To Edward Williams by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker explains that seeing friends less often spares the grief and undying hopes their comfort awakens, although that comfort also feels indispensable. The public role of author offers no peace, and a flower oracle yields a sad answer. The speaker imagines rest when the heart ceases to throb and sends these verses to a friend trusted to understand another's suffering.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry · 627 words
First lines
The serpent is shut out from Paradise. / The wounded deer must seek the herb no more / In which its heart-cure lies: / The widowed dove must cease to haunt a bower / Like that from which its mate with feigned sighs / Fled in the April hour. / I too must seldom seek again / Near happy friends a mitigated pain.
Of hatred I am proud,-with scorn content; / Indifference, that once hurt me, now is grown / Itself indifferent; / But, not to speak of love, pity alone / Can break a spirit already more than bent. / The miserable one / Turns the mind's poison into food,- / Its medicine is tears,-its evil good.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Seven rhymed stanzas address friends directly through the speaker's account of grief, sympathy, and frustrated hopes.
- Melancholic Poetry — The speaker finds friendship's comfort painful, receives a sad answer from flowers, and imagines peace when the heart's throbbing ends.
Tags
friendship · sympathy · grief · longing · flower divination
What this Textopian page supports
To Edward Williams is listed on Textopian as a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, dated Date unknown.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 627 words
- Structure: 1 section, 7 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
Good citation fit
- Work identity for To Edward Williams by Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
- Readability and classroom-planning context
- Passage-specific claims should cite the exact /read/ URL for the relevant chapter or paragraph