Explore "Lines Written on Hearing the News of the Death of Napoleon" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
What! alive and so bold, O Earth? / Art thou not overbold? / What! leapest thou forth as of old / In the light of thy morning mirth, / The last of the flock of the starry fold? / Ha! leapest thou forth as of old? / Are not the limbs still when the ghost is fled, / And canst thou move, Napoleon being dead?
How! is not thy quick heart cold? / What spark is alive on thy hearth? / How! is not HIS death-knell knolled? / And livest THOU still, Mother Earth? / Thou wert warming thy fingers old / O'er the embers covered and cold / Of that most fiery spirit, when it fled- / What, Mother, do you laugh now he is dead?