“...Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs— To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another’s mind. While the touch of Nature’s art Harmonizes heart to heart. I leave this notice on my door For each accustomed visitor:— “I am gone into the fields To take what this sweet hour yields;...Awake! arise! And come away! To the wild woods and the plains, And the pools where winter rains Image all their roof of leaves, Where the pine its garland weaves Of sapless green, and ivy dun Round stems that never kiss the sun: Where the lawns and pastures be, And the sandhills of the sea:— Where the melting hoar-frost wets The daisy-star that never sets, And wind-flowers, and violets, Which yet join not scent to hue, Crown the pale year weak and new; When the night is left behind In the deep east, dun and blind, And the blue noon is over us, And the multitudinous Billows murmur at our feet, Where the earth and ocean meet, And all things seem only one In the universal sun.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley, A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays“Poetry is a sword of lightning, ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Change is certain. Peace is followed by disturbances; departure of evil men by their return. Such recurrences should not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“The soul's joy lies in doing.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley“We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley