Hymn to Intellectual Beauty; P.B. Shelley

[poeatszeitgeist]

So I don't believe in just dropping off favorite poems at a forum, but today I have been so moved that I felt the need to share this one.

I'm used to putting up with religious themes in text, but I've always felt a certain emotional disconnect to much of the works that reside within the canon (which is thankfully slowly moving beyond just dead white men). Turns out my British Romantic Poetry class, which I was deeply excited about, was going to be the same old tune, just with a pantheistic flare. Then today I was reading for class and found P.B. Shelley, a poet that I've never really been familiar with. What a loss! I was nearly moved to tears to find not only an atheist poet, but a very talented one at that. Finally a poet to identify with on such an important aspect of my life. Needless to say, I've had a little bit of a life-changing experience today.

So with that said, I have to share this poem. I can't post links yet, but this is the best I can do. I hope some people would like to participate in discussion. The language obviously pokes a little bit at religious verbage, but I wondered if there were Biblical alusions I was not aware of. "Vale" is the only one I can catch right off the bat.

wwwDOTbartlebyDOTcom/236/71DOThtml

***Note: In my book, "Demon" in line 27 is "God". I remember the foot note, but I will look it up if anyone would like to know the publication. Anyway, it said that the poem was originally published with the word "Demon", but Shelley later changed it to "God", which, in my opinion, is a vast improvement.

[Ixion]

Here is the link:
http://www.bartleby.com/236/71.html

I am not very good at poetry and interpretation, but it is an enchanting poem. Perhaps others can give a better analysis.

[Yoink]

If you're interested in Shelley's atheism, this passage from the eighth canto of The Revolt of Islam might be even more to the point:

'We passed the islets, borne by wind and stream,
And as we sailed the Mariners came near
And thronged around to listen; in the gleam
Of the pale moon I stood, as one whom fear
May not attaint, and my calm voice did rear:
"Ye are all human--yon broad moon gives light
To millions who the self-same likeness wear,
Even while I speak--beneath this very night,
Their thoughts flow on like ours, in sadness or delight.

IV
'"What dream ye? Your own hands have built an home
Even for yourselves on a belovèd shore;
For some, fond eyes are pining till they come--
How they will greet him when his toils are o'er,
And laughing babes rush from the well-known door!
Is this your care? ye toil for your own good--
Ye feel and think--has some immortal power
Such purposes? or in a human mood
Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude?

V
'"What is that Power? Ye mock yourselves, and give
A human heart to what ye cannot know:
As if the cause of life could think and live!
'T were as if man's own works should feel, and show
The hopes and fears and thoughts from which they flow,
And he be like to them. Lo! Plague is free
To waste, Blight, Poison, Earthquake, Hail, and Snow,
Disease, and Want, and worse Necessity
Of hate and ill, and Pride, and Fear, and Tyranny.

VI
'"What is that Power? Some moonstruck sophist stood,
Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown
Fill Heaven and darken Earth, and in such mood
The Form he saw and worshipped was his own,
His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown;
And 't were an innocent dream, but that a faith
Nursed by fear's dew of poison grows thereon,
And that men say that Power has chosen Death
On all who scorn its laws to wreak immortal wrath.

VII
'"Men say that they themselves have heard and seen,
Or known from others who have known such things,
A Shade, a Form, which Earth and Heaven between
Wields an invisible rod--that Priests and Kings,
Custom, domestic sway, ay, all that brings
Man's free-born soul beneath the oppressor's heel,
Are his strong ministers, and that the stings
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel,
Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel.

VIII
'"And it is said this Power will punish wrong;
Yes, add despair to crime, and pain to pain!
And deepest hell, and deathless snakes among,
Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain,
Which, like a plague, a burden, and a bane,
Clung to him while he lived; for love and hate,
Virtue and vice, they say, are difference vain--
The will of strength is right. This human state
Tyrants, that they may rule, with lies thus desolate.

IX
'"Alas, what strength? Opinion is more frail
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon
Even while we gaze, though it awhile avail
To hide the orb of truth--and every throne
Of Earth or Heaven, though shadow, rests thereon,
One shape of many names:--for this ye plough
The barren waves of Ocean--hence each one
Is slave or tyrant; all betray and bow,
Command, or kill, or fear, or wreak or suffer woe.

X
'"Its names are each a sign which maketh holy
All power--ay, the ghost, the dream, the shade
Of power--lust, falsehood, hate, and pride, and folly;
The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made,
A law to which mankind has been betrayed;
And human love is as the name well known
Of a dear mother whom the murderer laid
In bloody grave, and, into darkness thrown,
Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own.

XI
'"O Love, who to the hearts of wandering men
Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves!
Justice, or Truth, or Joy! those only can
From slavery and religion's labyrinth-caves
Guide us, as one clear star the seaman saves.
To give to all an equal share of good,
To track the steps of Freedom, though through graves
She pass, to suffer all in patient mood,
To weep for crime though stained with thy friend's dearest blood,

XII
'"To feel the peace of self-contentment's lot,
To own all sympathies, and outrage none,
And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought,
Until life's sunny day is quite gone down,
To sit and smile with Joy, or, not alone,
To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe;
To live as if to love and live were one,--
This is not faith or law, nor those who bow
To thrones on Heaven or Earth such destiny may know.

[poeatszeitgeist]

If you're interested in Shelley's atheism, this passage from the eighth canto of The Revolt of Islam might be even more to the point:

Snip.

Oh thank you! Much appreciated.

On a side note, that I hope is not too terribly off-topic, does anyone know of any other atheist poets?

[dogjones]

Ah! My favourite poem is Shelley's Ozymandias:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

An amazing sonnet. I often think of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech when I read it - the sentiment is very similar.