"Oh, sick I am to see you, will you never let me be? You may be good for something, but you are not good for me. Oh, go where you are wanted, for you are not wanted here."...
In two small volumes of Poems, published anonymously, one in 1849, the other in 1852, many of the Poems which compose the present volume have already appeared. The rest are now published for the first time. ...
The sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand. And in the withered hollow of this land...
"How shall I be a poet? How shall I write in rhyme? You told me once 'the very wish Partook of the sublime.' The tell me how! Don't put me off With your 'another time'!" ...
Poets love Nature, and themselves are love. Though scorn of fools, and mock of idle pride. The vile in nature worthless deeds approve, They court the vile and spurn all good beside....
Pompless no life can pass away; The lowliest career To the same pageant wends its way As that exalted here. How cordial is the mystery! The hospitable pall A "this way" beckons spaciously, --...
So yer trav'lin' for yer pleasure while yer writin' for the press? An' yer huntin' arter 'copy'? well, I've heer'd o' that. I guess You are gorn ter write a story that is gorn ter be yer best,...
Everyone laughed at Col. Prichard For buying an engine so powerful That it wrecked itself, and wrecked the grinder He ran it with. But here is a joke of cosmic size: The urge of nature that made a man...
Nobody knows the world but me. The rest go to bed; I sit up and see. I'm a better observer than any of you all, For I never look out till the twilight fall, And never then without green glasses,...
A plain-built[1] house, after so long a stay, Will send you half unsatisfied away; When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find A bare convenience only is design'd. You, who each day can theatres behold,...
When by a generous Public's kind acclaim, That dearest meed is granted, honest fame; When here your favour is the actor's lot, Nor even the man in private life forgot;...
Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south, Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth, Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song, And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong....
You see this gentle stream that glides, Shoved on, by quick-succeeding tides: Try if this sober stream you can Follow to th' wider ocean, And see, if there it keeps unspent In that congesting element....
Celestine Silvousplait Justine de Mouton Rosalie, A coryph'e who lived and danced in naughty, gay Paree, Was every bit as pretty as a French girl e'er can be (Which isn't saying much). ...
Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak Four not exempt from pride some future day. Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek, Over my open volume you will say,...
Put nothing in another's way, Who's plodding on through life, But fill each heart with joy each day, With peace instead of strife. So then let not a missent word, Or thought, or act, or deed...
[An edition (250 copies) of "Queen Mab" was printed at London in the summer of 1813 by Shelley himself, whose name, as author and printer, appears on the title-page. Of this edition about seventy copies were privately distribut...