Lyric Poem · Nature
To the Nile
1Month after month the gathered rains descend
2Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells,
3And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles
4Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend
5On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend.
6Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells
7By Nile's aereal urn, with rapid spells
8Urging those waters to their mighty end.
9O'er Egypt's land of Memory floods are level
10And they are thine, O Nile — and well thou knowest
11That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil
12And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest.
13Beware, O Man — for knowledge must to thee,
14Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“To the Nile” by Percy Bysshe Shelley — quilloak.com/poems/to-the-nile
Quick facts
- Poem
- To the Nile
- Poet
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
- Length
- 14 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Winter, Spring
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
- 14 lines · one 14-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 9-12 syllables (median 10), consistent with pentameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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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
- PoetryDBTo the Nile 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 b183cd3808ef6a79…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.