Updated Quotation

Letter to T J Hogg (1811-01-03)
I think that the leaf of a tree, the meanest insect on wh. we trample are in themselves arguments more conclusive than any which can be adduced that some vast intellect animates Infinity.
Letter to T J Hogg (1811-01-03)
Man has no right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.
Declaration of Rights (1812), article 19
Once, early in the morning,Beelzebub arose,With care his sweet person adorning,He put on his Sunday clothes.
The Devil's Walk, st. 1 (1812)

Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability.
The awful shadow of some unseen PowerFloats through unseen among us, — visitingThis various world with as inconstant wingAs summer winds that creep from flower to flower.
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, st. 1 (1816)
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrateWith thine own hues all thou dost shine uponOf human thought or form.
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, st. 2
There is a harmonyIn autumn, and a lustre in its sky,Which thro' the summer is not heard or seen,As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, st. 7
Some say that gleams of a remoter worldVisit the soul in sleep, — that death is slumber,And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumberOf those who wake and live.
Mont Blanc, st. 3 (1816)
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;Nought may endure but Mutability.
Mutability, st. 4 (1816)
A wild dissolving blissOver my frame he breathed, approaching near,And bent his eyes of kindling tendernessNear mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss.
The Revolt of Islam, Canto I, st. 42 (1817)
With hue like that when some great painter dipsHis pencil in the gloom of earthquake and eclipse.
The Revolt of Islam, Canto V, st. 23
Fear not the future, weep not for the past.
The Revolt of Islam, Canto XI, st. 18
Yet now despair itself is mild,Even as the winds and waters are;I could lie down like a tired child,And weep away the life of careWhich I have borne and yet must bear,Till death like sleep might steal on me,And I might feel in the warm airMy cheek grow cold, and hear the seaBreathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples, st. 5 (1818)
Chameleons feed on light and air:Poets' food is love and fame.
An Exhortation, st. 1 (1819)
Men of England, wherefore ploughFor the lords who lay ye low?
Song to the Men of England, st. 1 (1819)

Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one spirit meet and mingle —Why not I with thine?'
Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one spirit meet and mingle —Why not I with thine?
Love's Philosophy, st. 1 (1819)
I arise from dreams of theeIn the first sweet sleep of night,When the winds are breathing low,And the stars are shining bright.
The Indian Serenade, st. 1 (1819)
O lift me from the grass!I die! I faint! I fail!Let thy love in kisses rainOn my lips and eyelids pale.My cheek is cold and white, alas!My heart beats loud and fast:O press it to thine own again,Where it will break at last!
The Indian Serenade, st. 3
Hell is a city much like London —A populous and smoky city.
Peter Bell the Third, Pt. III, st. 1 (1819)
Teas,Where small talk dies in agonies.
Peter Bell the Third, Pt. III, st. 12
I have drunken deep of joy,And I will taste no other wine tonight.
The Cenci, Act I, sc. iii, l. 88 (1819)
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, —Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flowThrough public scorn, — mud from a muddy spring, —Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,But leech-like to their fainting country cling,Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
English in 1819, l. 1 (1819)
A lovely lady, garmented in lightFrom her own beauty.
The Witch of Atlas, st. 5 (1820)
First our pleasures die — and thenOur hopes, and then our fears — and whenThese are dead, the debt is due,Dust claims dust — and we die too.
Death, st. 3 (1820)
There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,Daisies, those pearl’d Arcturi of the earth,The constellated flower that never sets;Faint oxlips; tender bluebells at whose birthThe sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wetsIts mother’s face with heaven-collected tears,When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
The Question, st. 2 (1820)
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;Custards for supper, and an endless hostOf syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,And other such ladylike luxuries.
Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820)
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew,And the young winds fed it with silver dew,And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
The Sensitive Plant, Pt. I, st. 1 (1820)
Rough wind, the moanest loudGrief too sad for song;Wild wind, when sullen cloudKnells all the night long;Sad storm, whose tears are vain,Bare woods, whose branches strain,Deep caves and dreary main, —Wail, for the world's wrong!
A Dirge (1821)
Music, when soft voices die,Vibrates in the memory —Odours, when sweet violets sicken,Live within the sense they quicken.Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,Are heaped for the beloved's bed;And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,Love itself shall slumber on.
Music, When Soft Voices Die (1821)

