To ______
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love;
But will thou accept not
the worship the heart lifts above,
And the Heaven's reject not:
The desire of the moth for the star;
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Born in Field Place, Eng. 1798
Link to official poem:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45145 (Links to an external site.) Transcription and essays on "To _____" written by Caroline Sutphin | Information About This Poem
Biography of Percy Bysshe Shelley
Description of the Poem's Formal Elements
Explication of This Poem |
