‘The cold earth slept below’
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
The cold earth slept below;
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.
The wintry hedge was black;
The green grass was not seen;
The birds did rest
On the bare thorn's breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.
Thine eyes glow'd in the glare
Of the moon's dying light;
As a fen-fire's beam
On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly--so the moon shone there,
And it yellow'd the strings of thy tangled hair,
That shook in the wind of night.
The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.
Comment [SC1]: This was apparently written in
November 1815 which was when Shelley’s first wife
committed suicide.
Comment [SC2]: The central theme in this poem
is death. Note the repetition of words like ‘cold?,
the dark and bare imagery, and the general use of
pathetic fallacy.
Comment [SC3]: The absence of any celestial
light contribute to the melancholy and grief in the
poem. Light is often used to signify hope but here
even the moon’s pale light is sinking an later it will
light the dead woman’s lips.
Comment [SC4]: The wintery November scene
is devoid of green (a visual image of life) and birds
(an aural sign of life).
Comment [SC5]: The roots seek out new places
to grow but are frozen by the winter frost. The
speaker’s grief has frozen all growth too.
Comment [SC6]: Light seen just above the
ground at night. It gently reflects the moon’s light.
Comment [SC7]: Lazy or slow-moving
Comment [SC8]: oxymoron
Comment [SC9]: tangled means twisted. This
hints at the violent and turbulent nature of both her
death and her frame of mind before her suicide.
Comment [SC10]: Night falls on her head. This
seems to be a metaphor for death falling on her.
Comment [SC11]: The wind, the only lively
thing in this scene, might visit her and give the
appearance of life but it will not move her. It will
only add to the chill of her dead body and confirm
what the speaker must accept, she is dead.
Stanzas Written in Dejection, near Naples
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
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 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 seaweed 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 noon-tide 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 walked 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 my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament — for I am one
Whom men love not — and yet regret,
Comment [SC12]: Sadness
Comment [SC13]: Town is southern Italy
Comment [SC14]: This is a beautiful scene. Pay
close attention to the imagery and adjectives here.
It is in sharp contrast to the speaker’s emotional
state.
Comment [SC15]: Solitude is personified here.
This solitude brings certain unique thoughts and
emotions.
Comment [SC16]: Ocean’s.. Shelley uses
personification to imply a unity with nature in this
moment. He will go on to lament the lack of human
company in this poem.
Comment [SC17]: He wonders if anyone else
has experienced such a moment.
Comment [SC18]: The harmony of this natural
scene is not reflected within his own self. He is
restless and sad.
Comment [SC19]: He sees other people
enjoying life but he does not experience the same
feelings or joy.
Comment [SC20]: But
Comment [SC21]: The simile comparing him to
a tired child suggests he is innocent or at least tries
to see the world in an innocent way but cannot.
Comment [SC22]: His constant and repetitive
dark thoughts lead him to wish for death. The
sound of the sea would be a nice sound to die to.
Ironically, Shelley did die at sea.
Comment [SC23]: He suspects that people
might judge him for being so mournful on such a
beautiful day. He is wasting his life.
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.
Comment [SC24]: He is aware that people do
not like him. But unlike the sun he will be only a
memory someday and so too will this joyous warm
day.
Notes on this poem from cliffnotes.com
Analysis
Shelley's state of dejection in "Stanzas" is artistically placed in a sharply contrasting setting that
effectively emphasizes the dejection. Shelley implies that no matter how much harmony there may
exist between nature and man, man must be in a condition to be able to find pleasure in that
harmony. Shelley was far from being in such a condition. Newman Ivey White, the author of the
definitive life of Shelley, writes that Shelley was so depressed while in Naples that it is said that he
tried to commit suicide (Shelley, Vol. II, p. 78).
Shelley was in Naples from November 29, 1818, to February 28, 1819. Naples in winter offers a
pleasantly warm climate. Naples is at its best, so far as weather is concerned, and Shelley and his
wife, Mary, should have been happy there. However, Shelley was in poor health and the delightful
winter climate of Naples did not help him. The major cause of his dejection was not his health but his
wife's estrangement from him following the death of their daughter Clara on September 24, 1818.
Mary seems to have felt that her husband was indirectly responsible for the death of the child
because he had insisted on making a hurried journey in hot weather to Venice at a time when little
Clara was sick. The child died shortly after the Shelley family reached Venice.
Other causes undoubtedly contributed to Shelley's death-wish at Naples. His first wife, Harriet
Westbrook, and Mary Shelley's half sister, Fanny Inlay, had committed suicide; the courts had taken
from him the custody of his two children by Harriet; friends had turned against him; his poetry was
neglected by the public and condemned by the critics, and he was plagued by financial and personal
problems. Shelley experienced one of the lowest periods of his life while he was in Naples. His desire
to free himself by death from his troubles does not necessarily reveal any moral or character
weakness but an understandably profound discouragement at a time when everything seemed to be
going wrong. Nature, no matter how beautiful, was of little help.
