Ode to Heaven by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Three spirits offer conflicting accounts of Heaven. The first praises its vastness and endurance, while the second calls it the mind's first chamber and a gateway to delights beyond the grave. The third rebukes both and compares Heaven, with its suns and orbits, to a fading dewdrop on a flower in an unimagined world.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Ode, Philosophical Poetry, Dramatic Poetry · 513 words
First lines
CHORUS OF SPIRITS:
FIRST SPIRIT: / Palace-roof of cloudless nights! / Paradise of golden lights! / Deep, immeasurable, vast, / Which art now, and which wert then / Of the Present and the Past, / Of the eternal Where and When, / Presence-chamber, temple, home, / Ever-canopying dome, / Of acts and ages yet to come!
What this Textopian page supports
Ode to Heaven 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: Ode, Philosophical Poetry, Dramatic Poetry
- Length: 513 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for Ode to Heaven 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
- Ode — The spirits address Heaven directly in rhymed stanzas, beginning with praise of its vastness, lights, and enduring presence.
- Philosophical Poetry — The competing speeches question Heaven's relation to the mind, death, and the scale of a universe beyond its bounds.
- Dramatic Poetry — Three named spirit voices speak in succession, with the third interrupting and rebuking the earlier speakers.
Tags
heaven · spirits · cosmic scale · afterlife · impermanence · stars