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The Annotated Edition

Love's Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Composed
1819 · Romantic
The PoemFull text

Love's Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819

1. The fountains mingle with the river And the rivers with the Ocean, The winds of Heaven mix for ever 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?-- 2. See 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?

Public domain

Sourced from Project Gutenberg

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AO1 — Interpretation + textual reference

Shelley presents the speaker's desire as both logically compelling and slightly coercive, framing romantic union as the natural fulfillment of a universal law. The poem opens by cataloguing merging acts in the natural world — fountains, …

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