Shelley wrote this around the time of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819. This was when the cavalry charged into a
demonstrating crown of 60000-80000 people in Manchester. They were demonstrating for parliamentary
reform. After the Napoleonic Wars people in England were suffering as a result of Famine and unemployment.
Ode to the West Wind
Comment [SC25]: This is often interpreted as
Shelley calling for revolution to bring about social
change. He may also be speaking about the loss of
his son William. Either way, his poem suggests that,
much like the wind, the words of poet can bring
about great change and “shake” things up,
facilitating the death of one season or way of life to
make way for a new way of life. Poets can be
important voices for moral and political change.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
Comment [SC26]: charmer
Comment [SC27]: running away
5
Comment [SC29]: Taking a chariotto the
afterlife
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill;
Comment [SC28]: fatal disease
Comment [SC30]: A blue colour
10
Comment [SC31]: Loud and clear or trumpet
sound
Comment [SC32]: Shades or colours
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, O hear!
15
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Comment [SC33]: branches
Comment [SC34]: rush or flow
20
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Comment [SC35]: (in ancient Greece) a female
follower of Bacchus, traditionally associated with
divine possession and frenzied rites
Comment [SC36]: edge
Comment [SC37]: peak or summit
25
Comment [SC39]: tomb
Comment [SC40]: assembled
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Comment [SC41]: movements in air like small
clouds
30
Comment [SC42]: sparkling
Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Comment [SC38]: elegy or lament
Comment [SC43]: soft stone
35
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Comment [SC44]: craters or gaps in the earth
40
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
Comment [SC45]: vegetation or greenery
Comment [SC46]: steal viloently
45
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven
50
Comment [SC48]: struggled
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd
One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.
55
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Comment [SC49]:
Comment [SC50R49]: a small stringed musical
instrument
60
Comment [SC51]: commotion or turmoil
Comment [SC52]: acting or doing something
before thinking
65
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Comment [SC47]: This probably comes from
the word skid. It refers to the movements of the
wind.
Comment [SC53]: chant
Comment [SC54]: a fire or lamp that is still
lighting
70
Comment [SC55]: a foretelling or prediction of
what is going to happen in the future.
The Question
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
I DREAM'D that, as I wander'd by the way,
Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring;
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mix'd with a sound of waters murmuring
Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
But kiss'd it and then fled, as thou mightest in dream.
Comment [SC56]: The question at the end is
who should get his flowers. But the real question is
what might the flowers symbolise? His lovers? His
poems? Himself and all his qualities? This poem is
loosely adapted from Dante’s Canto 28 in
Purgatorio.
Comment [SC57]: A small group of trees
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets;
Daisies, those pearl'd Arcturi of the earth,
The constellated flower that never sets;
Faint oxlips; tender bluebells, at whose birth
The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets-Like a child, half in tenderness and mirth-Its mother's face with heaven-collected tears
When the low wind, its playmate's voice, it hears.
Comment [SC58]: Having two or more colours
And in the warm hedge grew lush eglantine,
Green cowbind and the moonlight-colour'd May,
And cherry-blossoms, and white cups whose wine
Was the bright dew yet drain'd not by the day;
And wild roses, and ivy serpentine,
With its dark buds and leaves wandering astray;
And flowers, azure, black, and streak'd with gold,
Fairer than any waken'd eyes behold.
Comment [SC63]: a type of wild rose
And nearer to the river's trembling edge
There grew broad flag-flowers, purple prank'd with white,
And starry river-buds among the sedge,
And floating water-lilies, broad and bright,
Which lit the oak that overhung the hedge
With moonlight beams of their own watery light;
And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep green
As soothed the dazzled eye with sober sheen.
Methought that of these visionary flowers
I made a nosegay, bound in such a way
That the same hues which in their natural bowers
Were mingled or opposed, the like array
Kept these imprison'd children of the Hours
Within my hand;--and then, elate and gay,
I hasten'd to the spot whence I had come,
That I might there present it--O! to whom?
Comment [SC59]: Alpine herb
Comment [SC60]: Star-like
Comment [SC61]: the earth/soil
Comment [SC62]: joking or fun
Comment [SC64]: type of flower
Comment [SC65]: snakelike
Comment [SC66]: speckled or flaked with white
Comment [SC67]: a grass-like plant
Comment [SC68]: more grass-like plants
Comment [SC69]: a small bouquet
Comment [SC70]: a shady place beneath plants
or trees
Comment [SC71]: excited
Comment [SC72]: happy
Comment [SC73]: quickened
Comment [SC74]: Shelley seems unsure who
should get these flowers – maybe he hasn’t found
his soulmate yet.