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Front Page Titles (by Subject) SONNET IV. - Posthumous Poems
SONNET IV. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, Posthumous Poems [1824]Edition used:Posthumous Poems (London: John and Henry L. Hunt, 1824).
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SONNET IV.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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