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Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Percy Bysshe Shelley (Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which he passed the last night of his life) (Delware corrected copy)
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1881
Type of Manuscript: draft manuscript
Scribe: DGR

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more about Percy Bysshe Shelley (Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which he passed the last night of his life)
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 who held'st far-darkling Truth
  • Was The sovereign guide o'er steeps of through thy brief ageless youth?
  • Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-Hail,
  • (Thank God!) Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in that thy sphere
  • Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.
Electronic Archive Edition:
Source File: 12-1881.delms1.rad.xml