Explore "Ginevra" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one / Who staggers forth into the air and sun / From the dark chamber of a mortal fever, / Bewildered, and incapable, and ever / Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain / Of usual shapes, till the familiar train / Of objects and of persons passed like things / Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings, / Ginevra from the nuptial altar went; / The vows to which her lips had sworn assent / Rung in her brain still with a jarring din, / Deafening the lost intelligence within.
And so she moved under the bridal veil, / Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale, / And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth, / And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth,- / And of the gold and jewels glittering there / She scarce felt conscious,-but the weary glare / Lay like a chaos of unwelcome light, / Vexing the sense with gorgeous undelight, / A moonbeam in the shadow of a cloud / Was less heavenly fair-her face was bowed, / And as she passed, the diamonds in her hair / Were mirrored in the polished marble stair / Which led from the cathedral to the street; / And ever as she went her light fair feet / Erased these images.