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Selected Poetry and Prose
Shelley's short, prolific life produced some of the most memorable and well-known lyrics of the Romantic period. But he was also the most radical writer in the English literary tradition of his day, a fiery political visionary committed to social change and progress. The generous selection in this volume represents the wide range of his writing, both poetry and prose. Arranged chronologically, the accompanying introductory essays set Shelley's works in their historical, social and political context.
The Wordsworth Poetry Library comprises the works of the greatest English-speaking poets, as well as many lesser-known poets. Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.
The Wordsworth Poetry Library comprises the works of the greatest English-speaking poets, as well as many lesser-known poets. Each collection has a specially commissioned introduction.
692 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1951
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625 people want to read
About the author
Percy Bysshe Shelley
1,572 books1,369 followersWorks of Percy Bysshe Shelley, British romantic poet, include "To a Skylark" in 1820;
Prometheus Unbound
, the lyric drama; and "Adonais," an elegy of 1821 to John Keats.
The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.
People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .
Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.
The Cenci , work of art or literature of Percy Bysshe Shelley of 1819, depicts Beatrice Cenci, Italian noblewoman.
People widely consider Percy Bysshe Shelley among the finest majors of the English language. He is perhaps most famous for such anthology pieces as Ozymandias , Ode to the West Wind , and The Masque of Anarchy . His major long visionary Alastor , The Revolt of Islam , and the unfinished The Triumph of Life .
Unconventional life and uncompromising idealism of Percy Bysshe Shelley combined with his strong skeptical voice to make an authoritative and much denigrated figure during his life. He became the idol of the next two or three generations, the major Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, as well as William Butler Yeats and in other languages, such as Jibanananda Das and Subramanya Bharathy . Karl Marx, Henry Stephens Salt, and [authorm:Bertrand Russell] also admired him. Famous for his association with his contemporaries Lord Byron, he also married Mary Shelley, novelist.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 13, 2017
“It is the same! -For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow,
Nought may endure but Mutability.”
Sometimes I forget that I do not teach anymore [which - proof for eternal mutability - will now have to be changed into: "Sometimes I forget that I gave up teaching in despair - as I am back again, in my quixotic profession!"], and I wake up sweating, thinking I have forgotten to plan my lessons, and that I will have to improvise. Strange how bits and pieces of former life leave a trace long after you have moved on. Last year I taught all my classes the importance of change, of mutability in life, of the eternal shift in historical processes, using one of Shelley’s most famous poems, Ozymandias.
I wanted the students to understand the poem on different levels, and to incorporate it in their lives, regardless of whether they would ever need poetry again or not. I wanted them to see that even if mutability is the rule, there is a red thread through the maze of humanity, a trace of culture that stays and tells the story of faraway times and lands, thus connecting us to older selves, in history and within our own lives.
So I had them read, of course:
“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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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.”
And they did read. Monotonously, and with a big question mark on display in most faces. So I read it aloud to them, descriptively in the beginning, then raising my voice to brag with Ozymandias, king of kings, changing my facial expressions in accordance with the frowning statue. Then my voice faded away in the desert sand with the endless time that transformed the imposing emperor’s statue into a colossal wreck. When I had finished, I asked students to read themselves again, practising with each other, and then perform. In the end, they learned that poem by heart by accident, while giggling over exaggerated intonation.
And then came the mean teacher questions:
“What does Ozymandias think of his future reputation?”
“Why did he have the statue constructed?”
“What do you think his city looked like and why did it disappear?”
(They had to write essays on the day of the inauguration of the statue in front of the palace, if I remember rightly.)
“What does he mean by DESPAIR: Look on my works ye mighty and despair?”
A boy who had previously claimed not to understand anything, raised his hand and said:
“He wants others to feel jealous of his power!” (Actually, this is a teacher translation from the original, spoken in teenagerish: “Well, he kind of wants them to like feel like he is like more than them and stronger and that they are like not so cool, and feel like jealous!”)
I was very proud of him. And then I asked:
“And what kind of despair do you think the poet wants the reader to feel?”
