Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes

What is Freedom? — ye can tell That which slavery is, too well — For its very name has grown To an echo of your own.

My father Time is weak and gray With waiting for a better day; See how idiot-like he stands, Fumbling with his palsied hands!

And with glorious triumph, they Rode through England proud and gay, Drunk as with intoxication Of the wine of desolation.

And he wore a kingly crown; And in his grasp a sceptre shone; On his brow this mark I saw — ''

Last came Anarchy: he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips, Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And many more Destructions played In this ghastly masquerade, All disguised, even to the eyes, Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

All were fat; and well they might Be in admirable plight, For one by one, and two by two, He tossed them human hearts to chew.

I met Murder on the way — He had a mask like Castlereagh — Very smooth he looked, yet grim; Seven blood-hounds followed him.

As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, And with great power it forth led me To walk in the visions of Poesy.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

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.

Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might.

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 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: O 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.