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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1881
Type of Manuscript: fair copy

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

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Sonnet

on

Percy Bysshe Shelley

by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

First published in “Ballads and Sonnets”

1881





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Note: Bookplate with standing female angel blowing trumpet and seated female angel. Between the two figures is a flowing banner on which is inscribed the owner's name. Below the figures and the owner's name is an inscribed poem.
THOMAS

JAMES WISE

HIS BOOK

  • BOOKS BRING ME FRIENDS
  • WHERE'ER ON EARTH I BE.
  • SOLACE OF SOLITUDE—
  • BONDS OF SOCIETY!
Image of page [iii] page: [iii]
Note: Engraved portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Note: This is a printed copy of the poem
more about Percy Bysshe Shelley
V. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

( Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which

he passed the last night of his life.)
  • 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep,
  • which gave
  • No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
  • Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
  • Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
  • Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
  • Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
  • Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
  • No eye discerned, nor any power might save.
  • When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
  • 10Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
  • Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief age-
  • less youth?
  • Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-
  • Hail,
  • Past doubt, thou gavs't it; and in Truth's bright
  • sphere
  • Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.
Image of page [2] page: [2]
Note: Slightly different manuscript version of printed poem on previous page.
more about Percy Bysshe Shelley
V. Percy Bysshe Shelley.

(Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which

he passed the last night of his life.)
  • 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep, which gave
  • No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
  • Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
  • Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
  • Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
  • Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
  • Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
  • No eye discerned, nor any power might save.
  • When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
  • 10Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
  • Was Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief ageless youth?
  • Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-Hail,
  • Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in this thy Truth's bright sphere
  • Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 12-1881.blms.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the British Library