Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelleywas one of the major English Romantic poets, and is regarded by some as among the finest lyric, as well as epic, poets in the English language. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not see fame during his lifetime, but recognition for his poetry grew steadily following his death. Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron; Leigh...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth4 August 1792
mother atheist children
I was an infant when my mother went To see an atheist burned. She took me there. The dark-robed priests were met around the pile; The multitude was gazing silently; And as the culprit passed with dauntless mien, Tempered disdain in his unaltering eye, Mixed with a quiet smile, shone calmly forth; The thirsty fire crept round his manly limbs; His resolute eyes were scorched to blindness soon; His death-pang rent my heart! the insensate mob Uttered a cry of triumph, and I wept. Weep not, child! cried my mother, for that man Has said, 'There is no God.'
death art
Death will come when thou art dead, soon, too soon.
mother world
Necessity, thou mother of the world!
jealousy eye green
Jealousy's eyes are green.
flower color broken
When you can discover where the fresh colors of the faded flower abide, or the music of the broken lyre, seek life among the dead. Such are the anxious and fearful contemplations of the common observer, though the popular religion often prevents him from confessing them even to himself.
crush revenge feelings
Here I swear, and as I break my oath may ... eternity blast me, here I swear that never will I forgive Christianity! It is the only point on which I allow myself to encourage revenge... Oh, how I wish I were the Antichrist, that it were mine to crush the Demon; to hurl him to his native Hell never to rise again - I expect to gratify some of this insatiable feeling in Poetry.
father fall atheism
It is only by hearsay (by word of mouth passed down from generation to generation) that whole peoples adore the God of their fathers and of their priests: authority, confidence, submission and custom with them take the place of conviction or of proofs: they prostrate themselves and pray, because their fathers taught them to prostrate themselves and pray: but why did their fathers fall on their knees?
love charity might
Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.
children law voice
The old laws of England they Whose reverend heads with age are gray, Children of a wiser day; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo Liberty!
art moving spirit
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
love powerful attraction
What is Love? It is that powerful attraction towards all that we conceive, or fear, or hope beyond ourselves.
solitude waste solitary
I love all waste and solitary places.
deeds strange begets
Strange thoughts beget strange deeds.
passion mind atheism
... as belief is a passion of the mind, no degree of criminality is attachable to disbelief; ...