Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici
After a woman leaves at night, the speaker remains alone, remembering her presence and touch until troubling thoughts return. Watching vessels cross the bay and a fisherman spear fish attracted to his lamp, the speaker calls the fish happy because their fatal pleasure extinguishes all thought of regret.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Romantic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Nature Poetry · 516 words
First lines
She left me at the silent time / When the moon had ceased to climb / The azure path of Heaven's steep, / And like an albatross asleep, / Balanced on her wings of light, / Hovered in the purple night, / Ere she sought her ocean nest / In the chambers of the West. / She left me, and I stayed alone / Thinking over every tone / Which, though silent to the ear, / The enchanted heart could hear, / Like notes which die when born, but still / Haunt the echoes of the hill; / And feeling ever-oh, too much! - / The soft vibration of her touch, / As if her gentle hand, even now, / Lightly trembled on my brow; / And thus, although she absent were, / Memory gave me all of her / That even Fancy dares to claim: - / Her presence had made weak and tame / All passions, and I lived alone / In the time which is our own; / The past and future were forgot, / As they had been, and would be, not. / But soon, the guardian angel gone, / The daemon reassumed his throne / In my faint heart. I dare not speak / My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak / I sat and saw the vessels glide / Over the ocean bright and wide, / Like spirit-winged chariots sent / O'er some serenest element / For ministrations strange and far; / As if to some Elysian star / Sailed for drink to medicine / Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. / And the wind that winged their flight / From the land came fresh and light, / And the scent of winged flowers, / And the coolness of the hours / Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day, / Were scattered o'er the twinkling bay. / And the fisher with his lamp / And spear about the low rocks damp / Crept, and struck the fish which came / To worship the delusive flame. / Too happy they, whose pleasure sought / Extinguishes all sense and thought / Of the regret that pleasure leaves, / Destroying life alone, not peace!
Genres
- Romantic Poetry — The speaker's remembered touch and renewed distress unfold amid moonlight, sea breezes and vessels imagined as spirit-winged chariots.
- Lyric Poetry — A continuous passage of rhyming verse follows the speaker's memories, distress and reflections after a woman's departure.
- Nature Poetry — The moon, ocean, wind, flowers and evening dew surround the solitary speaker, whose final reflection concerns fish attracted to a lamp.
Tags
memory · separation · moonlight · sea · fishing · regret
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Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici 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: Romantic Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Nature Poetry
- Length: 516 words
- Structure: 1 section, 1 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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