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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from Prometheus Unbound: Voice in the air, singing

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Extracts from Prometheus Unbound: Voice in the air, singing

(See full text.)

LIFE of Life! thy lips enkindle

With their love the breath between them;

And thy smiles, before they dwindle,

Make the cold air fire,—then screen them

In those looks where whoso gazes

Faints, entangled in their mazes.

Child of Light! thy limbs are burning

Through the vest which seems to hide them,

As the radiant lines of morning

Through the clouds, ere they divide them;

And this atmosphere divinest

Shrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.

Fair are others; none beholds thee

(But thy voice sounds low and tender,

Like the fairest), for it folds thee

From the sight—that liquid splendour;

And all feel, yet see thee never,

As I feel now, lost for ever!

Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movest,

Its dim shapes are clad with brightness,

And the souls of whom thou lovest

Walk upon the winds with lightness,

Till they fail, as I am failing,

Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!

(1820.)