A Summer Evening Churchyard
In a churchyard at Lechlade, sunset gives way to stillness, and the church spire fades into the gathering night. Contemplating the graves, the speaker finds death softened by the evening's calm and imagines that it might conceal sweet secrets or sleep beneath the watch of lovely dreams.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Meditative Poetry, Nature Poetry · 355 words
First lines
Lechlade, Gloucestershire
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere / Each vapour that obscured the sunset's ray; / And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair / In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day: / Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, / Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
Genres
- Meditative Poetry — The speaker's contemplation of graves leads to a tentative hope that death holds secrets or dreams rather than terror.
- Nature Poetry — Clearing vapours, sunset, still winds, stars and gathering clouds shape the churchyard scene and the speaker's response to death.
Tags
churchyards · sunset · twilight · mortality · sleep · dreams
What this Textopian page supports
A Summer Evening Churchyard is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Meditative Poetry, Nature Poetry
- Length: 355 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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- Work identity for A Summer Evening Churchyard by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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