English Romantic

 Remembering a line from P.B. Shelley I adored in my super-romantic high school days - "Soul meets soul on lovers' lips" - I went trolling and suddenly remembered how much I love this man's writing, different as it is from the written aesthetic by which I'm normally floored. What a wonderful reawakening!

THE EARTH:
   I spin beneath my pyramid of night
   Which points into the heavens, dreaming delight,
Murmuring victorious joy in my enchanted sleep;
   As a youth lulled in love-dreams faintly sighing,
   Under the shadow of his beauty lying,
Which round his rest a watch of light and warmth doth
      keep.

THE MOON:
   As in the soft and sweet eclipse,
   When soul meets soul on lovers’ lips,
High hearts are calm, and brightest eyes are dull;
   So when thy shadow falls on me,
   Then am I mute and still, by thee
Covered; of thy love, Orb most beautiful,
      Full, oh, too full!

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822)
from Prometheus Unbound

THE INDIAN SERENADE

by Percy Bysshe Shelly (1792-1822)

ARISE from dreams of thee

In the first sweet sleep of night,

When the winds are breathing low,

And the stars are shining bright.

I arise from dreams of thee,

And a spirit in my feet

Hath led me -- who knows how?

To thy chamber window, Sweet!

 

The wandering airs they faint

On the dark, the silent stream--

And the Champak's odours [pine]

Like sweet thoughts in a dream;

The nightingale's complaint,

It dies upon her heart,

As I must on thine,

O belovèd as thou art!

 

O lift me from the grass!

I die! I faint! I fail!

Let thy love in kisses rain

On my lips and eyelids pale.

My cheek is cold and white, alas!

My heart beats loud and fast:

O press it to thine own again,

Where it will break at last!