One word is too often profanedFor me to profane it;One feeling too falsely disdainedFor thee to disdain it.
One word is too often profanedFor me to profane it;One feeling too falsely disdainedFor thee to disdain it.
One Word is Too Often Profaned, st. 1 (1821)
The desire of the moth for the star,Of the night for the morrow,The devotion to something afarFrom the sphere of our sorrow.
One Word is Too Often Profaned, st. 2
Swiftly walk over the western wave,Spirit of Night!Out of the misty eastern caveWhere, all the long and lone daylight,Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,Which make thee terrible and dear, —Swift be thy flight!
To Night, st. 1 (1821)
Death will come when thou art dead,Soon, too soon —Sleep will come when thou art fled;Of neither would I ask the boonI ask of thee, beloved Night —Swift be thine approaching flight,Come soon, soon!
To Night, st. 5
There is no sport in hate where all the rageIs on one side.
Lines to a Reviewer, l. 3 (1821)
When the lamp is shatteredThe light in the dust lies dead —When the cloud is scattered,The rainbow's glory is shed.
When the Lamp is Shattered, st. 1 (1822)
Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,Two scorpions under one wet stone,Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle,Two crows perched on the murrained cattle,Two vipers tangled into one.
Similes for Two Political Characters of 1819[edit] The Necessity of Atheism (1811)
There Is No GodThis negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading Spirit co-eternal with the universe remains unshaken.
If he is infinitely good, what reason should we have to fear him?If he is infinitely wise, why should we have doubts concerning our future?If he knows all, why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers?If he is everywhere, why erect temples to him?If he is just, why fear that he will punish the creatures that he has filled with weaknesses?If grace does everything for them, what reason would he have for recompensing them?If he is all-powerful, how offend him, how resist him?If he is reasonable, how can he be angry at the blind, to whom he has given the liberty of being unreasonable?If he is immovable, by what right do we pretend to make him change his decrees?If he is inconceivable, why occupy ourselves with him?If he has spoken, why is the universe not convinced?If the knowledge of a God is the most necessary, why is it not the most evident and the clearest?
NOTE: Further research is needed here. The above quotes might actually be a translation of Shelley's quotation of Systeme de la Nature (1770) by Baron d'Holbach.
The body is placed under the earth, and after a certain period there remains no vestige even of its form. This is that contemplation of inexhaustible melancholy, whose shadow eclipses the brightness of the world. The common observer is struck with dejection of the spectacle. He contends in vain against the persuasion of the grave, that the dead indeed cease to be. The corpse at his feet is prophetic of his own destiny. Those who have preceded him, and whose voice was delightful to his ear; whose touch met his like sweet and subtle fire: whose aspect spread a visionary light upon his path — these he cannot meet again.

[edit] Queen Mab (1813)
How wonderful is Death,Death and his brother Sleep!
Canto I

Nature rejects the monarch, not the man; the subject, not the citizen... The man of virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.
Nature rejects the monarch, not the man;The subject, not the citizen; for kingsAnd subjects, mutual foes, forever playA losing game into each other's hands,Whose stakes are vice and misery. The manOf virtuous soul commands not, nor obeys.Power, like a desolating pestilence,Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,Makes slaves of men, and of the human frameA mechanized automaton.
Canto III
Heaven's ebon vault,Studded with stars unutterably bright,Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls,Seems like a canopy which love has spreadTo curtain her sleeping world.
Canto IV
War is the statesman's game, the priest's delight,The lawyer's jest, the hired assassin's trade.
Canto IV
Twin-sister of religion, selfishness!
Canto V
A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration.
Notes
Love is free: to promise for ever to love the same woman, is not less absurd than to promise to believe the same creed: such a vow in both cases, excludes us from all enquiry.
Notes
Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half the human race to misery.
Notes

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

[edit] Ozymandias (1818)
I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: — Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them on the sand,Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frownAnd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold commandTell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear:"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"Nothing beside remains: round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,The lone and level sands stretch far away.

