When Passion's Trance is Overpast
The speaker would not weep if tenderness and truth could survive the passing of passion, and longs for the beloved's former tenderness. Woodland violets and the natural world revive, but life and love do not.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Melancholic Poetry · 185 words
First lines
1.
When passion's trance is overpast, / If tenderness and truth could last, / Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep / Some mortal slumber, dark and deep, / I should not weep, I should not weep!
2.
It were enough to feel, to see, / Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly, / And dream the rest-and burn and be / The secret food of fires unseen, / Couldst thou but be as thou hast been,
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Three rhymed stanzas express a speaker's grief and longing through direct address to a beloved.
- Love Poetry — The speaker wishes tenderness and truth could endure after passion passes and asks for the beloved's former tenderness.
- Melancholic Poetry — The conditional wish not to weep leads to a closing contrast between returning violets and life and love that do not revive.
Tags
fading love · tenderness · longing · seasonal renewal
What this Textopian page supports
When Passion's Trance is Overpast 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, Love Poetry, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 185 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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