Skip to content
← Back to poem

FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF THE POEM TO WILLIAM SHELLEY.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

[Published in Dr. Garnett’s “Relics of Shelley”, 1862.]

 

1.

The world is now our dwelling-place;

Where’er the earth one fading trace

Of what was great and free does keep,

That is our home!...

Mild thoughts of man’s ungentle race _5

Shall our contented exile reap;

For who that in some happy place

His own free thoughts can freely chase

By woods and waves can clothe his face

In cynic smiles? Child! we shall weep. _10

 

2.

This lament,

The memory of thy grievous wrong

Will fade...

But genius is omnipotent

To hallow... _15

 

***