Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ODE TO HEAVEN, by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Palace-roof of cloudless nights! Last Line: To tremble, gleam, and disappear. Subject(s): Heaven; Paradise | ||||||||
CHORUS OF SPIRITS FIRST SPIRIT PALACE-ROOF of cloudless nights! Paradise of golden lights! Deep, immeasurable, vast, Which art now, and which wert then, Of the present and the past, Of the eternal where and when, Presence-chamber, temple, home, Ever-canopying dome Of acts and ages yet to come! Glorious shapes have life in thee, Earth, and all earth's company; Living globes which ever throng Thy deep chasms and wildernesses; And green worlds that glide along; And swift stars with flashing tresses; And icy moons most cold and bright, And mighty suns beyond the night, Atoms of intensest light. Even thy name is as a god, Heaven! for thou art the abode Of that power which is the glass Wherein man his nature sees. Generations as they pass Worship thee with bended knees. Their unremaining gods and they Like a river roll away; Thou remainest such alway. SECOND SPIRIT Thou art but the mind's first chamber, Round which its young fancies clamber, Like weak insects in a cave, Lighted up by stalactites; But the portal of the grave, Where a world of new delights Will make thy best glories seem But a dim and noonday gleam From the shadow of a dream! THIRD SPIRIT Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn At your presumption, atom-born! What is heaven? and what are ye Who its brief expanse inherit? What are suns and spheres which flee With the instinct of that Spirit Of which ye are but a part? Drops which Nature's mighty heart Drives through thinnest veins. Depart! What is heaven? a globe of dew, Filling in the morning new Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken On an unimagined world; Constellated suns unshaken, Orbits measureless, are furled In that frail and fading sphere, With ten millions gathered there, To tremble, gleam, and disappear. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE END OF LIFE by PHILIP JAMES BAILEY SEVEN TWILIGHTS: 6 by CONRAD AIKEN THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MAN (#19): 2. MORE ABOUT THE DEAD MAN AND WINTER by MARVIN BELL THE WORLDS IN THIS WORLD by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR A SKELETON FOR MR. PAUL IN PARADISE; AFTER ALLAN GUISINGER by NORMAN DUBIE BEAUTY & RESTRAINT by DANIEL HALPERN HOW IT WILL HAPPEN, WHEN by DORIANNE LAUX IF THIS IS PARADISE by DORIANNE LAUX A DIRGE by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY ADONAIS; AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY |
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