Explore "Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa" by Percy Bysshe Shelley on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The sun is set; the swallows are asleep; / The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; / The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, / And evening's breath, wandering here and there / Over the quivering surface of the stream, / Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, / Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; / The wind is intermitting, dry, and light; / And in the inconstant motion of the breeze / The dust and straws are driven up and down, / And whirled about the pavement of the town.
Within the surface of the fleeting river / The wrinkled image of the city lay, / Immovably unquiet, and forever / It trembles, but it never fades away; / Go to the... / You, being changed, will find it then as now.
The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut / By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, / Like mountain over mountain huddled-but / Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, / And over it a space of watery blue, / Which the keen evening star is shining through.