The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 1

“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“We look before and after,And pine for what is not;Our sincerest laughterWith some pain is fraught;Our sweetest songs are those that tell Of saddest thought.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory; Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heap'd for the belovèd's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“And the Spring arose on the garden fair,Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep.We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day.We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep,Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away;It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow,The path of its departure still is free.Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability!””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,Are heaped for the beloved's bed;And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,Love itself shall slumber on.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“And, like a dying lady lean and pale,Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,Out of her chamber, led by the insaneAnd feeble wanderings of her fading brain,The moon arose up in the murky eastA white and shapeless mass.Art thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth,And ever changing, like a joyless eyeThat finds no object worth its constancy?””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

“Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,Yet let's be merry; we'll have tea and toast;Custards for supper, and an endless hostOf syllabubs and jellies and mincepies,And other such ladylike luxuries.””

— Percy Bysshe Shelley