AN INDIAN SERENADE. BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Reading edition
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex, England, in 1792. He was educated at Eton and later at University College, Oxford. When he was 19 Shelley married Harriet Westbrook, but after meeting Mary Wollstonecraft he left Harriet and went to Switzerland with Mary. Harriet drowned herself in 1816, and Shelley married Mary. In 1818 they went to Italy, where they lived, for the rest of Shelley’s life, with Byron, Trelawney, Edward Williams, and Hunt. Shelley and Williams were drowned in the bay of Spezzia in 1822, and their bodies were burned on a funeral pyre.
I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the stars are shining bright. I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me—who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint In the dark, the silent stream— And the champak odors pine Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale’s complaint It dies upon her heart, As I must die on thine, Oh, belovèd as thou art!
Oh, lift me from the grass! I die! I faint! I fail! Let thy love in kisses rain On my lips and eyelids pale. My cheek is cold and white, alas! My heart beats loud and fast; Oh, press it to thine own again, Where it will break at last!