Shelley: Poems

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), perhaps the most intellectually adventurous of the great Romantic poets, personified the richly various- and contradictory- energies of his time. A classicist, a headlong visionary, a social radical, and a poet of serene artistry with a lyric touch second to none, Shelley gave voice to English romanticism's deepest aspirations.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Romanticism, Fiction, Romantic, Literature

256 pages, Hardcover

Published November 2, 1993

About the author

Works 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.

Reviews

[Dolors · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine this scene: Somewhere in the awesome surroundings of the French Alps, incessant summer rains covering the valleys with a moist, foggy veil. Inside a cottage, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife, Mary, are discussing life, principle and the mysterious fears of human nature, which strangely comes alive with thrilling horrors. Mischievous Lord Byron, always ready to experiment, suggests a ghost story competition. The three set to work.
This is the original seed that will grow to become Mary Shelley's most powerful tale, Frankenstein, making her hero-villain and his unnamed Creation more famous than herself, and therefore, than her husband Percy.

Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless
Exempt from awe, worship, degree. Prometheus Unbound.

I had always linked "Shelley" with “Frankenstein”, oblivious of what else might be found in that surname.
Reading this selection of poems has allowed me to see that there is indeed much of Shelley in “Frankenstein”, but his influence in that novel is far from being his only contribution to the literary world. A new universe of beautiful emotional intensity; throbbing with intelligent, unsettled, offbeat pulse has opened up to me with Shelley’s verse.
His alluring heroes (as with Lord Byron's) are often hardly distinguishable from their creator, they are gripped by the idea that the "principle of life" is somehow to be found in probing into the mysteries of death and decay, never in religion, and his ideas about the necessity of atheism and his doubts regarding the real significance of good and evil were enough to label him as a radical and gained him no popularity at the time.

But apart from the brooding despair of some of his poems, Shelley also exemplifies the purest Romanticist form with his joyous ecstasy when describing interchange with nature, the power of the visionary imagination, the pursuit of ideal love or the untamed spirit ever in search of freedom.
In this sense, I found Shelley speaking directly to me, his voice echoing as mine, treading the path of insurgency alongside him. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Montblanc, two of his finest poems, are clear examples of his defiant nature:

No voice from some sublimer world hath eve
To sage or poet these responses given:
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour:
Frail spells whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance and mutability.
Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream. Hymn to intellectual beauty.

In these poems one can also notice Wordsworth's essence in Shelley, as it has been pointed out that he suggests how his imagination and poetic sensitivity were formed by nature.
But somehow, I sense in Shelley a more enigmatic power than in Wordsworth, skepticism and doubt oozing from his verses:

And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind’s imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy? Montblanc.

The enigmatic mountain leaves the speaker with no assurance that the imagination may endow with meaning the awful blankness of nature, and challenges the reader to enter into a philosophical discussion similar to Kant's ideal of intellectual autonomy versus the conservative belief based on testimony or unquestioned religious tradition.
And although Shelley was aware that his uncommon approaches would never be popular, he persisted in filling his poems with symbolism and imagery, giving voice to his rebellious heroes, such as the like of Prometheus, who represented the mind or soul of a man in its highest potential.

His name forever linked with those of Byron and Keats, Shelley has come to symbolize the free and soaring spirit of humankind, and having entered his universe I am overjoyed to have discovered yet another restless mind, always aspiring to ever-loftier ideals of perfecting the self, and above all, with a confident voice filled with never faltering hope.
Shelley's works will never be read by the masses, although his wish in Ode to the West Wind is perhaps closer to coming true today than he would have dared imagine:

by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!.

Shelley’s ideas, embodied in his verse, remain as a challenge to the currently subservient acceptance of authority and also as a remainder that it is our duty to never cease to aspire to higher goals for ourselves and to, as Kant said, Sapere aude, Dare to be Wise.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many poems in here. In general, Shelley’s shorter poems are superior; brevity was his friend. In his longer works, Shelley tends to bury his flashes of brilliance in too much flowery excess and thematic repetition. He is obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology, and tends to overuse allusions to it in his longer verse, as well. Many poems or portions of poems are beautiful and interesting, but some editorial commentary on the context or obscure mythological allusions in his longer, lyric poems would have been ideal.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely collection in a beautiful little book. I love how often Shelley alludes to the classics. His lyrical poems are my favourite, but I struggle a little with following the long, dramatic ones.

[Rowland Pasaribu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The central thematic concerns of Shelley’s poetry are largely the same themes that defined Romanticism, especially among the younger English poets of Shelley’s era: beauty, the passions, nature, political liberty, creativity, and the sanctity of the imagination. What makes Shelley’s treatment of these themes unique is his philosophical relationship to his subject matter—which was better developed and articulated than that of any other Romantic poet with the possible exception of Wordsworth—and his temperament, which was extraordinarily sensitive and responsive even for a Romantic poet, and which possessed an extraordinary capacity for joy, love, and hope. Shelley fervently believed in the possibility of realizing an ideal of human happiness as based on beauty, and his moments of darkness and despair (he had many, particularly in book-length poems such as the monumental Queen Mab) almost always stem from his disappointment at seeing that ideal sacrificed to human weakness.

Shelley’s intense feelings about beauty and expression are documented in poems such as “Ode to the West Wind” and “To a Skylark,” in which he invokes metaphors from nature to characterize his relationship to his art. The center of his aesthetic philosophy can be found in his important essay A Defence of Poetry, in which he argues that poetry brings about moral good. Poetry, Shelley argues, exercises and expands the imagination, and the imagination is the source of sympathy, compassion, and love, which rest on the ability to project oneself into the position of another person.

No other English poet of the early nineteenth century so emphasized the connection between beauty and goodness, or believed so avidly in the power of art’s sensual pleasures to improve society. Byron’s pose was one of amoral sensuousness, or of controversial rebelliousness; Keats believed in beauty and aesthetics for their own sake. But Shelley was able to believe that poetry makes people and society better; his poetry is suffused with this kind of inspired moral optimism, which he hoped would affect his readers sensuously, spiritually, and morally, all at the same time.

In Shelley’s poetry, the figure of the poet (and, to some extent, the figure of Shelley himself) is not simply a talented entertainer or even a perceptive moralist but a grand, tragic, prophetic hero. The poet has a deep, mystic appreciation for nature, as in the poem “To Wordsworth” (1816), and this intense connection with the natural world gives him access to profound cosmic truths, as in “Alastor; or, The Spirit of Solitude” (1816). He has the power—and the duty—to translate these truths, through the use of his imagination, into poetry, but only a kind of poetry that the public can understand. Thus, his poetry becomes a kind of prophecy, and through his words, a poet has the ability to change the world for the better and to bring about political, social, and spiritual change. Shelley’s poet is a near-divine savior, comparable to Prometheus, who stole divine fire and gave it to humans in Greek mythology, and to Christ. Like Prometheus and Christ, figures of the poets in Shelley’s work are often doomed to suffer: because their visionary power isolates them from other men, because they are misunderstood by critics, because they are persecuted by a tyrannical government, or because they are suffocated by conventional religion and middle-class values. In the end, however, the poet triumphs because his art is immortal, outlasting the tyranny of government, religion, and society and living on to inspire new generations.

Like many of the romantic poets, especially William Wordsworth, Shelley demonstrates a great reverence for the beauty of nature, and he feels closely connected to nature’s power. In his early poetry, Shelley shares the romantic interest in pantheism—the belief that God, or a divine, unifying spirit, runs through everything in the universe. He refers to this unifying natural force in many poems, describing it as the “spirit of beauty” in “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty” and identifying it with Mont Blanc and the Arve River in “Mont Blanc.” This force is the cause of all human joy, faith, goodness, and pleasure, and it is also the source of poetic inspiration and divine truth. Shelley asserts several times that this force can influence people to change the world for the better. However, Shelley simultaneously recognizes that nature’s power is not wholly positive. Nature destroys as often as it inspires or creates, and it destroys cruelly and indiscriminately. For this reason, Shelley’s delight in nature is mitigated by an awareness of its dark side.

Shelley uses nature as his primary source of poetic inspiration. In such poems as “The Mask of Anarchy Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester” (1819) and “Ode to the West Wind,” Shelley suggests that the natural world holds a sublime power over his imagination. This power seems to come from a stranger, more mystical place than simply his appreciation for nature’s beauty or grandeur. At the same time, although nature has creative power over Shelley because it provides inspiration, he feels that his imagination has creative power over nature. It is the imagination—or our ability to form sensory perceptions—that allows us to describe nature in different, original ways, which help to shape how nature appears and, therefore, how it exists. Thus, the power of the human mind becomes equal to the power of nature, and the experience of beauty in the natural world becomes a kind of collaboration between the perceiver and the perceived. Because Shelley cannot be sure that the sublime powers he senses in nature are only the result of his gifted imagination, he finds it difficult to attribute nature’s power to God: the human role in shaping nature damages Shelley’s ability to believe that nature’s beauty comes solely from a divine source.

This sonnet from 1817 is probably Shelley’s most famous and most anthologized poem—which is somewhat strange, considering that it is in many ways an atypical poem for Shelley, and that it touches little upon the most important themes in his oeuvre at large (beauty, expression, love, imagination). Still, “Ozymandias” is a masterful sonnet. Essentially it is devoted to a single metaphor: the shattered, ruined statue in the desert wasteland, with its arrogant, passionate face and monomaniacal inscription (“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”). The once-great king’s proud boast has been ironically disproved; Ozymandias’s works have crumbled and disappeared, his civilization is gone, all has been turned to dust by the impersonal, indiscriminate, destructive power of history. The ruined statue is now merely a monument to one man’s hubris, and a powerful statement about the insignificance of human beings to the passage of time. Ozymandias is first and foremost a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of political power, and in that sense the poem is Shelley’s most outstanding political sonnet, trading the specific rage of a poem like “England in 1819” for the crushing impersonal metaphor of the statue. But Ozymandias symbolizes not only political power—the statue can be a metaphor for the pride and hubris of all of humanity, in any of its manifestations. It is significant that all that remains of Ozymandias is a work of art and a group of words; as Shakespeare does in the sonnets, Shelley demonstrates that art and language long outlast the other legacies of power.

Of course, it is Shelley’s brilliant poetic rendering of the story, and not the subject of the story itself, which makes the poem so memorable. Framing the sonnet as a story told to the speaker by “a traveller from an antique land” enables Shelley to add another level of obscurity to Ozymandias’s position with regard to the reader—rather than seeing the statue with our own eyes, so to speak, we hear about it from someone who heard about it from someone who has seen it. Thus the ancient king is rendered even less commanding; the distancing of the narrative serves to undermine his power over us just as completely as has the passage of time. Shelley’s description of the statue works to reconstruct, gradually, the figure of the “king of kings”: first we see merely the “shattered visage,” then the face itself, with its “frown / And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command”; then we are introduced to the figure of the sculptor, and are able to imagine the living man sculpting the living king, whose face wore the expression of the passions now inferable; then we are introduced to the king’s people in the line, “the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.” The kingdom is now imaginatively complete, and we are introduced to the extraordinary, prideful boast of the king: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” With that, the poet demolishes our imaginary picture of the king, and interposes centuries of ruin between it and us: “ ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

[Flavia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Other flowering isles must be
in the sea of Life and Agony

Le poesie di Shelley sono un talismano contro la vita.

[court · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Bees, keep your wax - give us the honey,
And we will plant while skies are sunny,
Flowers, which in winter serve instead.'

Surprisingly i enjoyed his political poems just as much as his romantic poems

[Shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first encountered Shelley at the age of 15, an appropriate age to read an "adolescent" poet. Sixteen years later, I pick it up again, not without some misgiving as to how well it ages. Well, either I haven't changed much in 16 years, or Shelley's poetry is indeed something for all ages.

I loved “Mont Blanc” as a teenager--16 years later, I can’t say the inflated rhetoric that is most of the poem moves me that much. BUT the opening stanza is still one of the marvels of language, one of those rare passages (like Proust’s waterlily passage) that manages to recreate the rhythm and music of the Mind. I can’t help but read it over and over again.

“The Two Spirits: An Allegory” is a short piece I didn’t notice before, but what a sweet piece! The bulk of the poem imbues the transformation of night to day with a cosmological significance. Then the last four lines “bring it home”, so to speak, by reminding us that the transformation is also one of the most familiar to us, one enacted in the daily ritual of waking from sleep. The little twist charms me utterly.

“Ode to the West Wind” never gets old. It is still my favorite after 16 years. I love its panoramic imagery and the natural ebb and flow of its language—the sentences and stanzas speed up and slow down, with the result that the tension never sags. Written around the same time, “The Cloud” is a playful companion piece, a rough tumble amongst the stars “like a swarm of golden bees” and an absolute delight to read.

“Adonais” reminds me of how I first fell in love with Shelley’s poetry: other poetry can be beautiful and lyrical, but Shelley’s carry that particular strain of loftiness I find incredibly moving. The last stanza uses familiar inspirational imagery (“spirit’s bark” “star” “beacon”) but does not feel at all hackneyed, especially considering how Shelley drowned with a copy of Keats’ “Hyperion” in his pocket.

“Aziola” is a little journal entry. I love the simplicity and casualness—as well as the subtle contrast between Shelley’s initial “fear or hate” (thinking it were a woman) and later tenderness (upon learning it was a little bird”. There’s real psychology here, and a story hiding behind the disarmingly simple little poem.

"The Triumph of Life" is where Shelley really perfects the terza rima form--if only he had completed it!

[Sugarpuss O'Shea · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5 Stars*

I'm not much of a poetry person. (Reminds me too much of HS Lit Class) Perhaps if I were, I would've enjoyed this collection more. The only reason I picked it up was because I had recently finished Shelley: The Pursuit & felt obliged to read some of his works. There were poems that seemed to go on forever, and I wished he would just get to the point, but that was the style back then, and I cannot fault him for that. One thing I will give Shelley: He truly is a master of words. But I still think his wife is a better writer.

[Stephanie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I wasn't required to read all of Shelley's poems, so my rating is based on the ones I had to read for class.

I have to say that his wife, Mary Shelley, was a better writer than him.

He feels like he's prattling and rambling. I preferred the shortest poem of the bunch as it was okay compared to the others, but it still wasn't something that blew me away or captivated me.

Sorry, Perce, your poetry just doesn't do anything for me.

[Angie Rhodes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Shelley beautiful, dreamy,, perfect

[Robbie Amori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good collection! I'm a big fan of his shorter, lyrical poems and liked many of the ones included. "Love's Philosophy" was already a favorite, but I learned some new ones such as "Rose Leaves, When the Rose Dies" and "The Cloud." Unfortunately, my favorite of his, "Good-Night" was not included, but I can just read that on my own.

I'm not usually a big fan of the longer, narrative poems, however there were some stanzas of "Adonais" that I enjoyed and I particularly liked "Epipsychidion." Some of the political poems like "The Mask of Anarchy" and "Song to the Men of England" were hidden gems as well.

[Donna TalentedReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Percy Bysshe Shelley has several of my favorite poems but I really enjoyed reading more of his poems with this book.

A new favorite is The Mask of Anarchy.

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

My all time favorite, Adonais.

"The soft sky smiles, the low wind whispers near: 'tis Adonais calls! Oh, hasten thither,
No more let Life divide what Death can join together."

[Inés ramirez · Rating 4 out of 5]

How fitting finishing a poetry book on valentines. I had never read one before and I really liked it. I love Romanticism. Even the ones I didn’t think I would enjoy like the political ones I still did. My least favorite were the epic poetry because I got a bit lost but I loved the mythology in them. My favorite was to a sky lark.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Shelley is best remembered as a classicist and over looked as a social radical. This selection of poems reflects a intellectually adventurous and complicated visionary. A quick and easy read these small Everyman's Library Pocket Poets are great for the train.

[Giulia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romantic and easy to read. I enjoyed many of the poems but some kinda dragged on for me

[Allegra Byron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siempre es un placer sumergirse en la poesía del inigualable Shelley...

[Ely · Rating 4 out of 5]

See I knew Shelley's poetry was going to be beautiful, but I didn't expect to be taking photos of every second line so I could write them down later. Damn you, Shelley.

[Andrew Pitkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good representation of Shelley's work. Though he's never been my favourite Romantic poet - that goes to Keats!

[Luke]

Pub 1822 at the latest

[Zb1113 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, but abbreviated collection of poetry and sections of plays/short stories. Made me want to buy more, especially Prometheus Unbound. Often sad and contemplating the inescapability of time.

[Ray Quirolgico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perusing the classics and finding new nuggets of wisdom beautifully waiting in these lines of text for my heart to discover them.

[Michael Medlen · Rating 2 out of 5]

a decent poet

[Elisabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed some of the poems and even with those I didn't love (I'm just not one for long, narrative poems), there were always at least a few gorgeous lines.

[Jade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a cute accompaniment to my dissertation. I say cute because the book is only small! Shelley was always one of those poets for me that had this fiery political underbelly to him that I couldn't always gel with the ideals of what I believed to be a true Romantic. Hi work is punchy, gutsy and very much not afraid of saying what he meant (albeit in a less Byronic way) My personal favourite (and the poem I was most concerned with at the time) is Adonais. I love to hate this poem. I'm equally marvelled and happy that someone glorified my favourite poet in death but also angered that Shelley would use the death of a friend to the advantage of his political causes. Either way, this collection creates interesting conversations!

[Lenora · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could never be unimpressed with the intellectuality of one of my heroes. With such lyrical beauty and romantic fruitfulness, it always astounds me to this day why he seems to be one of the lesser known poets of the Romantic period. His brilliant use of naturalistic imagery is uniquely profound. His philosophical and political standings are beautifully crafted into poetic genius. This is a must read for poetry enthusiasts. All hail the Democrat. <3

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the great Romantic lyric poets of the English language. Too bad he wasn't successful during his life except among his close circle of friends. Today he is considered brilliant. I concur. This short book of examples of his poetry, entices the reader to pick up other volumes of his work.

[Jonathan Cavazos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite.

I prefer Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, or Emily Dickinson. Shelley is not my favorite poet. I find him a bit too wordy and grand, but if that is your cup of tea then he is your man.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My dad bought this book for me in 2000. It is filled with little yellow tabs on all my favourites.

[Madalina Ramnicianu · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability."

[Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, my dears, he's a bit too bombastic, hyperbolic and self-important for my taste, but he's one of the Greats. (But give me Byron or Keats.)