Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SONNET IV. - Posthumous Poems

Return to Title Page for Posthumous Poems

Search this Title:

Also in the Library:

Subject Area: Literature

SONNET IV. - 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.


SONNET IV.

    • Lift not the painted veil which those who live
    • Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
    • And it but mimic all we would believe
    • With colours idly spread:—behind, lurk Fear
    • And Hope, twin destinies; who ever weave
    • The shadows, which the world calls substance, there.
    • I knew one who lifted it—he sought,
    • For his lost heart was tender, things to love
    • But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
    • The world contains, the which he could approve.
    • Through the unheeding many he did move,
    • A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
    • Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
    • For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.

FRAGMENTS.