The Waning Moon by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Editor's note

Shelley begins with a striking simile that sets the tone for the entire poem: the moon resembles a dying woman. She is described as "lean and pale" — lacking in colour and vitality — and draped in a "gauzy veil," mirroring the thin, hazy clouds that soften and blur the moon's glow. The choice of the word "totters" is significant; it conveys a sense of physical instability, as if the moon could fall apart at any moment.

Editor's note

The dying woman hasn't left her sickroom by choice; her failing mind has led her there. The phrase "insane and feeble wanderings" indicates delirium — she can no longer control her own movements. When applied to the moon, this captures how a waning moon appears to drift haphazardly through clouds, its path seeming aimless and frail in contrast to the full moon's bold arc.

Editor's note

Here the simile comes to a close as we finally encounter the moon itself. However, Shelley avoids romanticizing it. The East is described as "murky," rather than golden or radiant, and the moon is portrayed as "a white and shapeless mass" — formless and devoid of the beauty typically associated with it in poetry. The dash at the end indicates that the thought is left unfinished, which ironically emphasizes the poem's themes of incompleteness and decay.