Explore "Queen Mab" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If solitude hath ever led thy steps / To the wild Ocean's echoing shore, / And thou hast lingered there, / Until the sun's broad orb / Seemed resting on the burnished wave, / Thou must have marked the lines / Of purple gold, that motionless / Hung o'er the sinking sphere: / Thou must have marked the billowy clouds / Edged with intolerable radiancy / Towering like rocks of jet / Crowned with a diamond wreath. / And yet there is a moment, / When the sun's highest point / Peeps like a star o'er Ocean's western edge, / When those far clouds of feathery gold, / Shaded with deepest purple, gleam / Like islands on a dark blue sea; / Then has thy fancy soared above the earth, / And furled its wearied wing / Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands / Gleaming in yon flood of light, / Nor the feathery curtains / Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch, / Nor the burnished Ocean waves / Paving that gorgeous dome, / So fair, so wonderful a sight / As Mab's aethereal palace could afford. / Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall! / As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread / Its floors of flashing light, / Its vast and azure dome, / Its fertile golden islands / Floating on a silver sea; / Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted / Through clouds of circumambient darkness, / And pearly battlements around / Looked o'er the immense of Heaven.