Letter to Maria Gisborne by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A speaker in Leghorn describes his writing and the machinery around him, then recalls meals, conversations, and reading with Maria, now in London. He pictures friends she may see there and contrasts London's streets with his moonlit Italian surroundings. He invites her to join him for a winter of books, tea, food, and philosophical talk.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Poetry, Epistle, Humor · 3,863 words
First lines
LEGHORN, July 1, 1820.
The spider spreads her webs, whether she be / In poet's tower, cellar, or barn, or tree; / The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves / His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves; / So I, a thing whom moralists call worm, / Sit spinning still round this decaying form, / From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought- / No net of words in garish colours wrought / To catch the idle buzzers of the day- / But a soft cell, where when that fades away, / Memory may clothe in wings my living name / And feed it with the asphodels of fame, / Which in those hearts which must remember me / Grow, making love an immortality.
Genres
- Poetry — Rhyming verse carries the speaker's descriptions of mechanical objects, remembered companionship, weather, and imagined winter gatherings.
- Epistle — A dated address to an absent friend recounts their shared activities, discusses acquaintances, and invites a future visit.
- Humor — The speaker floats a paper boat in quicksilver, imagines tossing a coin after death over tea drinking, and proposes strangling troublesome nerves with geometrical figures.
Tags
friendship · verse letters · memory · machinery · Italian landscape · literary friendships · winter gatherings
What this Textopian page supports
Letter to Maria Gisborne is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Poetry, Epistle, Humor
- Length: 3,863 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Difficult (College Level)
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