Rossetti Archive Textual Transcription

Document Title: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Author: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Date of Composition: 1881
Type of Manuscript: fair copy

The full Rossetti Archive record for this transcribed document is available.

Image of page [i] page: [i]
Sonnet

on

Percy Bysshe Shelley

by

Dante Gabriel Rossetti


First published in “Ballads and Sonnets”

1881





Image of page [ii] page: [ii]
Note: Bookplate with standing female angel blowing trumpet and seated female angel. Between the two figures is a flowing banner on which is inscribed the owner's name. Below the figures and the owner's name is an inscribed poem.
THOMAS

JAMES WISE

HIS BOOK

  • BOOKS BRING ME FRIENDS
  • WHERE'ER ON EARTH I BE.
  • SOLACE OF SOLITUDE—
  • BONDS OF SOCIETY!
Image of page [iii] page: [iii]
Note: Engraved portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Image of page [1] page: [1]
Note: This is a printed copy of the poem
V. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

( Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which

he passed the last night of his life.)
  • 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep,
  • which gave
  • No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
  • Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
  • Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
  • Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
  • Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
  • Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
  • No eye discerned, nor any power might save.
  • When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
  • 10Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
  • Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief age-
  • less youth?
  • Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-
  • Hail,
  • Past doubt, thou gavs't it; and in Truth's bright
  • sphere
  • Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.
Image of page [2] page: [2]
Note: Slightly different manuscript version of printed poem on previous page.
V. Percy Bysshe Shelley.

(Inscription for the couch, still preserved, on which

he passed the last night of his life.)
  • 'Twixt those twin worlds,—the world of Sleep, which gave
  • No dream to warn,—the tidal world of Death,
  • Which the earth's sea, as the earth, replenisheth,—
  • Shelley, Song's orient sun, to breast the wave,
  • Rose from this couch that morn. Ah! did he brave
  • Only the sea?—or did man's deed of hell
  • Engulph his bark 'mid mists impenetrable? . . . .
  • No eye discerned, nor any power might save.
  • When that mist cleared, O Shelley! what dread veil
  • 10Was rent for thee, to whom far-darkling Truth
  • Was Reigned sovereign guide through thy brief ageless youth?
  • Was the Truth thy Truth, Shelley?—Hush! All-Hail,
  • Past doubt, thou gav'st it; and in this thy Truth's bright sphere
  • Art first of praisers, being most praisèd here.
Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 12-1881.blms.rad.xml
Copyright: By permission of the British Library