The Sunset by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A youth walks with Isabel at dusk and proposes returning the next day to see the sun. After a night of love and sleep, she finds him dead in the morning. She lives on for years, tending her aged father while grief wears away her body, and wishes for an epitaph of peace like her lover’s.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Elegiac Poetry · 624 words
First lines
There late was One within whose subtle being, / As light and wind within some delicate cloud / That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky, / Genius and death contended. None may know / The sweetness of the joy which made his breath / Fail, like the trances of the summer air, / When, with the Lady of his love, who then / First knew the unreserve of mingled being, / He walked along the pathway of a field / Which to the east a hoar wood shadowed o'er, / But to the west was open to the sky. / There now the sun had sunk, but lines of gold / Hung on the ashen clouds, and on the points / Of the far level grass and nodding flowers / And the old dandelion's hoary beard, / And, mingled with the shades of twilight, lay / On the brown massy woods-and in the east / The broad and burning moon lingeringly rose / Between the black trunks of the crowded trees, / While the faint stars were gathering overhead. - / ‘Is it not strange, Isabel,' said the youth, / ‘I never saw the sun? We will walk here / To-morrow; thou shalt look on it with me.'
Genres
- Narrative Poetry — The verse recounts the lovers’ evening walk, the youth’s death overnight, and Isabel’s subsequent years of grief.
- Elegiac Poetry — Isabel’s physical decline and final wish for a peaceful epitaph give sustained expression to mourning for her dead lover.
Tags
bereavement · lovers · sunset · death · caregiving
What this Textopian page supports
The Sunset 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: Narrative Poetry, Elegiac Poetry
- Length: 624 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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