And they got it. They really understood that the reader’s despair was of a very different kind than the one Ozymandias had hoped for: more pity or sadness in the face of the mutability of life. I loved them that day, when we read Ozymandias together. Those days are now gone, nothing beside remains, except for my memories and theirs. For they did not forget Ozymandias. Whenever we talked about power, and change in historical contexts, they would eventually sigh:
“Just like Ozymandias! Nothing remains!”
Or I would shake them up by yelling:
“Look on my works, ye mighty!”
We learned something else reading Shelley together as well. We learned about the importance of having a sound educational foundation to understand a certain kind of wittiness and humour. And how one piece of cultural heritage builds on another one.
In a completely different context, we had decided to send in contributions to the Bulwer Lytton contest, a very ironical yearly competition to find the “best” opening sentence for the worst imaginable novel. Obviously, the mean teacher had some hidden agenda here as well, hoping her students would be more aware of stylistical details in their essays if they deliberately tried their best to do their worst for once.
But we had not even started reading through examples properly before they saw their teacher lose her (not very impressive) composure and start laughing tears. One of the contributions to the 2015 contest was so good, and so funny, and such a perfect match for our previous discussions of Ozymandias, that I could not quite believe my eyes, teary as they were.
I had to start several times to deliver the following sentence, which my students would not have been able to appreciate at all in its beautiful irony, had they not practised reading the pompous original over and over again:
“Ozymandias looked upon his mighty statue and despaired, amazed that the sculptors could have gotten his nose so wrong and wishing the darned thing would just crumble into pieces and blow across the lone and level sands, but leaving his legs since they were actually rather flattering.”
When I had stopped hiccuping, I asked:
“What kind of despair does this Ozymandias feel?”
“The kind you felt when you read our essays on Ozymandias”, said a student, and I knew they were ready for real humour!
Mutability, indeed! Reason for both despair and hope!
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow,
Nought may endure but Mutability.”
Sometimes I forget that I do not teach anymore [which - proof for eternal mutability - will now have to be changed into: "Sometimes I forget that I gave up teaching in despair - as I am back again, in my quixotic profession!"], and I wake up sweating, thinking I have forgotten to plan my lessons, and that I will have to improvise. Strange how bits and pieces of former life leave a trace long after you have moved on. Last year I taught all my classes the importance of change, of mutability in life, of the eternal shift in historical processes, using one of Shelley’s most famous poems, Ozymandias.
I wanted the students to understand the poem on different levels, and to incorporate it in their lives, regardless of whether they would ever need poetry again or not. I wanted them to see that even if mutability is the rule, there is a red thread through the maze of humanity, a trace of culture that stays and tells the story of faraway times and lands, thus connecting us to older selves, in history and within our own lives.
So I had them read, of course:
“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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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.”
And they did read. Monotonously, and with a big question mark on display in most faces. So I read it aloud to them, descriptively in the beginning, then raising my voice to brag with Ozymandias, king of kings, changing my facial expressions in accordance with the frowning statue. Then my voice faded away in the desert sand with the endless time that transformed the imposing emperor’s statue into a colossal wreck. When I had finished, I asked students to read themselves again, practising with each other, and then perform. In the end, they learned that poem by heart by accident, while giggling over exaggerated intonation.
And then came the mean teacher questions:
“What does Ozymandias think of his future reputation?”
“Why did he have the statue constructed?”
“What do you think his city looked like and why did it disappear?”
(They had to write essays on the day of the inauguration of the statue in front of the palace, if I remember rightly.)
“What does he mean by DESPAIR: Look on my works ye mighty and despair?”
A boy who had previously claimed not to understand anything, raised his hand and said:
“He wants others to feel jealous of his power!” (Actually, this is a teacher translation from the original, spoken in teenagerish: “Well, he kind of wants them to like feel like he is like more than them and stronger and that they are like not so cool, and feel like jealous!”)
I was very proud of him. And then I asked:
“And what kind of despair do you think the poet wants the reader to feel?”
And they got it. They really understood that the reader’s despair was of a very different kind than the one Ozymandias had hoped for: more pity or sadness in the face of the mutability of life. I loved them that day, when we read Ozymandias together. Those days are now gone, nothing beside remains, except for my memories and theirs. For they did not forget Ozymandias. Whenever we talked about power, and change in historical contexts, they would eventually sigh:
“Just like Ozymandias! Nothing remains!”
Or I would shake them up by yelling:
“Look on my works, ye mighty!”
We learned something else reading Shelley together as well. We learned about the importance of having a sound educational foundation to understand a certain kind of wittiness and humour. And how one piece of cultural heritage builds on another one.
In a completely different context, we had decided to send in contributions to the Bulwer Lytton contest, a very ironical yearly competition to find the “best” opening sentence for the worst imaginable novel. Obviously, the mean teacher had some hidden agenda here as well, hoping her students would be more aware of stylistical details in their essays if they deliberately tried their best to do their worst for once.
But we had not even started reading through examples properly before they saw their teacher lose her (not very impressive) composure and start laughing tears. One of the contributions to the 2015 contest was so good, and so funny, and such a perfect match for our previous discussions of Ozymandias, that I could not quite believe my eyes, teary as they were.
I had to start several times to deliver the following sentence, which my students would not have been able to appreciate at all in its beautiful irony, had they not practised reading the pompous original over and over again:
“Ozymandias looked upon his mighty statue and despaired, amazed that the sculptors could have gotten his nose so wrong and wishing the darned thing would just crumble into pieces and blow across the lone and level sands, but leaving his legs since they were actually rather flattering.”
When I had stopped hiccuping, I asked:
“What kind of despair does this Ozymandias feel?”
“The kind you felt when you read our essays on Ozymandias”, said a student, and I knew they were ready for real humour!
Mutability, indeed! Reason for both despair and hope!
April 4, 2007
I just don't like Shelley. Where Keats seems subtle, Shelley seems didactic. Where Coleridge seems erudite, Shelley seems merely self-serious. His poetry really gets under my skin, especially his longer, allegorical works like Masque of Anarchy. I'm sure he was a genius, but I sometimes wonder how much of his appeal is a result of juicy biography and fortunate association.
November 23, 2019
I must say I did enjoy a few of Shelley’s poems. I really loved “Mutability” on page 56, but there were not too many others I had an interest in dog earring. I enjoy poetry, but not enough to read all of Shelley’s poems. I got to page 120 and I do not think I will pick it up again.
January 11, 2008
Shelley is great if you are in a philosophical mood. :) He is still a distant follower, though, to Keats in my mind.
August 12, 2017
After 10 years, reading is always re-reading! Aah, you problematic fave, you. Better than wrinkle cream.
July 11, 2019
“Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep - He hath awakened from the dream of life”
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry has the reputation for being long on the contemplation of transience, mortality, and the briefness of the time we have on this Earth. The romantic sensibility that there is something better beyond the vale of tears that is everyday reality is shown in lines such as the one above (from ‘Adonais’ - his 1821 elegy to the recently dead John Keats) were also reflected by his political views. In ‘Prometheus Unbound’ (1820) he describes a utopian world thus:
"The painted veil, by those who were, called life,
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread,
All men believed and hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless; no, yet free from guilt or pain"
However Shelley wasn’t ‘merely’ a utopian. He also had what contemporary political organisers call a theory of change. In his famous response to the Peterloo Massacre - ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ (1819) - he hits all the rhetorical points for Anger, Hope, and Action. The second stanza gets stuck right into the leading Tory politician of the day:
“I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:”
Through the course of the poem, the argument is made for non-violent strength in numbers, concluding with the famous call for the people of England to
“Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!"
