Born August 4 1792 to a wealthy country family in Sussex. Shelley had strong political and religious views that came to him early in life and were not received well at school leading to rebellion at Eton and expulsion from Oxford in 1811 due to publishing "The Necessity of Athesim". Shelley was attracted to intellectual, philosophical-politico circles and joined with those empathising with the Irish rebellion against England. First eloping with Harriet Westbrook and fathering a child to her and then eloping again with Mary Goodwin when Harriet was pregnant with their second child. Harriet drowned herself in 1816 which led to Shelley legalising his union with Mary. Mary also a writer, became famous for her gothic romance "Frankenstein".

Shelley was great friends with Byron, the beginning of this friendship inspiring several of his greatest works such as "Hymm to Intellectual Beauty" and "Mont Blanc". Shelley lived a lifestyle of intense friendships, love affairs, revolutionary politics, study, and meditation. People who knew him spoke well of his benevolence of nature and gentleness. Some have debated the value of his work due to it's idiosyncratic nature and intensity but others have been influenced by it and by popular opinion Shelley certainly stands out as a true poet by nature. Shelley claimed that his poems were rarely worked and stood alone as they were first inspired in true romantic style. Shelley drowned just before his 30th birthday having exciled himself in Italy after being refused custody of his two children to Harriet. The four years prior to his dealth producing many of his most famous poems.

England in 1819

An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, -
Princes, the dregs of their own dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, - mud from muddy spring, -
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Til they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, -
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field, -
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two edged sword to all who weild,-
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Chhhristless, Godless - a book sealed;
A Senate, - Time's worst statute unrepealed, -
Are graves, from which a glorious phantom may
Burst, to illuminate our tempestuous day.

1819

Ode to a Skylark

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run;
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven,
In the broad day-light
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a Poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aëreal hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:

Like a rose embower'd
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflower'd,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:

Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awaken'd flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, Sprite or Bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus Hymeneal,
Or triumphal chant,
Match'd with thine would be all
But an empty vaunt,
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

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!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now.

1820