P B Shelley Quotes

Beware, O Man - for knowledge must to thee, Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.

In the motion of the very leaves of spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to a dance of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the … voice of one beloved singing to you alone. — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “On Love," The Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley in Verse and Prose, edited by H. Buxton Forman. (1880)

Fragment of the Elegy on the Death of Bion From the Greek of Moschus Published from the Hunt manuscripts by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1876. Ye Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,— Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears, For the beloved Bion is no more. Let every tender herb and plant and flower, From each dejected bud and drooping bloom, Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath Of melancholy sweetness on the wind Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush, Anemones grow paler for the loss Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth, Utter thy legend now—yet more, dumb flower, Than 'Ah! alas!'—thine is no common grief— Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more. NOTE: _2 tears]sorrow (as alternative) Hunt manuscript

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; To defy power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear! to hope till Hope creates From its own wreck the thing it contemplates! Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent! This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is a long Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

From Vergil's Tenth Eclogue Verses 1-26. Published by Rossetti, "Complete Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1870, from the Boscombe manuscripts now in the Bodleian. Mr. Locock ("Examination", etc., 1903, pages 47-50), as the result of his collation of the same manuscripts, gives a revised and expanded version which we print below. Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream: Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew! Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now The soft leaves, in our way let us pursue The melancholy loves of Gallus. List! We sing not to the dead: the wild woods knew His sufferings, and their echoes... Young Naiads,...in what far woodlands wild Wandered ye when unworthy love possessed Your Gallus? Not where Pindus is up-piled, Nor where Parnassus' sacred mount, nor where Aonian Aganippe expands... The laurels and the myrtle-copses dim. The pine-encircled mountain, Maenalus, The cold crags of Lycaeus, weep for him; And Sylvan, crowned with rustic coronals, Came shaking in his speed the budding wands And heavy lilies which he bore: we knew Pan the Arcadian. ... 'What madness is this, Gallus? Thy heart's care With willing steps pursues another there

Fragment of the Elegy on the Death of Adonis Prom the Greek of Bion Published by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1876. I mourn Adonis dead—loveliest Adonis— Dead, dead Adonis—and the Loves lament. Sleep no more, Venus, wrapped in purple woof— Wake violet-stoled queen, and weave the crown Of Death,—'tis Misery calls,—for he is dead. The lovely one lies wounded in the mountains, His white thigh struck with the white tooth; he scarce Yet breathes; and Venus hangs in agony there. The dark blood wanders o'er his snowy limbs, His eyes beneath their lids are lustreless, The rose has fled from his wan lips, and there That kiss is dead, which Venus gathers yet. A deep, deep wound Adonis... A deeper Venus bears upon her heart. See, his beloved dogs are gathering round— The Oread nymphs are weeping—Aphrodite With hair unbound is wandering through the woods, 'Wildered, ungirt, unsandalled—the thorns pierce Her hastening feet and drink her sacred blood. Bitterly screaming out, she is driven on Through the long vales; and her Assyrian boy, Her love, her husband, calls—the purple blood From his struck thigh stains her white navel now, Her bosom, and her neck before like snow. Alas for Cytherea—the Loves mourn— The lovely, the beloved is gone!—and now Her sacred beauty vanishes away. For Venus whilst Adonis lived was fair— Alas! her loveliness is dead with him. The oaks and mountains cry, Ai! ai! Adonis! The springs their waters change to tears and weep— The flowers are withered up with grief... Ai! ai! ... Adonis is dead Echo resounds ... Adonis dead. Who will weep not thy dreadful woe. O Venus? Soon as she saw and knew the mortal wound Of her Adonis—saw the life-blood flow From his fair thigh, now wasting,—wailing loud She clasped him, and cried ... 'Stay, Adonis! Stay, dearest one,... and mix my lips with thine— Wake yet a while, Adonis—oh, but once, That I may kiss thee now for the last time— But for as long as one short kiss may live— Oh, let thy breath flow from thy dying soul Even to my mouth and heart, that I may suck That...' NOTE: _23 his Rossetti, Dowden, Woodberry; her Boscombe manuscript, Forman

Three common themes in poetry: life, death, union, and separation. P.B. Shelley speaks to us about the acceptance of death and the possibility of transcendent union. H. Heine goes further, through the negation of life and the transcendent union in death. Balzac, in the end, with a spirit of balance, speaks to us about the ambivalence between life and death. Personally, I hold the thesis that death is the negation of life itself; where one exists, the other cannot. Thus, nothingness cannot exist for the self, except in simulation. Death is always contemplated by the other, who, in contemplating its cold visage, is reminded of the possibility of their own end and becomes terrified. The ego is an immortal transcendence in projection and emptiness in itself. If I could encapsulate what I would like to express in a maxim, it would be: “Consciousness, in life, unites all that, in life, whether united or separated, will be entirely nullified by death.

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.

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.

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