Lyric Poem · Nature

Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Reading room

1The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;

2The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;

3The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,

4And evening's breath, wandering here and there

5Over the quivering surface of the stream,

6Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

7There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

8Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;

9The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

10And in the inconstant motion of the breeze

11The dust and straws are driven up and down,

12And whirled about the pavement of the town.

13Within the surface of the fleeting river

14The wrinkled image of the city lay,

15Immovably unquiet, and forever

16It trembles, but it never fades away;

17Go to the...

18You, being changed, will find it then as now.

19The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut

20By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,

21Like mountain over mountain huddled — but

22Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,

23And over it a space of watery blue,

24Which the keen evening star is shining through..

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“Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/evening-ponte-al-mare-pisa

Quick facts

Poem: Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa
Poet: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length: 24 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature, Summer, Dreams & Sleep

Craft notes

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Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 24 lines · 4 sestets
Line length: Lines run 9-11 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.

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Author record: Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
Source record: PoetryDBEvening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa by percy-bysshe-shelley, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 eb11ceb173fff0e8…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Nature Summer Dreams & Sleep

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