On Death by Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest. -- Ecclesiastes.

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way,
And the billows of cloud that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,

Where Hell and Heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow

To a brain unencompassed with nerves of steel;
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,

Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?

Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?

Shelley is perhaps the most unconventional, experimental poet I enjoy reading. He often toys with rhythm and meter, not disregarding it exactly but not holding to it punctiliously either. I don't normally enjoy this in poets but the quality of the writing more than redeems it. 

I'm not sure what to say about this poem in particular. There is so much to digest that it would probably take me 3000 words to analyse it properly. First I suppose I could say that it perfectly captures the incomprehensibility of death. It is not something we have been afforded the mental equipment to empathise with. Nor, often, do we have the fortitude to accept death. We are 'unencompassed with nerves of steel'. This is exacerbated by the fact that we have no higher authority to whom we might refer on the matter - those who have experienced death are necessarily unavailable for congress. This is, naturally, where religion spotted a niche in the market. Post-death vaticinations seem to be their USP.

Poetry is usually about love or death. Both incomprehensible, both pointless to challenge or assay; these facts make the endeavour quite enjoyable. It's also interesting that both were experienced prematurely and disproportionately by the Romantic poets (of course one's own death is not bettered by repetition, but the Romantics seemed rather unfortunate with regards to early bereavement).

Quite enough inane gibbering from me. Termination of blog post imminent - avaunt!