The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Lines: 'The cold earth slept below'

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

LINES

[Published in Hunt's Literary Pocket-Book, 1823, where it is headed November, 1815. Reprinted in the Posthumous Poems, 1824. See Editor's Note.]

IThe cold earth slept below,Above the cold sky shone;And all around, with a chilling sound,From caves of ice and fields of snow,The breath of night like death did flow 5Beneath the sinking moon.

IIThe wintry hedge was black,The green grass was not seen,The birds did rest on the bare thorn's breast,Whose roots, beside the pathway track, 10Had bound their folds o'er many a crackWhich the frost had made between.

IIIThine eyes glowed in the glareOf the moon's dying light;As a fen-fire's beam on a sluggish stream 15Gleams dimly, so the moon shone there,And it yellowed the strings of thy raven^[1] hair,That shook in the wind of night.

IVThe moon made thy lips pale, beloved—The wind made thy bosom chill—The night did shed on thy dear head 21Its frozen dew, and thou didst lieWhere the bitter breath of the naked skyMight visit thee at will.

1. raven 1823; tangled 1824.