The Romantic Poets

John Keats, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake

• Publisher: Canterbury Classics
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781626864061
• Topic: Literatur
• Subtopic: Europäische Poesie

Feelings come alive through the words of the Romantic poets. Romanticism gained traction in the late 1700s as writers moved away from the intellectualism of the Enlightenment and toward more emotional and natural themes. The major works of the movement'ssix most famous poets—William Wordsworth, George Gordon Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and William Blake—are represented in this handsome Word Cloud Classics volume, The Romantic Poets. One of the largest and most influential artistic movements in history, Romanticism valued intuition and pastoralism, and its themes are well represented in the verse of its stars.

PERCY BYSSHE
SHELLEY

The Retrospect

_________

CWM ELAN, 1812

To trace Duration’s lone career,

To check the chariot of the year,

Whose burning wheels forever sweep

The boundaries of oblivion’s deep …

To snatch from Time, the monster’s, jaw

The children which she just had borne

And, ere entombed within her maw,

To drag them to the light of morn

And mark each feature with an eye

Of cold and fearless scrutiny …

It asks a soul not formed to feel,

An eye of glass, a hand of steel,

Thoughts that have passed, and thoughts that are.

With truth and feeling to compare;

A scene which wildered fancy viewed

In the soul’s coldest solitude,

With that same scene when peaceful love

Flings rapture’s colour o’er the grove,

When mountain, meadow, wood and stream

With unalloying glory gleam

And to the spirit’s ear and eye

Are unison and harmony.

The moonlight was my dearer day:—

Then would I wander far away

And lingering on the wild brook’s shore

To hear its unremitting roar,

Would lose in the ideal flow

All sense of overwhelming woe;

Or at the noiseless noon of night

Would climb some heathy mountain’s height

And listen to the mystic sound

That stole in fitful gasps around.

I joyed to see the streaks of day

Above the purple peaks decay

And watch the latest line of light

Just mingling with the shades of night;

For day with me, was time of woe

When even tears refused to flow;

Then would I stretch my languid frame

Beneath the wild-woods’ gloomiest shade

And try to quench the ceaseless flame

That on my withered vitals preyed;

Would close mine eyes and dream I were

On some remote and friendless plain

And long to leave existence there

If with it I might leave the pain

That with a finger cold and lean

Wrote madness on my withering mien.

It was not unrequited love

That bade my wildered spirit rove;

’Twas not the pride, disdaining life,

That with this mortal world at strife

Would yield to the soul’s inward sense,

Then groan in human impotence,

And weep, because it is not given

To taste on Earth the peace of Heaven.

’Twas not, that in the narrow sphere

Where Nature fixed my wayward fate

There was no friend or kindred dear

Formed to become that spirit’s mate,

Which, searching on tired pinion, found

Barren and cold repulse around …

Ah no! yet each one sorrow gave

New graces to the narrow grave:

For broken vows had early quelled

The stainless spirit’s vestal flame.

Yes! whilst the faithful bosom swelled,

Then the envenomed arrow came

And apathy’s unaltering eye

Beamed coldness on the misery;

And early I had learned to scorn

The chains of clay that bound a soul

Panting to seize the wings of morn,

And where its vital fires were born

To soar, and spurn the cold control

Which the vile slaves of earthly night

Would twine around its struggling flight.

O, many were the friends whom fame

Had linked with the unmeaning name

Whose magic marked among mankind

The casket of my unknown mind.

Which hidden from the vulgar glare

Imbibed no fleeting radiance there.

My darksome spirit sought. It found

A friendless solitude around,—

For who, that might undaunted stand

The saviour of a sinking land,

Would crawl, its ruthless tyrant’s slave,

And fatten upon freedom’s grave,

Though doomed with her to perish where

The captive clasps abhorred despair.

They could not share the bosom’s feeling.

Which, passion’s every throb revealing,

Dared force on the world’s notice cold

Thoughts of unprofitable mould,

Who bask in Custom’s fickle ray,—

Fit sunshine of such wintry day!

They could not in a twilight walk

Weave an impassioned web of talk

Till mysteries the spirit press

In wild yet tender awfulness,

Then feel within our narrow sphere

How little yet how great we are!

But they might shine in courtly glare,

Attract the rabble’s cheapest stare,

And might command where’er they move

A thing that bears the name of love;

They might be learned, witty, gay,

Foremost in fashion’s gilt array,

On Fame’s emblazoned pages shine,

Be princes’ friends, but never mine!

Ye jagged peaks that frown sublime,

Mocking the blunted scythe of Time,

Whence I would watch its lustre pale

Steal from the moon o’er yonder vale!

Thou rock, whose bosom black and vast

Bared to the stream’s unceasing flow,

Ever its giant shade doth cast

On the tumultuous surge below!

Woods, to whose depth retires to die

The wou...