Lines Written During The Castlereagh Administration
I.
Corpses are cold in the tomb;
Stones on the pavement are dumb;
Abortions are dead in the womb,
And their mothers look pale—like the death-white shore
Of Albion, free no more.
II.
Her sons are as stones in the way--
They are masses of senseless clay--
They are trodden, and move not away,--
The abortion with which SHE travaileth
Is Liberty, smitten to death.
III.
Then trample and dance, thou Oppressor!
For thy victim is no redresser;
Thou art sole lord and possessor
Of her corpses, and clods, and abortions—they pave
Thy path to the grave.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Song. Hope
And said I that all hope was fled,
That sorrow and despair were mine,
That each enthusiast wish was dead,
Had sank beneath pale Misery’s shrine.--
Seest thou the sunbeam's yellow glow,
That robes with liquid streams of light;
Yon distant Mountain's craggy brow.
And shows the rocks so fair,--so bright--
Tis thus sweet expectation’s ray,
In softer view shows distant hours,
And portrays each succeeding day,
As dressed in fairer, brighter flowers,--
The vermeil tinted flowers that blossom;
Are frozen but to bud anew,
Then sweet deceiver calm my bosom,
Although thy visions be not true,--
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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From Vergil's Fourth Georgic
And the cloven waters like a chasm of mountains
Stood, and received him in its mighty portal
And led him through the deep’s untrampled fountains
He went in wonder through the path immortal
Of his great Mother and her humid reign
And groves profaned not by the step of mortal
Which sounded as he passed, and lakes which rain
Replenished not girt round by marble caves
‘Wildered by the watery motion of the main
Half ‘wildered he beheld the bursting waves
Of every stream beneath the mighty earth
Phasis and Lycus which the ... sand paves,
[And] The chasm where old Enipeus has its birth
And father Tyber and Anienas[?] glow
And whence Caicus, Mysian stream, comes forth
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Liberty
I.
The fiery mountains answer each other;
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round Winter's throne,
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown.
II.
From a single cloud the lightening flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around,
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,
An hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground.
III.
But keener thy gaze than the lightening’s glare,
And swifter thy step than the earthquake’s tramp;
Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare
Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun’s bright lamp
To thine is a fen-fire damp.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Fragment, Or The Triumph Of Conscience
'Twas dead of the night when I sate in my dwelling,
One glimmering lamp was expiring and low,--
Around the dark tide of the tempest was swelling,
Along the wild mountains night-ravens were yelling,
They bodingly presaged destruction and woe!
'Twas then that I started, the wild storm was howling,
Nought was seen, save the lightning that danced on the sky,
Above me the crash of the thunder was rolling,
And low, chilling murmurs the blast wafted by.--
My heart sank within me, unheeded the jar
Of the battling clouds on the mountain-tops broke,
Unheeded the thunder-peal crashed in mine ear,
This heart hard as iron was stranger to fear,
But conscience in low noiseless whispering spoke.
’Twas then that her form on the whirlwind uprearing,
The dark ghost of the murdered Victoria strode,
Her right hand a blood reeking dagger was bearing,
She swiftly advanced to my lonesome abode.--
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Tower Of Famine
Amid the desolation of a city,
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave
Of an extinguished people,—so that Pity
Weeps o’er the shipwrecks of Oblivion’s wave,
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
For bread, and gold, and blood: Pain, linked to Guilt,
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt.
There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
Of solitary wealth,--the tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air,--
Are by its presence dimmed--they stand aloof,
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Homer's Hymn To Castor And Pollux
Ye wild-eyed Muses, sing the Twins of Jove,
Whom the fair-ankled Leda, mixed in love
With mighty Saturn’s Heaven-obscuring Child,
On Taygetus, that lofty mountain wild,
Brought forth in joy: mild Pollux, void of blame,
And steed-subduing Castor, heirs of fame.
These are the Powers who earth-born mortals save
And ships, whose flight is swift along the wave.
When wintry tempests o’er the savage sea
Are raging, and the sailors tremblingly
Call on the Twins of Jove with prayer and vow,
Gathered in fear upon the lofty prow,
And sacrifice with snow-white lambs,--the wind
And the huge billow bursting close behind,
Even then beneath the weltering waters bear
The staggering ship--they suddenly appear,
On yellow wings rushing athwart the sky,
And lull the blasts in mute tranquillity,
And strew the waves on the white Ocean’s bed,
Fair omen of the voyage; from toil and dread
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To The Queen Of My Heart
I.
Shall we roam, my love,
To the twilight grove,
When the moon is rising bright;
Oh, I'll whisper there,
In the cool night-air,
What I dare not in broad daylight!
II.
I'll tell thee a part
Of the thoughts that start
To being when thou art nigh;
And thy beauty, more bright
Than the stars' soft light,
Shall seem as a weft from the sky.
III.
When the pale moonbeam
On tower and stream
Sheds a flood of silver sheen,
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To Harriet
Thy look of love has power to calm
The stormiest passion of my soul;
Thy gentle words are drops of balm
In life's too bitter bowl;
No grief is mine, but that alone
These choicest blessings I have known.
Harriet! if all who long to live
In the warm sunshine of thine eye,
That price beyond all pain must give,-
Beneath thy scorn to die;
Then hear thy chosen own too late
His heart most worthy of thy hate.
Be thou, then, one among mankind
Whose heart is harder not for state,
Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind,
Amid a world of hate;
And by a slight endurance seal
A fellow-being's lasting weal.
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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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When The Lamp Is Shattered
When the lamp is shattered,
The light in the dust lies dead;
When the cloud is scattered,
The rainbow's glory is shed;
When the lute is broken,
Sweet tones are remembered not;
When the lips have spoken,
Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendor
Survive not the lamp and the lute,
The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:--
No song but sad dirges,
Like the wind through a ruined cell,
Or the mournful surges
That ring the dead seaman's knell.
When hearts have once mingled,
Love first leaves the well-built nest;
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