PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be. Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee: Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear, If we were things born
Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
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