Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
The speaker addresses an unseen spirit of beauty whose intermittent presence gives grace to human life, while questioning why it departs and why supernatural explanations leave doubt unresolved. He recalls seeking ghosts unsuccessfully as a boy, then feeling beauty's presence and vowing to dedicate his powers to it. He affirms that devotion and asks the spirit to bring calm to his continuing life.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Hymn, Philosophical Poetry · 1,002 words
First lines
1.
The awful shadow of some unseen Power / Floats though unseen among us,-visiting / This various world with as inconstant wing / As summer winds that creep from flower to flower,- / Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, / It visits with inconstant glance / Each human heart and countenance; / Like hues and harmonies of evening,- / Like clouds in starlight widely spread,- / Like memory of music fled,- / Like aught that for its grace may be / Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
What this Textopian page supports
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 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: Lyric Poetry, Hymn, Philosophical Poetry
- Length: 1,002 words
- Structure: 1 section, 14 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for Hymn to Intellectual Beauty by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The first-person speaker addresses beauty through seven rhymed stanzas, expressing longing, remembered ecstasy, devotion, and a wish for calm.
- Hymn — The speaker invokes and worships the spirit of beauty, recounts a vow to serve it, and petitions it to remain and guide his life.
- Philosophical Poetry — The verses question the passing of beauty, the coexistence of hope and despondency, and the failure of supernatural names to resolve doubt and mutability.
Tags
beauty · impermanence · religious skepticism · childhood recollection · devotion · human sympathy