To Jane: the Invitation by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The speaker invites Jane to leave towns for woods, fields and the seashore on a February day that seems to anticipate spring. Setting aside personified sorrow, care and expectation, the speaker seeks a moment of relief and imagines shared harmony amid thawing frost, early flowers and waves beneath the noon sun.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Nature Poetry · 679 words
First lines
Best and brightest, come away! / Fairer far than this fair Day, / Which, like thee to those in sorrow, / Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow / To the rough Year just awake / In its cradle on the brake. / The brightest hour of unborn Spring, / Through the winter wandering, / Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn / To hoar February born, / Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, / It kissed the forehead of the Earth, / And smiled upon the silent sea, / And bade the frozen streams be free, / And waked to music all their fountains, / And breathed upon the frozen mountains, / And like a prophetess of May / Strewed flowers upon the barren way, / Making the wintry world appear / Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The speaker directly addresses a cherished companion in rhymed verse, expressing the wish to set aside pain and enjoy the present hour.
- Nature Poetry — Thawing streams, melting frost, early flowers, woodland pools and murmuring waves supply the setting and substance of the invitation.
Tags
spring · February thaw · companionship · woodland walks · seashore · relief from sorrow
What this Textopian page supports
To Jane: the Invitation 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, Nature Poetry
- Length: 679 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Difficult (10th-12th Grade)
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