Analysis of Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)
The awful shadow of some unseen Power
Floats through unseen among us, -- visiting
This various world with as inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep from flower to flower, --
Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of evening, --
Like clouds in starlight widely spread, --
Like memory of music fled, --
Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.
Spirit of Beauty, that dost consecrate
With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon
Of human thought or form, -- where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown,
Why fear and dream and death and birth
Cast on the daylight of this earth
Such gloom, -- why man has such a scope
For love and hate, despondency and hope?
No voice from some sublimer world hath ever
To sage or poet these responses given --
Therefore the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their vain endeavour,
Frail spells -- whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.
Thy light alone -- like mist oe'er the mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind sent
Through strings of some still instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem, like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain moments lent.
Man were immortal, and omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.
Thou messgenger of sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers' eyes --
Thou -- that to human thought art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying flame!
Depart not as thy shadow came,
Depart not -- lest the grave should be,
Like life and fear, a dark reality.
While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with which our youth is fed;
I was not heard -- I saw them not --
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming, --
Sudden, thy shadow fell on me;
I shrieked, and clasped my hands in ecstasy!
I vowed that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine -- have I not kept the vow?
With beating heart and streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a thousand hours
Each from his voiceless grave: they have in visioned bowers
Of studious zeal or love's delight
Outwatched with me the envious night --
They know that never joy illumed my brow
Unlinked with hope that thou wouldst free
This world from its dark slavery,
That thou - O awful Loveliness,
Wouldst give whate'er these words cannot express.
The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past -- there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm -- to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.
Scheme | ABBAACXBDDEE FXXFXAAXGGHH AIIAAEDIJKLL MJKMMXXKNNEE DIBDDOOBBBEE PQQPPRRQEECX SETSXUUTEEVV |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101110110 1101011100 110011111 110111110110 111011101010 110111 11010100 110100110 1101101 11001101 11111111 1011011100 101101110 1111111101 1101111111 11110101101 111111100100 11011110 111011010 1111011111 11010101 1101111 11111101 1101010001 111111110 11110101010 1011101010 01001111010 1111011101110 11110111 1101 110111101010 11010111 11111100 111011 11011111 1101011101 0111010101 1001000100 1101010111 1111001110111 111100 11010101 1111011100 11010101 0111111 01110111 11010110 1101111101 1100100101010 0111101010 1111100101 11110011110111 11111111 11010101 11111111110 11011111 1110100 1011111 1101110100 1111110110 1101111101 11010101101 11010101010 111101110110 110011101 11101001 111101111 1111111 11111100 111101 1110111001 0101110001 1111110100 0100010011 1101011111 111111111111 111101101 11011101 0101110101 11111101 010010101 11011111 1101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 3,397 |
Words | 638 |
Sentences | 17 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12 |
Lines Amount | 84 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 387 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 91 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 3:13 min read
- 85 Views
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"Hymn to Intellectual Beauty" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 9 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/29132/hymn-to-intellectual-beauty>.
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