Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO PERCY SHELLEY, ON THE DEGRADING NOTIONS OF DEITY, by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT


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TO PERCY SHELLEY, ON THE DEGRADING NOTIONS OF DEITY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: What wonder, percy, that with jealous rage
Last Line: Which his own lanthorn throws up from himself.
Alternate Author Name(s): Hunt, Leigh
Subject(s): Freedom; God; Poetry & Poets; Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822); Liberty


What wonder, Percy, that with jealous rage
Men should defame the kindly and the wise,
When in the midst of the all-beauteous skies,
And all this lovely world, that should engage
Their mutual search for the old golden age,
They seat a phantom, swelled into grim size
Out of their own passions and bigotries,
And then, for fear, proclaim it meek and sage!
And this they call a light and a revealing!
Wise as the clown, who plodding home at night
In autumn, turns at call of fancied elf,
And sees upon the fog, with ghastly feeling,
A giant shadow in its imminent might,
Which his own lanthorn throws up from himself.





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