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Sensitive Plant
A unique edition of Shelley's famous poem illustrated with an introduction by Laurence Housman.
60 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 1820
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About the author
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1,613 books1,387 followersWorks of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820;
Prometheus Unbound
, the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.
The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.
People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .
Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.
The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.
People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .
Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.
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October 5, 2022
The Sensitive Plant is a poem composed by Percy Bysshe Shelley and published in Prometheus Unbound and Other Poems in 1820. The poem was written following the death of his child, Will, and the subsequent despondency of his wife, Mary Shelley, while they stayed in Pisa, Italy.
Introduction by Ernest Rhys ✔
A Note Upon the Illustrations by Laurence Housman ✔
First Part ✔
Second Part ✔
Third Part ✔
Conclusion ✔
Introduction by Ernest Rhys ✔
A Note Upon the Illustrations by Laurence Housman ✔
First Part ✔
Second Part ✔
Third Part ✔
Conclusion ✔
August 29, 2017
The sensitive plant by Shelley is a great artistic poem about a very shy plant called Mimosa Pudica. The poem is written in three parts. From the very first stanza, the reader is faced with a sensation of movement, or rather evolution, through a very simple structure, mostly a four line stanza, and matching rhymes. It is a lovely poem with a fine tune, almost as if the poet was singing it. The second stanza intensifies the feeling of evolution, in an uplifting diction, whence I honestly believe I have heard a child chanting it:
‘And the spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the spirit of love felt everywhere
And each flower and herb on earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintery rest’
The analogy of floras growth with music is marvelous, and even the poet cannot deny the use of such an analogy throughout the poem. It reminded me of Bach’s music, and at times the poem felt like it was a painter or any other grandiose artist dictating it. On the seventh stanza of the first part Shelley rhymes:
‘And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweat peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense’
Remarkably, Shelley uses all five senses in this wonderful poem. The reader gets the ultimate experience of life and even more, a sense of the after life (sixth sense), which begins in the second part. Shelley uses divine senses, which are very characteristic to celestial poets. As for the ordinary five senses, however, Shelley is One with the wholeness of nature, hence One with life itself. The sight of rich colorful flowers and plants, together with the hearing of floras growth, which involves music and tunes, then there is the tangible touch involved with the sensitive plant, and the delicate taste of love. All which render the poem rich in motion and emotions, almost as if one is the universe itself experiencing it. I enjoyed the following alliteration in another stanza:
The light winds which from unsustaining wings
Shed the music of many murmurings;’
However, more interesting was the description of the sensitive plant in the previous stanza:
‘For the sensitive plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower
It loves, even like love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not, the beautiful’
As a fellow poet I conclude in my interpretation the obvious equation: the sensitive plant is the poet himself. The Mimosa Pudica is symbolic here. The poet is sensitive and shy and when you try to come in contact with him he recoils, folds, and shuts down. I recall this plant from my youth, as we call it in Hebrew the ‘Don’t touch me’ plant, because when you touch Mimosa Pudica it folds straight away. I remember the fascination around it for the first time; I almost thought it was human. It is not like any other plant, just as the poet is not like any other human; the symbolism, hence, is very strong here, and Shelley surely wrote it about himself and his kind, the poets. The second part surprised me, for I had not anticipated any mention of dear old Eden. Here Eve plays the chief role, displaying the Holy Spirit, a fact which conveys the sensitive plant/the poet, holy. I really enjoyed the fourth stanza of this part:
‘She had no companion of mortal race,
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face
Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes,
That her dreams were less slumber than paradise’
Eve’s role here is interesting, as she gets the spot light, full attention, there is no focus on either Adam or God, neither any focus on the serpent nor on the sin nor on the forbidden fruit. Eve and the flowers are at focus; hence the flowers here are associated with mortals, with Eve’s offspring, as she is the mother of life. The fall of Eve, however, which is the main theme of the third part of the poem, is somewhat natural, not as epic as one would expect. The sensitive plant, however, mourns her death, which is analogous to the poet mourning his own loss of paradise. Great symbolism. The fall of Eve, however, gave birth to sin, and Shelley criticizes humankind, because it was born out of vice, not out of virtue:
‘Between the time of the wind and the snow
All loathliest weeds began to grow
Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck
Like the water-snake’s belly and the toads back’
The weeds are the rabbles, whereas the sensitive plant is the individual. The sensitive plant is unique and extraordinary, and without stumbling upon narcissism, one should distinguish between beauty (The sensitive plant/the poet) and ugliness (weeds/the mediocre rabbles). Shelley proceeds with the description of the negative rabbles until the stench of death (vanity) consumes the air. The criticism here is against the dormant consciousness of the masses. Shelley despises the negative masses that live without a purpose or with a negative purpose to survive and/or to live in vanity. He feels more than ordinary people feel, he is extraordinary, he is a poet, he is unique, and he loves life more than the ordinary crowd. He is different, and just like the sensitive plant he expresses his feelings and humanity through shunning and recoiling. It takes a poet to know a poet, and conclude that society suffocates the unique individual with a terrible collective ignorance. The poet (individual) yearns to break free from the darkness of the masses and be appreciated by a divine entity such as Eve. The struggle of the unique individual in society is also expressed in the following stanza:
‘And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath,
Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth
Prickly and pulpous, and blistering, and blue,
Livid, and starred with a lurid dew’
The ugliness of the survivalists, those who just wish to live a vain meaningless life, with diabolical motives to thrive over others and have power, control and dominance over beautiful flowers, is exposed here. The sensitive plant, however, is an expressionist, and it shows its dislike of the undergrowth. The struggle for survival among plants and humans is similar, thus the sensitive plant/the poet is a rebel. It is a call to break the jungle law. The suffering of the poet in society is ineffable. Society’s ignorance is heartless, as it allows no space for personal evolution. Hence, Shelley’s criticism of the jungle law among humans is implied through the sensitive plant’s deep pain. The reaction of a poet/artist (or any sensitive/moral individual) whose rights have been violated, particularly the right to live/evolve, is depression (shut down). When you touch Mimosa Pudica it behaves as if you have violated its freedom of consciousness and invaded its space. I wish I could say it was different with poets, but it’s not. Shelley describes it as follows in another stanza:
‘The sensitive plant, like one forbid,
Wept, and the tears within each lid
Of its folded leaves, which together grew,
Were changed to a blight of frozen glue’
The other plants, the masses, suffocate it and depress it. The poet needs space and climate in order to thrive, once you touch it and you break its sacred balance of peace. I felt that this poem was about being unique, as if it was advocating for idiosyncrasy and humbleness. The right to be humble and the right to live in peace are promoted here together with other individual rights. Moreover, the sensitive plant Mimosa Pudica is a chosen plant, just as Shelley is a chosen poet. The sensitive plant is also symbol of love. There is a sense of salvation and kingdom here, with the chief messages of ‘Let me live in peace’ and ‘Do not violate my freedom’. The last stanza of the poem emphasizes infinity and the grace of infinity. The body decays and dies but the spirit lasts for ever, because the spirit is holy, and just as Eve died and yet she is ever remembered, so it will be with all of us when we depart from this world. Life has not been in vain. Life is majestic. It’s been a great pleasure for me to analyze this poem. The Mimosa Pudica (poets/artists) are here to remind us how important it is to appreciate life.
