Lines: The cold earth slept below

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



The cold earth slept below;
        Above the cold sky shone;
          And all around,
          With a chilling sound,
    From caves of ice and fields of snow
    The breath of night like death did flow
          Beneath the sinking moon.

    The wintry hedge was black;
        The green grass was not seen;
          The birds did rest
          On the bare thorn's breast,
  Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
  Had bound their folds o'er many a crack
          Which the frost had made between.

  Thine eyes glow'd in the glare
      Of the moon's dying light;
          As a fen-fire's beam
          On a sluggish stream
  Gleams dimly--so the moon shone there,
  And it yellow'd the strings of thy tangled hair,
          That shook in the wind of night.

  The moon made thy lips pale, belov{`e}d;
      The wind made thy bosom chill;
          The night did shed
          On thy dear head
  Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
  Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
          Might visit thee at will.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 17, 2023

50 sec read
250

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXBBAAX CDEECCD FGHHFFG XIJJKKI
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 1,002
Words 161
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 7, 7, 7, 7

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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    "Lines: The cold earth slept below" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/29154/lines:-the-cold-earth-slept-below>.

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