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Subject Area: Literature

MUSIC. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Posthumous Poems [1824]

Edition used:

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

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MUSIC.

    • I pant for the music which is divine,
    • My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
    • Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
    • Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
    • Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
    • I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
    • Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
    • More, O more,—I am thirsting yet,
    • It loosens the serpent which care has bound
    • Upon my heart to stifle it;
    • The dissolving strain, through every vein,
    • Passes into my heart and brain.
    • As the scent of a violet withered up,
    • Which grew by the brink of a silver lake;
    • When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,
    • And mist there was none its thirst to slake—
    • And the violet lay dead while the odour flew
    • On the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue—
    • As one who drinks from a charmed cup
    • Of foaming, and sparkling and murmuring wine
    • Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,
    • Invites to love with her kiss divine.
    • * * * * *
    • * * * * *