When the Lamp is Shattered
A speaker compares extinguished light and silenced music to a heart left with mournful echoes. When love leaves hearts that have mingled, the weaker heart suffers; the speaker questions why Love chooses such a fragile home and imagines its shelter rotting away.
By Percy Bysshe Shelley · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Melancholic Poetry · 294 words
First lines
When the lamp is shattered / The light in the dust lies dead- / When the cloud is scattered / The rainbow's glory is shed. / When the lute is broken, / Sweet tones are remembered not; / When the lips have spoken, / Loved accents are soon forgot.
As music and splendour / Survive not the lamp and the lute, / The heart's echoes render / No song when the spirit is mute: - / No song but sad dirges, / Like the wind through a ruined cell, / Or the mournful surges / That ring the dead seaman's knell.
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — Four rhymed stanzas move from comparisons involving light and music to a direct address questioning Love.
- Love Poetry — The speaker describes love departing from mingled hearts and the suffering left in the weaker heart.
- Melancholic Poetry — Sad dirges, a ruined cell, a seaman's knell, and a rotting nest express the desolation following love's departure.
Tags
lost love · heartbreak · emotional vulnerability · grief · lyric poetry
What this Textopian page supports
When the Lamp is Shattered 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, Love Poetry, Melancholic Poetry
- Length: 294 words
- Structure: 1 section, 4 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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- Work identity for When the Lamp is Shattered by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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