Remembrance by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A lonely speaker contrasts an addressee's swift departure and youth's flight with the return of summer and night; even sleep has become sorrow. Describing their burden as a living grave, the speaker asks for pansies without tears and urges friends to waste no hopes or fears on them.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry · 222 words
First lines
Swifter far than summer's flight- / Swifter far than youth's delight- / Swifter far than happy night, / Art thou come and gone- / As the earth when leaves are dead, / As the night when sleep is sped, / As the heart when joy is fled, / I am left lone, alone.
The swallow summer comes again- / The owlet night resumes her reign- / But the wild-swan youth is fain / To fly with thee, false as thou. - / My heart each day desires the morrow; / Sleep itself is turned to sorrow; / Vainly would my winter borrow / Sunny leaves from any bough.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Three rhymed stanzas express a speaker's loneliness through direct address, seasonal comparisons, and a final request to friends.
- Melancholic Poetry — The speaker finds sorrow even in sleep and compares their continuing burden to a living grave.
Tags
loneliness · departing youth · sorrow · pansies
What this Textopian page supports
Remembrance 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: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 222 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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