The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/A Summer Evening Churchyard
A SUMMER EVENING CHURCHYARD
Lechlade, Gloucestershire
[Composed September, 1815. Published with Alastor, 1816.]
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphereEach vapour that obscured the sunset's ray;And pallid Evening twines its beaming hairIn duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men, 5Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day,Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,Responding to the charm with its own mystery. 10The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grassKnows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aëreal Pile! whose pinnaclesPoint from one shrine like pyramids of fire,Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells, 15Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,Around whose lessening and invisible heightGather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound. 20Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,And mingling with the still night and mute skyIts awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild 25And terrorless as this serenest night:Here could I hope, like some inquiring childSporting on graves, that death did hide from human sightSweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleepThat loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep. 30