Are you ready to explore the captivating world of poetry that celebrates passion and love?
Percy Bysshe Shelley, one of the greatest Romantic poets, penned verses that resonate with the fiery spirit of women who embrace their emotions.
Here are 10 of Shelley’s most passionate poems, each one a tribute to the strength and depth of women’s experiences.
Let’s get right to it!
My favorite Percy Bysshe Shelley poem for passionate women
#1 “The Past” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
Wilt thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love’s sweet bowers,
Heaping over their corpses cold
Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould?
Blossoms which were the joys that fell,
And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.
2.
Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet
There are ghosts that may take revenge for it,
Memories that make the heart a tomb,
Regrets which glide through the spirit’s gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is pain.
In “The Past,” Percy Bysshe Shelley beautifully captures the haunting feelings of joy and loss.
The words resonate deeply with anyone who has loved and remembered, making it a powerful exploration of those emotions.
The poem reminds us that while we hold onto our happiest moments, the shadows of the past can stir profound feelings within us.
9 more Percy Bysshe Shelley poems for passionate women
#2 “Time Long Past” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
2.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last –
That Time long past.
3.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
‘Tis like a child’s beloved corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.
#3 “A Bridal Song” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
The golden gates of Sleep unbar
Where Strength and Beauty, met together,
Kindle their image like a star
In a sea of glassy weather!
Night, with all thy stars look down, –
Darkness, weep thy holiest dew, –
Never smiled the inconstant moon
On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight; –
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight
Oft renew.
2.
Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!
Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,
Dawn, – ere it be long!
O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun!
Come along!
#4 “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
#5 “Love” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Why is it said thou canst not live
In a youthful breast and fair,
Since thou eternal life canst give,
Canst bloom for ever there?
Since withering pain no power possessed,
Nor age, to blanch thy vermeil hue,
Nor time’s dread victor, death, confessed,
Though bathed with his poison dew,
Still thou retain’st unchanging bloom,
Fixed tranquil, even in the tomb.
And oh! when on the blest, reviving,
The day-star dawns of love,
Each energy of soul surviving
More vivid, soars above,
Hast thou ne’er felt a rapturous thrill,
Like June’s warm breath, athwart thee fly,
O’er each idea then to steal,
When other passions die?
Felt it in some wild noonday dream,
When sitting by the lonely stream,
Where Silence says, ‘Mine is the dell’;
And not a murmur from the plain,
And not an echo from the fell,
Disputes her silent reign.
#6 “Music” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
I pant for the music which is divine,
My heart in its thirst is a dying flower;
Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,
Loosen the notes in a silver shower;
Like a herbless plain, for the gentle rain,
I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.
2.
Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,
More, oh more, – I am thirsting yet;
It loosens the serpent which care has bound
Upon my heart to stifle it;
The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.
3.
As the scent of a violet withered up,
Which grew by the brink of a silver lake,
When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,
And mist there was none its thirst to slake –
And the violet lay dead while the odour flew
On the wings of the wind o’er the waters blue –
4.
As one who drinks from a charmed cup
Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine,
Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,
Invites to love with her kiss divine…
#7 “Love’s Rose” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
Hopes, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time!
Love’s rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow.
Youth says, ‘The purple flowers are mine,’
Which die the while they glow.
2.
Dear the boon to Fancy given,
Retracted whilst it’s granted:
Sweet the rose which lives in Heaven,
Although on earth ’tis planted,
Where its honours blow,
While by earth’s slaves the leaves are riven
Which die the while they glow.
3.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy’s bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,
But perfidy can rend the shrine
In which its vermeil splendours shine.
#8 “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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?
#9 “Good-Night” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1.
Good-night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be GOOD night.
2.
How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood –
Then it will be – GOOD night.
3.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never SAY good-night.
#10 “A Hate-Song” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A hater he came and sat by a ditch,
And he took an old cracked lute;
And he sang a song which was more of a screech
‘Gainst a woman that was a brute.