
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792-1822
Stanzas Written in Dejection — December 1818, near Naples
The Sun is warm, the sky is clear, | |
The waves are dancing fast and bright, | |
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear | |
The purple noon’s transparent might: | |
The breath of the moist earth is light | |
Around its unexpanded buds; | |
Like many a voice of one delight | The winds, the birds, the Ocean-floods; | |
The City’s voice itself is soft like Solitude’s. | |
|
I see the Deep’s untrampled floor | |
With green and purple seaweeds strown; | |
I see the waves upon the shore | |
Like light dissolved in star-showers thrown. | |
I sit upon the sands alone; | |
The lightning of the noontide Ocean | Is flashing round me, and a tone | |
Arises from its measured motion, | |
How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion. | |
|
Alas, I have nor hope nor health | |
Nor peace within nor calm around, | Nor that content, surpassing wealth | |
The sage in meditation found, | |
And walk’d with inward glory crown’d; | |
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure– | |
Others I see whom these surround, | |
Smiling they live, and call life pleasure: | |
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. | |
|
Yet now despair itself is mild, | |
Even as the winds and waters are; | |
I could lie down like a tired child | And weep away the life of care | |
Which I have borne, and yet must bear | |
Till Death like Sleep might steal on me, | |
And I might feel in the warm air | |
My cheek grow cold, and hear the Sea | |
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
Some might lament that I were cold, As I, when this sweet day is gone, Which lost my heart, too soon grown old, Insults with this untimely moan– They might lament,– for I am one Whom men love not, and yet regret; Unlike this day, which, when the Sun Shall on its stainless glory set, Will linger though enjoyed, like joy in Memory yet.
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[written 1818, published 1824]
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