Lyric Poem · Nature
Summer and Winter
1It was a bright and cheerful afternoon,
2Towards the end of the sunny month of June,
3When the north wind congregates in crowds
4The floating mountains of the silver clouds
5From the horizon — and the stainless sky
6Opens beyond them like eternity.
7All things rejoiced beneath the sun; the weeds,
8The river, and the corn-fields, and the reeds;
9The willow leaves that glanced in the light breeze,
10And the firm foliage of the larger trees.
11It was a winter such as when birds die
12In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
13Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
14Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
15A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,
16Among their children, comfortable men
17Gather about great fires, and yet feel cold:
18Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Summer and Winter” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/summer-and-winter
Quick facts
- Poem
- Summer and Winter
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 18 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Winter, Summer
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
- 18 lines · 2 stanzas of 8–10 lines
- Line length
- Mostly 10-syllable lines (pentameter length).
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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
- PoetryDBSummer and Winter 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 f0543de5cac824c8…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.