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Home  »  The Book of the Sonnet  »  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.

IV. Sonnet: “Ye hasten to the dead!”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

YE hasten to the dead! What seek ye there,

Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world’s livery wear?

O thou quick Heart, which pantest to possess

All that anticipation feigneth fair!

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest guess

Whence thou didst come, and whither thou may’st go,

And that which never yet was known wouldst know—

O, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press

With such swift feet life’s green and pleasant path,

Seeking alike from happiness and woe

A refuge in the cavern of gray death?

O heart, and mind, and thoughts! What thing do you

Hope to inherit in the grave below?