Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Dirge

Rough wind, that moanest loud
      Grief too sad for song;
Wild wind, when sullen cloud
      Knells 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!

To Jane

One word is too often profaned
      For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
      For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
      For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
      Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
      But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
      And the heavens reject not --
The desire of the moth for the star,
      Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
      From the sphere of our sorrow?

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river
      And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
      With a sweet emotion.
Nothing in the world is single;
      All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
      Why not I with thine?

The mountains kiss high heaven
      And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
      If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth
      And the moonbeams kiss the sea --
What is all this sweet work worth
      If thou kiss not me?