Amor vincit omnia
‘And the spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the spirit of love felt everywhere
And each flower and herb on earth’s dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintery rest’
The analogy of floras growth with music is marvelous, and even the poet cannot deny the use of such an analogy throughout the poem. It reminded me of Bach’s music, and at times the poem felt like it was a painter or any other grandiose artist dictating it. On the seventh stanza of the first part Shelley rhymes:
‘And the hyacinth purple, and white, and blue,
Which flung from its bells a sweat peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense’
Remarkably, Shelley uses all five senses in this wonderful poem. The reader gets the ultimate experience of life and even more, a sense of the after life (sixth sense), which begins in the second part. Shelley uses divine senses, which are very characteristic to celestial poets. As for the ordinary five senses, however, Shelley is One with the wholeness of nature, hence One with life itself. The sight of rich colorful flowers and plants, together with the hearing of floras growth, which involves music and tunes, then there is the tangible touch involved with the sensitive plant, and the delicate taste of love. All which render the poem rich in motion and emotions, almost as if one is the universe itself experiencing it. I enjoyed the following alliteration in another stanza:
The light winds which from unsustaining wings
Shed the music of many murmurings;’
However, more interesting was the description of the sensitive plant in the previous stanza:
‘For the sensitive plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower
It loves, even like love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not, the beautiful’
As a fellow poet I conclude in my interpretation the obvious equation: the sensitive plant is the poet himself. The Mimosa Pudica is symbolic here. The poet is sensitive and shy and when you try to come in contact with him he recoils, folds, and shuts down. I recall this plant from my youth, as we call it in Hebrew the ‘Don’t touch me’ plant, because when you touch Mimosa Pudica it folds straight away. I remember the fascination around it for the first time; I almost thought it was human. It is not like any other plant, just as the poet is not like any other human; the symbolism, hence, is very strong here, and Shelley surely wrote it about himself and his kind, the poets. The second part surprised me, for I had not anticipated any mention of dear old Eden. Here Eve plays the chief role, displaying the Holy Spirit, a fact which conveys the sensitive plant/the poet, holy. I really enjoyed the fourth stanza of this part:
‘She had no companion of mortal race,
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face
Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes,
That her dreams were less slumber than paradise’
Eve’s role here is interesting, as she gets the spot light, full attention, there is no focus on either Adam or God, neither any focus on the serpent nor on the sin nor on the forbidden fruit. Eve and the flowers are at focus; hence the flowers here are associated with mortals, with Eve’s offspring, as she is the mother of life. The fall of Eve, however, which is the main theme of the third part of the poem, is somewhat natural, not as epic as one would expect. The sensitive plant, however, mourns her death, which is analogous to the poet mourning his own loss of paradise. Great symbolism. The fall of Eve, however, gave birth to sin, and Shelley criticizes humankind, because it was born out of vice, not out of virtue:
‘Between the time of the wind and the snow
All loathliest weeds began to grow
Whose coarse leaves were splashed with many a speck
Like the water-snake’s belly and the toads back’
The weeds are the rabbles, whereas the sensitive plant is the individual. The sensitive plant is unique and extraordinary, and without stumbling upon narcissism, one should distinguish between beauty (The sensitive plant/the poet) and ugliness (weeds/the mediocre rabbles). Shelley proceeds with the description of the negative rabbles until the stench of death (vanity) consumes the air. The criticism here is against the dormant consciousness of the masses. Shelley despises the negative masses that live without a purpose or with a negative purpose to survive and/or to live in vanity. He feels more than ordinary people feel, he is extraordinary, he is a poet, he is unique, and he loves life more than the ordinary crowd. He is different, and just like the sensitive plant he expresses his feelings and humanity through shunning and recoiling. It takes a poet to know a poet, and conclude that society suffocates the unique individual with a terrible collective ignorance. The poet (individual) yearns to break free from the darkness of the masses and be appreciated by a divine entity such as Eve. The struggle of the unique individual in society is also expressed in the following stanza:
‘And plants, at whose names the verse feels loath,
Filled the place with a monstrous undergrowth
Prickly and pulpous, and blistering, and blue,
Livid, and starred with a lurid dew’
The ugliness of the survivalists, those who just wish to live a vain meaningless life, with diabolical motives to thrive over others and have power, control and dominance over beautiful flowers, is exposed here. The sensitive plant, however, is an expressionist, and it shows its dislike of the undergrowth. The struggle for survival among plants and humans is similar, thus the sensitive plant/the poet is a rebel. It is a call to break the jungle law. The suffering of the poet in society is ineffable. Society’s ignorance is heartless, as it allows no space for personal evolution. Hence, Shelley’s criticism of the jungle law among humans is implied through the sensitive plant’s deep pain. The reaction of a poet/artist (or any sensitive/moral individual) whose rights have been violated, particularly the right to live/evolve, is depression (shut down). When you touch Mimosa Pudica it behaves as if you have violated its freedom of consciousness and invaded its space. I wish I could say it was different with poets, but it’s not. Shelley describes it as follows in another stanza:
‘The sensitive plant, like one forbid,
Wept, and the tears within each lid
Of its folded leaves, which together grew,
Were changed to a blight of frozen glue’
The other plants, the masses, suffocate it and depress it. The poet needs space and climate in order to thrive, once you touch it and you break its sacred balance of peace. I felt that this poem was about being unique, as if it was advocating for idiosyncrasy and humbleness. The right to be humble and the right to live in peace are promoted here together with other individual rights. Moreover, the sensitive plant Mimosa Pudica is a chosen plant, just as Shelley is a chosen poet. The sensitive plant is also symbol of love. There is a sense of salvation and kingdom here, with the chief messages of ‘Let me live in peace’ and ‘Do not violate my freedom’. The last stanza of the poem emphasizes infinity and the grace of infinity. The body decays and dies but the spirit lasts for ever, because the spirit is holy, and just as Eve died and yet she is ever remembered, so it will be with all of us when we depart from this world. Life has not been in vain. Life is majestic. It’s been a great pleasure for me to analyze this poem. The Mimosa Pudica (poets/artists) are here to remind us how important it is to appreciate life.
