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Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

To William Shelley

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

1(With what truth may I say —

2Roma! Roma! Roma!

3Non e piu come era prima!)

4My lost William, thou in whom

5Some bright spirit lived, and did

6That decaying robe consume

7Which its lustre faintly hid, —

8Here its ashes find a tomb,

9But beneath this pyramid

10Thou art not — if a thing divine

11Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine

12Is thy mother's grief and mine.

13Where art thou, my gentle child?

14Let me think thy spirit feeds,

15With its life intense and mild,

16The love of living leaves and weeds

17Among these tombs and ruins wild; —

18Let me think that through low seeds

19Of sweet flowers and sunny grass

20Into their hues and scents may pass

21A portion —

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Quick facts

Poem
To William Shelley
Poet
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Length
21 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Death & Loss, Nature, Love

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
21 lines · 3 stanzas of 3–9 lines
Line length
Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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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 William Shelley 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 78756b687b526354
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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