Wake The Serpent Not
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fragment
Wake the serpent not -- lest he
Should not know the way to go, --
Let him crawl which yet lies sleeping
Through the deep grass of the meadow!
Not a bee shall hear him creeping,
Not a may-fly shall awaken
From its cradling blue-bell shaken,
Not the starlight as he's sliding
Through the grass with silent gliding.
Published 1839, 2nd Edition.
Source Book
The Lyrics and Shorter Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Copyright 1907, reprinted 1913
Published by London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
New York: E.P. Dutton & Co.