Amor vincit omnia
April 14, 2021
I have an issue with long poems, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that my attention span isn’t that wide (it helps a little to read out loud, but… I don’t always want to do that…). So, I was a bit hadicapped in enjoying Shelley’s poem. The thought that was prevailing after the first page of reading was; this wrote the same man as “Love’s Philosophy”? And it stayed even though I tried to push it away as unsubstantial.
Only after I finished it came realisation much more interesting, especially thanks to the description the book has in our library “… was written in 1820 shortly after a death of author’s child.” My first epiphany was that Frankenstein was first published in 1818 and so those two works are almost twins (Frankenstein is also inspired by the death of Shelleys’ child), but then I realised that between the 1815 and 1819 Shelleys lost 3 children and considering the time of their deaths and date of publications it seems that while Frankenstein was inspired by the death of their first daughter Clara, The Sensitive Plant would be more likely inspired by the death of Willmouse – which is a bit queer since there is a lady as a “main protagonist”, but it also could be about their second daughter Clara or Mary Shelley herself since she was falling apart after the death of two other children (Actually… I only thought about this possibility now, but… it I am inclined to believe that the more I am thinking about it…).
Nevertheless… both of these texts are reacting to the same trauma and… together they create an unexpected picture and contrast. It’s not easy to put it into the words. Where Frankenstein is full of raw pain, The Sensitive Plant is shy, full of perfectly crafted emotions. I don’t mean to say that Shelley’s pain is insincere, I only want to say that even in his own poem he doesn’t dare to free his sadness fully and be completely honest. (Which isn’t surprising really since man are taught in our society to keep the sadness inside.)
I personally think that Shelley wrote better poems than this one, but I didn’t read enough of them to make any judgement, but… it is sad to me that his wife is often merely a footnote to his name in Literature classes, when she is in many aspects greater…
P.S. It might also been worth saying that this poem felt very Dante-ish to me… (Vita Nuova)
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare.
Only after I finished it came realisation much more interesting, especially thanks to the description the book has in our library “… was written in 1820 shortly after a death of author’s child.” My first epiphany was that Frankenstein was first published in 1818 and so those two works are almost twins (Frankenstein is also inspired by the death of Shelleys’ child), but then I realised that between the 1815 and 1819 Shelleys lost 3 children and considering the time of their deaths and date of publications it seems that while Frankenstein was inspired by the death of their first daughter Clara, The Sensitive Plant would be more likely inspired by the death of Willmouse – which is a bit queer since there is a lady as a “main protagonist”, but it also could be about their second daughter Clara or Mary Shelley herself since she was falling apart after the death of two other children (Actually… I only thought about this possibility now, but… it I am inclined to believe that the more I am thinking about it…).
She had no companion of mortal race,
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face
Told, whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes,
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise
Nevertheless… both of these texts are reacting to the same trauma and… together they create an unexpected picture and contrast. It’s not easy to put it into the words. Where Frankenstein is full of raw pain, The Sensitive Plant is shy, full of perfectly crafted emotions. I don’t mean to say that Shelley’s pain is insincere, I only want to say that even in his own poem he doesn’t dare to free his sadness fully and be completely honest. (Which isn’t surprising really since man are taught in our society to keep the sadness inside.)
The rose-leaves, like flakes of crimson snow,
Paved the turf and the moss below.
The lilies were drooping, and white, and wan,
Like the head and the skin of a dying man.
I personally think that Shelley wrote better poems than this one, but I didn’t read enough of them to make any judgement, but… it is sad to me that his wife is often merely a footnote to his name in Literature classes, when she is in many aspects greater…
P.S. It might also been worth saying that this poem felt very Dante-ish to me… (Vita Nuova)
October 30, 2022
It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
Pleasant if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
January 11, 2017
"The Sensitive-Plant" narrates the life story of an organism exquisitely receptive to what Shelley figures as the maternal and loving benevolence of nature--what he famously calls, in another poem, "intellectual [as in "immaterial"] beauty". The Sensitive-plant, also known as the Mimosa Pudica, spends its first years of life in an glorious Elysian garden, basking in the sun, dreaming in the moonlight, sipping the morning dew, surrounded by beauty. Presiding over this Edenic garden is a mysterious woman Shelley appears to associate with the spirit of nature and love (and even the imagination). When she dies at the end of part two, death invades the paradise of the preceding stanzas: weeds and reptiles infest the land; the various shrubs and flowers die; and the sensitive-plant is left all alone, surrounded by death, abandoned by the spirit of love. By the end of part three he's a mess:
"When Winter had gone and Spring came back
The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;
But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels."
In a brief conclusion, the speaker denies knowing whether the lady or rarefied sensitive-plant lived after death. Then we're told that
that garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
Shelley's poem, it seems to me, offers an allegory for both the personal and social alienation one experiences from the glory of nature as one moves through life from childhood to adulthood. As to whether or not it can be reclaimed Shelley's response is coy.
Part 1: the garden; the sensitive plant; dreams of loveliness
Part 2: the benevolent lady of the garden; her sudden death
Part 3: the gradual extinction of loveliness; the infestation of weeds; the post-lapsarian garden
Conclusion: the disappearance of beauty is only an illusion; really, it is always there; it's our limited capacity for its recognition that makes all appear ugly.
"When Winter had gone and Spring came back
The Sensitive Plant was a leafless wreck;
But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels,
Rose like the dead from their ruined charnels."
In a brief conclusion, the speaker denies knowing whether the lady or rarefied sensitive-plant lived after death. Then we're told that
that garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away:
'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed; not they.
For love, and beauty, and delight,
There is no death nor change: their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure
No light, being themselves obscure.
Shelley's poem, it seems to me, offers an allegory for both the personal and social alienation one experiences from the glory of nature as one moves through life from childhood to adulthood. As to whether or not it can be reclaimed Shelley's response is coy.
Part 1: the garden; the sensitive plant; dreams of loveliness
Part 2: the benevolent lady of the garden; her sudden death
Part 3: the gradual extinction of loveliness; the infestation of weeds; the post-lapsarian garden
Conclusion: the disappearance of beauty is only an illusion; really, it is always there; it's our limited capacity for its recognition that makes all appear ugly.
Read
June 25, 2013and the leaves, brown, yellow, and gray, and red,
and white with the whiteness of what is dead,
like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed;
their whistling noise made the birds aghast.
____
For love, and beauty, and delight,
there is no death nor change: their might
exceeds our organs, which endure
no light, being themselves obscure.
and white with the whiteness of what is dead,
like troops of ghosts on the dry wind passed;
their whistling noise made the birds aghast.
____
For love, and beauty, and delight,
there is no death nor change: their might
exceeds our organs, which endure
no light, being themselves obscure.
January 20, 2015
Yeah, it's just one poem --- I'm giving this a rating of its own because of the book. The illustrations are so lovely and I really feel like they added to the way I read it. Sometimes reading Shelley feels like being kissed very gently, if that makes any sense. Probably not...either way, this edition is available on archive.org and really worth taking a look at!
March 19, 2013
I have a different edition sold to me many years by Miss Cousins of Lynchburg for something like $20 - a huge expense for me at the time. It was 1973, during my year at CVCC. Extremely beautiful, with wonderful illustrations, but unfortunately the binding is coming apart. A rapturous poem.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews