Percy Bysshe Shelley Sonnet Poems

Nor happiness, nor majesty, nor fame,
Nor peace, nor strength, nor skill in arms or arts,
...

Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
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Where man's profane and tainting hand
Nature’s primaeval loveliness has marred,
And some few souls of the high bliss debarred
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Ever as now with Love and Virtue's glow
May thy unwithering soul not cease to burn,
Still may thine heart with those pure thoughts o'erflow
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Vessels of heavenly medicine! may the breeze
Auspicious waft your dark green forms to shore;
Safe may ye stem the wide surrounding roar
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Ye hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes
Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
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An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,--
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring,--
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Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even
Silently takest thine aethereal way,
And with surpassing glory dimm'st each ray
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[I am afraid these verses will not please you, but]

If I esteemed you less, Envy would kill
Pleasure, and leave to Wonder and Despair
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Guido, I would that Lapo, thou, and I,
Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend
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Returning from its daily quest, my Spirit
Changed thoughts and vile in thee doth weep to find:
...