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Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

On Robert Emmet's Grave

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

...

No trump tells thy virtues — the grave where they rest

With thy dust shall remain unpolluted by fame,

Till thy foes, by the world and by fortune caressed,

Shall pass like a mist from the light of thy name.

When the storm-cloud that lowers o'er the day-beam is gone,

Unchanged, unextinguished its life-spring will shine;

When Erin has ceased with their memory to groan,

She will smile through the tears of revival on thine.

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Quick facts

Poem
On Robert Emmet's Grave
Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length
9 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Death & Loss, Spring, Nature, Short

Craft notes

How this poem works

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
9 lines · 3 stanzas of 1–4 lines

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Percy Bysshe Shelley1792–1822
Source record
PoetryDBOn Robert Emmet's Grave 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 670fb7542829bc6e
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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