--
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.
II.
The swallow summer comes again--
The owlet night resumes her reign--
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou.--
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Song. Come Harriet! Sweet Is The Hour
Come Harriet! sweet is the hour,
Soft Zephyrs breathe gently around,
The anemone's night-boding flower,
Has sunk its pale head on the ground.
'Tis thus the world's keenness hath torn,
Some mild heart that expands to its blast,
'Tis thus that the wretched forlorn,
Sinks poor and neglected at last.--
The world with its keenness and woe,
Has no charms or attraction for me,
Its unkindness with grief has laid low,
The heart which is faithful to thee.
The high trees that wave past the moon,
As I walk in their umbrage with you,
All declare I must part with you soon,
All bid you a tender adieu!--
Then Harriet! dearest farewell,
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Dirge For The Year
I.
Orphan Hours, the Year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry Hours, smile instead,
For the Year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.
II.
As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,
Rocks the death-cold Year to-day;
Solemn Hours! wail aloud
For your mother in her shroud.
III.
As the wild air stirs and sways
The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Summer And Winter
It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
When the north wind congregates in crowds
The floating mountains of the silver clouds
From the horizon—and the stainless sky
Opens beyond them like eternity.
All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
And the firm foliage of the larger trees.
It was a winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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To Mary Who Died In This Opinion
I.
Maiden, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye:
Firmness dare to borrow
From the wreck of destiny;
For the ray morn’s bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue
As that which mocks concealing,
And sheds its loveliest light on you.
II.
Yet is the tie departed
Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss?
Has it left thee broken-hearted
In a world so cold as this?
Yet, though, fainting fair one,
Sorrow’s self thy cup has given,
Dream thou’lt meet thy dear one,
Never more to part, in Heaven.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Verses On A Cat
I.
A cat in distress,
Nothing more, nor less;
Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye,
As I am a sinner,
It waits for some dinner
To stuff out its own little belly.
II.
You would not easily guess
All the modes of distress
Which torture the tenants of earth;
And the various evils,
Which like so many devils,
Attend the poor souls from their birth.
III.
Some a living require,
And others desire
An old fellow out of the way;
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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