For a man barely 29 years old when he drowned, Shelley was prodigious. Many of his works reflect what you might call a young man’s taste for florid emotional expression to make up for a limited life experience, except that Shelley had plenty of drama in his life even. He had bad experiences during his education in Eton College and later Oxford, though he also seems to have been something of a deliberate provocateur with his radical and atheistic views. His personal life of elopements, affairs, ‘illegitimate’ children and attempted ménage à troi relationships has ensured Shelley’s reputation for being ‘mad’, impulsive, and generally impossible to deal with. Indeed many commentators have used his personal life to undermine his political views. Either by emphasising his purely ‘romantic’ outlook on life - contemplating beauty and fragility (Matthew Arnold), or by presenting him as a hypocrite and a ruthless exploiter of others for his own selfish ends (Paul Johnson).
Shelley’s most famous relationship was with the young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin - later to become more famous than him as Mary Shelley, author of ‘Frankenstein’. She had ample cause for complaint about Shelley’s treatment of her, but Shelley also keenly encouraged Mary’s own writing. Mary gave some lines of Shelley’s verse to the ‘Monster’ of her famous novel, and Shelly later published them as ‘Mutability’. This poem’s sense of the constancy of change, movement, and flow in human affairs unites the radicalism of Shelley’s political outlook with the romance of his world view:
“It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poetry has the reputation for being long on the contemplation of transience, mortality, and the briefness of the time we have on this Earth. The romantic sensibility that there is something better beyond the vale of tears that is everyday reality is shown in lines such as the one above (from ‘Adonais’ - his 1821 elegy to the recently dead John Keats) were also reflected by his political views. In ‘Prometheus Unbound’ (1820) he describes a utopian world thus:
"The painted veil, by those who were, called life,
Which mimicked, as with colours idly spread,
All men believed and hoped, is torn aside;
The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless; no, yet free from guilt or pain"
However Shelley wasn’t ‘merely’ a utopian. He also had what contemporary political organisers call a theory of change. In his famous response to the Peterloo Massacre - ‘The Masque of Anarchy’ (1819) - he hits all the rhetorical points for Anger, Hope, and Action. The second stanza gets stuck right into the leading Tory politician of the day:
“I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:”
Through the course of the poem, the argument is made for non-violent strength in numbers, concluding with the famous call for the people of England to
“Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!"
For a man barely 29 years old when he drowned, Shelley was prodigious. Many of his works reflect what you might call a young man’s taste for florid emotional expression to make up for a limited life experience, except that Shelley had plenty of drama in his life even. He had bad experiences during his education in Eton College and later Oxford, though he also seems to have been something of a deliberate provocateur with his radical and atheistic views. His personal life of elopements, affairs, ‘illegitimate’ children and attempted ménage à troi relationships has ensured Shelley’s reputation for being ‘mad’, impulsive, and generally impossible to deal with. Indeed many commentators have used his personal life to undermine his political views. Either by emphasising his purely ‘romantic’ outlook on life - contemplating beauty and fragility (Matthew Arnold), or by presenting him as a hypocrite and a ruthless exploiter of others for his own selfish ends (Paul Johnson).
Shelley’s most famous relationship was with the young Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin - later to become more famous than him as Mary Shelley, author of ‘Frankenstein’. She had ample cause for complaint about Shelley’s treatment of her, but Shelley also keenly encouraged Mary’s own writing. Mary gave some lines of Shelley’s verse to the ‘Monster’ of her famous novel, and Shelly later published them as ‘Mutability’. This poem’s sense of the constancy of change, movement, and flow in human affairs unites the radicalism of Shelley’s political outlook with the romance of his world view:
“It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.”
September 2, 2025
My English Romantic angel, Percy Shelley. I have been going back and forth between this and the Selected Poetry of Lord Byron, and comparatively, Shelley's technical writing skills don't stack up. That being said, I appreciate the political bent to a lot of Shelley's work. He prefigures William Morris, who was a lot more explicit and clear-eyed about the political side too. As for the vivid portrayal of a sweet and easy English countryside scene, I think William Blake beats Shelley out. So, while Shelley isn't the best technician, the most insightful political thinker, or the most beautiful scene-setter, I do have a soft spot for him, being the first English Romantic poet I really got into.
from "The Masque of Anarchy,"
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’
from "Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills,"
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ‘tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.
from "The Masque of Anarchy,"
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number—
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you—
Ye are many—they are few.’
from "Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills,"
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ‘tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.
August 17, 2021
easily a favourite poet of mine, who i will read with fondness each time … i adored his writing, it is all so beautifully written and i had read a review that i can’t find anymore that reading his poetry is like being gently kissed and it has not left my mind! whereas i find byrons poetry is sharp and straight to the point, shelley’s poetry feels languid and gentle … not to mention his political poetry! incredible! queen mab being the first poem in this collection really spiralled my obsession with his work and him as a person! not to mention his prose, he articulated his thoughts so nicely and i couldn’t help but wonder what having a conversation with him would like, and i want to study him like a bug … overall, a favourite poet who i will reread time and time again
October 27, 2021
I borrowed this book from my boyfriend one time, and I honestly enjoyed most of the poetry in this book. Whenever I thought about the name Shelley, I thought about first my mom (that’s her first name) and Mary Shelley. Now, I can add Percy Shelley as the next Shelley I think about. I like the introduction, which talked about the social and political contexts of his time that made his poems, like Masks of Anarchy, so radical. My favorite poem of his from the collection is Love’s Philosophy. It beautifully captures to me what love is, a sharing of two bodies of nature that are meant to be together. It used natural phenomenon like rivers and oceans, and the mountains kissing the heavens, to make the point of different bodies of nature touching each other and mingle as they were made to be.
February 13, 2022
Why is Shelley a real poet?
Because he would sing, speak, shout, invent and connect his sentences with the ionosphere, even if there was no one to hear them. Because poetry flowed through his veins, he did not create because it is in vogue. Because he was looking for passionate love and social justice, stringing together songs that are among the best written in English language. Because, being sensitive and imaginative, he believed in human happiness. Because his skill in combining words is in perfect symbiosis with his ethereality and hurricane rapture.
https://www.infoprevodi.com/persi-bis...
February 6, 2024
Guided by intense idealism, a reformist agenda, and great conviction in what poetry and nature can do. As Shelley speaks to the mountains, the answer blows in the wind: “Thou hast a voice, great mountain, to repeal / Large codes of fraud and woe – not understood / By all, but which the wise, and great, and good / Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel."
February 17, 2023
Not over Percy's obsession with Keats, tbh.
August 2, 2025
3.5 stars
A very relaxing read despite how long it is! Definitely going to read more books like this because I quite liked reading it.
A very relaxing read despite how long it is! Definitely going to read more books like this because I quite liked reading it.
February 15, 2020
Can man be free if women be a slave?
-Laon and Cythna, 1817
Percy is my favourite poet. It is hard for me to consider how to write this review without gushing all over his work, but I'll try.
What fascinated me the most was how modern Percy's arguments seem. He was a vegetarian, believing in that humans, plants, and animals are equal. He had come to this conclusion after reading Hindu scriptures. He believed man must go back to nature, not in a 'naturalist' sort of way, but for our health, sanity, and the future of our planet. He was a feminist, believing women should take control of their own lives and sexuality, and thought peace would never be accomplished till the day man and women 'walk on equal ground'. He attempted to single-handedly rid Ireland of England's oppression (remember, he was English). He was an atheist, but not like they are today; he kindly noted that, if a Christian gave him proof of their God he would gladly accept it as a fact, but he just happens to not believe because he saw no proof.
It's not only the content I love; he really manages to spur the emotions of his reader, to get them angry with him. On almost starts to sing the Marseilles just reading his poetry. He has a beautiful writing, and when he isn't writing about politics, the poems are lovely songs in the praise of nature's beauty.
It is a tragedy he died at only the age of 29, just think of all that he had still to say. They cut short the life of a brilliant man and a talented poet.
May 13, 2020
An interesting little snap shot in time from one of the first well known progressive thinkers.
August 25, 2016
I loved this. Shelley is <3
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews