The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/On Death
ON DEATH
[For the date of composition see Editor's Note. Published with Alastor, 1816.]
There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.—Ecclesiastes.
The pale, the cold, and the moony smileWhich the meteor beam of a starless nightSheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,Is the flame of life so fickle and wan 5That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.
O man! hold thee on in courage of soulThrough the stormy shades of thy worldly way,And the billows of cloud that around thee rollShall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, 10Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee freeTo the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know,This world is the mother of all we feel,And the coming of death is a fearful blow 15To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;When all that we know, or feel, or see,Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there.Where all but this frame must surely be, 20Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous earNo longer will live to hear or to seeAll that is great and all that is strangeIn the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death? 25Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?Who painteth the shadows that are beneathThe wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?Or uniteth the hopes of what shall beWith the fears and the love for that which we see?30