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
moving inspiration mirrors
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
art moving spirit
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
moving thinking imagination
We live and move and think; but we are not the creators of our own origin and existence. We are not the arbiters of every motion of our own complicated nature; we are not the masters of our own imaginations and moods of mental being.
positive fear moving-forward
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
learn song suffering teach
They learn in suffering what they teach in song
hate rage side
There is no sport in hate when all the rage is on one side
weak weaker
What 'twas weak to do 'Tis weaker to lament, once being done
less names peculiar
Every epoch, under names more or less specious, has deified its peculiar errors.
fierce free maze republic struggling towards wilderness
The unquiet republic of the maze of planets, struggling fierce towards heaven's free wilderness
beneath closed fed garden kisses leaves nature opened plant sensitive silver winds
A sensitive plant in a garden grew, And the young winds fed it with silver dew, And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light, and closed them beneath the kisses of night.
author bankrupt critic thief turns
As a bankrupt thief turns thief-taker, so an unsuccessful author turns critic
bent bliss eyes frame impressed kisses-and-kissing lingering lips near tenderness wild
A wild dissolving bliss Over my frame he breathed, approaching near, And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss,
earth kiss kisses-and-kissing sunlight thou worth
The sunlight claps the earth And the moonbeams kiss the sea: What are all these kissings worth If thou kiss not me?
soft sweet violets voices within
Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odors, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken