Fragment: A Serpent-Face.

His face was like a snake's - wrinkled and loose
And withered -

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets, widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric and philosophical poets in the English language. Born on August 4, 1792, Shelley was a key member of a close circle of visionary poets and writers that included Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, Thomas Love Peacock, and his own wife, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. His poetic themes mainly explored radical social reform, personal liberation, and the power of human creativity and imagination. Tragically, he died young at the age of 29 in a boating accident in 1822. Though he faced criticism during his lifetime, his work garnered acclaim posthumously.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lines.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Mutability.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

To Mary Shelley.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

Fragment: "Igniculus Desiderii".

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Fragment: A Roman's Chamber.

1.
In the cave which wild weeds cover
Wait for thine aethereal lover;
For the pallid moon is waning,
O'er the spiral cypress hanging
And the moon no cloud is staining.

2.
It was once a Roman's chamber,
Where he kept his darkest revels,
And the wild weeds twine and clamber;
It was then a chasm for devils.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: The Vine-Shroud.

Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow
Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee;
For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below
The rotting bones of dead antiquity.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: 'Wake The Serpent Not'.

Wake the serpent not - lest he
Should not know the way to go, -
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he's sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: 'I Faint, I Perish With My Love!'.

I faint, I perish with my love! I grow
Frail as a cloud whose [splendours] pale
Under the evening's ever-changing glow:
I die like mist upon the gale,
And like a wave under the calm I fail.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment From The Wandering Jew.

The Elements respect their Maker's seal!
Still Like the scathed pine tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night
Have I 'scaped the flickering flame.
Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath;
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Fragment: To Byron.

O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age
Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm,
Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?

Percy Bysshe Shelley