To The Queen Of My Heart
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I.
Shall we roam, my love,
To the twilight grove,
When the moon is rising bright?
Oh, I'll whisper there,
In the cool night-air,
What I dare not in broad daylight!
II.
I'll tell thee a part
Of the thoughts that start
To being when thou art nigh;
And thy beauty, more bright
Than the stars' soft light,
Shall seem as a weft from the sky.
III.
When the pale moonbeam
On tower and stream
Sheds a flood of silver sheen,
How I love to gaze
As the cold ray strays
O'er thy face, my heart's throned queen!
IV.
Wilt thou roam with me
To the restless sea,
And linger upon the steep,
And list to the flow
Of the waves below,
How they toss and roar and leap!
V.
Those boiling waves,
And the storm that raves
At night o'er their foaming crest,
Resemble the strife
That, from earliest life,
The passions have waged in my breast.
VI.
Oh, come then, and rove
To the sea or the grove,
When the moon is rising bright;
And I'll whisper there,
In the cool night-air,
What I dare not in broad daylight.
Notes to the poem:
Written in 1810?
First published in 1833.
Source:
The Lyrics and Shorter Poems of Percy Bysshe ShelleyCopyright 1907, reprinted 1913
London: J.M. Dent and Sons, Ltd.
New York: E.P. Dutton and Co.