Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODE TO SHELLEY, by BAYARD TAYLOR Poet's Biography First Line: Why art thou dead? Upon the hills once more Last Line: His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string. Alternate Author Name(s): Taylor, James Bayard Subject(s): Death; Poetry & Poets; Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822); Soul; Dead, The | ||||||||
I. WHY art thou dead? Upon the hills once more The golden mist of waning Autumn lies; The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore, And phantom isles are floating in the skies. They wait for thee: a spirit in the sand Hushes, expectant for thy coming tread; The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair; Inward, the silent land Lies with its mournful woods; -- why art thou dead, When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair? II. Why art thou dead? I too demand thy song, To speak the language yet denied to mine, Twin-doomed with thee, to feel the scorn of Wrong, To worship Beauty as a thing divine! Thou art afar: wilt thou not soon return To tell me that which thou hast never told? To clasp my throbbing hand, and, by the shore Or dewy mountain-fern, Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old, Touched with a twilight sadness? Nevermore. III I could have told thee all the sylvan joy Of trackless woods; the meadows far apart, Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy, I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart, When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm, And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand: Oh, more than all, with soft and reverent breath And forehead flushing warm, I would have led thee through the summer land Of early Love, and past my dreams of Death! IV. In thee, Immortal Brother! had I found That Voice of Earth, that fails my feebler lines: The awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground; The dusky hymn of Vallombrosa's pines! From thee the noise of Ocean would have taken A grand defiance round the moveless shores, And vocal grown the Mountain's silent head: Canst thou not yet awaken Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores Thy presence for her son; -- why art thou dead? v. I do but rave: for it is better thus. Were once thy starry nature given to mine, In the one life which would encircle us My voice would melt, my soul be lost in thine. Better to bear the far sublimer pain Of Thought that has not ripened into speech, To hear in silence Truth and Beauty sing Divinely to the brain; For thus the Poet at the last shall reach His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FRIEND KILLED IN THE WAR by ANTHONY HECHT FOR JAMES MERRILL: AN ADIEU by ANTHONY HECHT TARANTULA: OR THE DANCE OF DEATH by ANTHONY HECHT CHAMPS D?ÇÖHONNEUR by ERNEST HEMINGWAY NOTE TO REALITY by TONY HOAGLAND BEDOUIN [LOVE] SONG by BAYARD TAYLOR NATIONAL ODE; INDEPENDENCE SQUARE, PHILADELPHIA by BAYARD TAYLOR |
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