The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/Lines to a Reviewer

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Sonnet: Ye hasten to the grave

The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1823)
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lines to a Reviewer

Fragment of a Satire on Satire

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216454The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Lines to a ReviewerPercy Bysshe Shelley

LINES TO A REVIEWER

[Published by Leigh Hunt, The Literary Pocket-Book, 1823. These lines, and the Sonnet immediately preceding, are signed Σ in the Literary Pocket-Book.]

Alas, good friend, what profit can you seeIn hating such a hateless thing as me?There is no sport in hate where^[1] all the rageIs on one side: in vain would you assuageYour frowns upon an unresisting smile, 5In which not even contempt lurks to beguileYour heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.Oh, conquer what you cannot satiate!For to your passion I am far more coyThan ever yet was coldest maid or boy 10In winter noon. Of your antipathyIf I am the Narcissus, you are freeTo pine into a sound with hating me.

↑ Lines to a Reviewer.—3 where edd. 1824, 1839; when 1823.

[1] Lines to a Reviewer.—3 where edd. 1824, 1839; when 1823.

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