Dirge for the Year by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker alternately calls on the Hours to mourn the personified Year and reassures them that she sleeps and will awaken with renewed love. Winter rocks her like both a corpse and a child; January through April take mourning roles, and the Hours are urged to follow with May's flowers.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Elegiac Poetry, Seasonal Poetry · 269 words
First lines
1.
Orphan Hours, the Year is dead, / Come and sigh, come and weep! / Merry Hours, smile instead, / For the Year is but asleep. / See, it smiles as it is sleeping, / Mocking your untimely weeping.
2.
As an earthquake rocks a corse / In its coffin in the clay, / So White Winter, that rough nurse, / Rocks the death-cold Year to-day; / Solemn Hours! wail aloud / For your mother in her shroud.
Genres
- Elegiac Poetry — Calls to weep and wail accompany images of the Year in a coffin, shroud, and funeral procession.
- Seasonal Poetry — Winter and the months from January through May frame the Year's apparent death and promised awakening.
Tags
mourning · passing year · winter · seasonal renewal · personification
What this Textopian page supports
Dirge for the Year 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: Elegiac Poetry, Seasonal Poetry
- Length: 269 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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