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LINES TO A CRITIC. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Posthumous Poems [1824]

Edition used:

Posthumous Poems (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


LINES TO A CRITIC.

    • Honey from silk-worms who can gather,
    • Or silk from the yellow bee?
    • The grass may grow in winter weather
    • As soon as hate in me.
    • Hate men who cant, and men who pray,
    • And men who rail like thee;
    • An equal passion to repay
    • They are not coy like me.
    • Or seek some slave of power and gold,
    • To be thy dear heart’s mate;
    • Thy love will move that bigot cold,
    • Sooner than me, thy hate.
    • A passion like the one I prove
    • Cannot divided be;
    • I hate thy want of truth and love—
    • How should I then hate thee?