They dare not devise good for man’s estate,And yet they know not that they do not dare.

[edit] Prometheus Unbound (1818-1819)
Full text online
Ere Babylon was dust,The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child,Met his own image walking in the garden.That apparition, sole of men, he saw.
Earth, Act I, l. 191
In each human heart terror survivesThe ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fearAll that they would disdain to think were true:Hypocrisy and custom make their mindsThe fanes of many a worship, now outworn.They dare not devise good for man’s estate,And yet they know not that they do not dare.
Fury, Act I, l. 618–624

Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes;And yet I pity those they torture not...
The good want power, but to weep barren tears.The powerful goodness want: worse need for them.The wise want love; and those who love want wisdom;And all best things are thus confused to ill.Many are strong and rich, and would be just,But live among their suffering fellow-menAs if none felt: they know not what they do.
Fury, Act I, l. 625–631
Thy words are like a cloud of winged snakes;And yet I pity those they torture not.
Prometheus, Act I, l. 632
Peace is in the grave.The grave hides all things beautiful and good.I am a God and cannot find it there,Nor would I seek it; for, though dread revenge,This is defeat, fierce king, not victory.
Prometheus, Act I, l. 638
He will watch from dawn to gloomThe lake-reflected sun illumeThe yellow bees in the ivy-bloom,Nor heed nor see, what things they be;But from these create he canForms more real than living man,Nurslings of immortality!
Fourth Spirit, Act I, l. 742
To know nor faith, nor love, nor law, to beOmnipotent but friendless, is to reign.
Asia, Act II, sc. iv, l. 47
All spirits are enslaved which serve things evil.
Demogorgon, Act II, sc. iv, l. 110
All love is sweet,Given or returned. Common as light is love,And its familiar voice wearies not ever.Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air,It makes the reptile equal to the God;They who inspire it most are fortunate,As I am now; but those who feel it mostAre happier still.
Asia, Act II, sc. v, l. 39
Death is the veil which those who live call life;They sleep, and it is lifted.
Earth, Act III, sc. iii, l. 113
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,From chance, and death, and mutability,The clogs of that which else might oversoarThe loftiest star of unascended heaven,Pinnacled dim in the intense inane.
Spirit of the Hour, Act III, sc. iv, l. 200
The pale stars are gone!For the sun, their swift shepherd,To their folds them compelling,In the depths of the dawn,Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and the fleeBeyond his blue dwelling,As fawns flee the leopard.
Voice of Unseen Spirits, Act IV, l. 1
Familiar acts are beautiful through love.
The Earth, Act IV, l. 403
Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
The Moon, Act IV, l. 451

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night; To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent...
Man, who wert once a despot and a slave,A dupe and a deceiver! a decay,A traveller from the cradle to the graveThrough the dim night of this immortal day.
Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 549
This is the day, which down the void abysmAt the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotismAnd Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:Love, from its awful throne of patient powerIn the wise heart, from the last giddy hourOf dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springsAnd folds over the world its healing wings.
Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 554–561

To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope creates from its own wreck the thing it contemplates... This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,These are the seals of that most firm assuranceWhich bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,Mother of many acts and hours, should freeThe serpent that would clasp her with his length;These are the spells by which to reassumeAn empire o’er the disentangled doom.
Demogorgon, Act IV, l. 562–569
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;To forgive wrongs darker than Death or Night;To defy Power, which seems Omnipotent;To love, and bear; to hope, till Hope createsFrom its own wreck the thing it contemplates;Neither to change nor falter nor repent;This, like thy glory, Titan! is to beGood, great and joyous, beautiful and free;This is alone Life; Joy, Empire, and Victory!
Demogorgon, Act IV, closing lines

[edit] Julian and Maddalo (1819)
I love all wasteAnd solitary places; where we tasteThe pleasure of believing what we seeIs boundless, as we wish our souls to be.
l. 14
It is our willThat thus enchains us to permitted ill.We might be otherwise, we might be allWe dream of happy, high, majestical.Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek,But in our mind? and if we were not weak,Should we be less in deed than in desire?
l. 170
Me — who am as a nerve o'er which do creepThe else unfelt oppressions of this earth,And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,When all beside was cold: — that thou on meShouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony!
l. 449
Most wretched menAre cradled into poetry by wrong;They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
l. 543

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

[edit] Ode to the West Wind (1819)
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves deadAre driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed.
St. I
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!
St. I
Thou dirgeOf the dying year, to which this closing nightWill be the dome of a vast sepulchre,Vaulted with all thy congregated might.
St. II

O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreamsThe blue Mediterranean, where he lay,Lull'd by the coil of his crystalline streamsBeside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,And saw in sleep old palaces and towersQuivering within the wave's intenser day,All overgrown with azure moss and flowersSo sweet, the sense faints picturing them.
St. III
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
St. IV
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:What if my leaves are falling like its own!The tumult of thy mighty harmoniesWill take from both a deep, autumnal tone,Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
St. V
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
St. V

[edit] The Mask of Anarchy (1819)
As I lay asleep in ItalyThere came a voice from over the Sea,And with great power it forth led meTo walk in the visions of Poesy.
St. 1
I met Murder on the way —He had a mask like Castlereagh —Very smooth he looked, yet grim;Seven blood-hounds followed him.
St. 2
All were fat; and well they mightBe in admirable plight,For one by one, and two by two,He tossed them human hearts to chew.
St. 3
And many more Destructions playedIn this ghastly masquerade,All disguised, even to the eyes,Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.
St. 7
Last came Anarchy: he rodeOn a white horse, splashed with blood;He was pale even to the lips,Like Death in the Apocalypse.
St. 8
And he wore a kingly crown;And in his grasp a sceptre shone;On his brow this mark I saw —'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'
St. 9
And with glorious triumph, theyRode through England proud and gay,Drunk as with intoxicationOf the wine of desolation.
St. 12
My father Time is weak and grayWith waiting for a better day;See how idiot-like he stands,Fumbling with his palsied hands!
St. 23
What is Freedom? — ye can tellThat which slavery is, too well —For its very name has grownTo an echo of your own.
St. 39
Thou art Justice — ne'er for goldMay thy righteous laws be soldAs laws are in England — thouShield'st alike the high and low.
St. 57
What if English toil and bloodWas poured forth, even as a flood?It availed, Oh, Liberty,To dim, but not extinguish thee.
St. 60
Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,All that can adorn and blessArt thou — let deeds, not words, expressThine exceeding loveliness.
St. 64
Let the blue sky overhead,The green earth on which ye tread,All that must eternal beWitness the solemnity.
St. 66
From the haunts of daily lifeWhere is waged the daily strifeWith common wants and common caresWhich sows the human heart with tares.
St. 69
Be your strong and simple wordsKeen to wound as sharpened swords,And wide as targes let them be,With their shade to cover ye.
St. 74
Stand ye calm and resolute,Like a forest close and mute,With folded arms and looks which areWeapons of unvanquished war.
St. 79
The old laws of England — theyWhose reverend heads with age are gray,Children of a wiser day;And whose solemn voice must beThine own echo — Liberty!
St. 82
Rise like Lions after slumberIn unvanquishable number —Shake your chains to earth like dewWhich in sleep had fallen on you —
Ye are many — they are few.
St. 91