Fragment: ‘I Would Not Be A King’
Percy Bysshe Shelley * Track #148 On The Complete Poetical Works Of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume 2
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Album The Complete Poetical Works Of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume 2
- #1Stanza, Written At Bracknell
Percy Bysshe Shelley
- #2Stanzas.—April, 1814
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- #3To Harriet
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- #4To Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin
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- #5To —.’ Yet Look On Me.’
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- #6Mutability
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- #7On Death
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- #8A Summer Evening Churchyard
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- #9To —. ‘Oh! There are Spirits of The Air’
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- #10Lines: ‘The Cold Earth Slept Below’
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- #11The Sunset
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- #12Hymn To Intellectual Beauty
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- #13Fragment: Home
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- #14Marianne’s Dream
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- #15To Constantia, Singing
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- #16Stanzas 1 And 2
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- #17To Constantia
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- #18Fragment: To One Singing
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- #19A Fragment: To Music
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- #20Another Fragment: To Music
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- #21‘Mighty Eagle’
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- #22To The Lord Chancellor
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- #23To William Shelley
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- #24From The Original Draft Of The Poem To William Shelley
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- #25On Fanny Godwin
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- #26Lines: ‘That Time is Dead For Ever’
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- #27Death
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- #28Otho
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- #29Fragments Supposed To Be Parts Of Otho
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- #30‘O That A Chariot Of Cloud Were Mine’
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- #31Fragment: To A Friend Released From Prison
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- #32Fragment: Satan Broken Loose
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- #33Fragment: “Igniculus Desiderii”
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- #34Fragment: “Amor Aeternus”
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- #35Fragment: Thoughts Come And Go In Solitude
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- #36A Hate-Song
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- #37Lines To A Critic
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- #38Ozymandias
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- #39To The Nile
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- #40Passage Of The Apennines
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- #41The Past
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- #42To Mary —
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- #43On A Faded Violet
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- #44Lines Written Among The Euganean Hills
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- #45Scene From ‘Tasso’
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- #46The Two Spirits: An Allegory
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- #47Ode To Naples (Epode 1a)
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- #48Ode To Naples (Epode 2a)
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- #49Ode To Naples (Strophe 1)
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- #50Ode To Naples (Strophe 2)
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- #51Ode To Naples (Antistrophe 1a)
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- #52Ode To Naples (Antistrophe 2a)
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- #53Ode To Naples (Antistrophe 1b)
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- #54Ode To Naples (Antistrophe 2b)
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- #55Ode To Naples (Epode 1b)
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- #56Ode To Naples (Epode 2b)
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- #57Song For ‘Tasso’
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- #58Invocation To Misery
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- #59Stanzas Written In Dejection, Near Naples
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- #60The Woodman And The Nightingale
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- #61Marenghi
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- #62Sonnet (Lift not the painted veil...)
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- #63Fragment: To Byron
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- #64Fragment: Apostrophe To Silence
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- #65Fragment: The Lake’s Margin
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- #66Fragment: ‘My Head Is Wild With Weeping’
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- #67Fragment: The Vine-Shroud
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- #68Lines Written During The Castlereagh Administration
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- #69Song To The Men Of England
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- #70Similes For Two Political Characters Of 1819
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- #71Fragment: To The People Of England
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- #72National Anthem
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- #73An Ode, Written October, 1819, Before The Spaniards Had Recovered Their Liberty
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- #74Cancelled Stanza
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- #75An Exhortation
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- #76The Indian Serenade
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- #77Cancelled Passage
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- #78To Sophia [Miss Stacey]
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- #79To William Shelley II
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- #80To William Shelley III
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- #81To Mary Shelley
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- #82To Mary Shelley II
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- #83On The Medusa Of Leonardo Da Vinci In The Florentine Gallery
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- #84Love’s Philosophy
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- #85Fragment: ‘Follow To The Deep Wood’s Weeds’
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- #86The Birth Of Pleasure
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- #87Fragment: Love The Universe To-Day
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- #88Fragment: ‘A Gentle Story Of Two Lovers Young’
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- #89Fragment: Love’s Tender Atmosphere
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- #90Fragment: Wedded Souls
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- #91Fragment: ‘Ye Gentle Visitations Of Calm Thought’
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- #92Fragment: Sufficient Unto The Day
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- #93Fragment: Music And Sweet Poetry
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- #94Variation Of The Song Of The Moon
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- #95The Sensitive Plant Part I
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- #96The Sensitive Plant Part II
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- #97The Sensitive Plant Part III
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- #98A Vision Of The Sea
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- #99The Cloud
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- #100To A Skylark
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- #101Ode To Liberty
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- #102Arethusa
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- #103Song Of Proserpine While Gathering Flowers On The Plain Of Enna
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- #104Hymn Of Apollo
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- #105Hymn Of Pan
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- #106The Question
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- #107Autumn: A Dirge
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- #108The Waning Moon
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- #109To The Moon
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- #110Liberty
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- #111Summer And Winter
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- #112The Tower Of Famine
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- #113An Allegory
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- #114The World’s Wanderers
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- #115Lines To A Reviewer
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- #116Fragment Of A Satire On Satire
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- #117Good-Night
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- #118Buona Notte
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- #119Orpheus
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- #120Fiordispina
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- #121Time Long Past
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- #122Fragment: The Deserts Of Dim Sleep
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- #123Fragment: ‘The Viewless And Invisible Consequence’
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- #124Fragment: A Serpent-Face
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- #125Fragment: Death In Life
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- #126Fragment: ‘Such Hope, As Is The Sick Despair Of Good’
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- #127Fragment: ‘Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was’
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- #128Fragment: Milton’s Spirit
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- #129Fragment: ‘Unrisen Splendour Of The Brightest Sun’
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- #130Fragment: Pater Omnipotens
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- #131Fragment: To The Mind Of Man
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- #132Dirge For The Year
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- #133Time
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- #134From The Arabic: An Imitation
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- #135To Emilia Viviani
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- #136The Fugitives
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- #137Song
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- #138Mutability II (The flower that smiles today...)
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- #139Lines Written On Hearing The News Of The Death Of Napoleon
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- #140Sonnet: Political Greatness
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- #141The Aziola
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- #142A Lament
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- #143Remembrance
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- #144To Edward Williams
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- #145Epithalamium
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- #146Love, Hope, Desire, And Fear
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- #147Fragments Written For Hellas
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- #148Fragment: ‘I Would Not Be A King’
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- #149Ginevra
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- #150Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa
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- #151The Boat On The Serchio
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- #152Music
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- #153Sonnet To Byron
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- #154Fragment On Keats
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- #155Fragment: ‘Methought I Was A Billow In The Crowd’
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- #156To-Morrow
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- #157Fragment: A Wanderer
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- #158Fragment: Life Rounded With Sleep
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- #159Fragment: ‘I Faint, I Perish With My Love!’
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- #160Fragment: The Lady Of The South
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- #161Fragment: Zephyrus The Awakener
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- #162Fragment: Rain
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- #163Fragment: ‘When Soft Winds And Sunny Skies’
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- #164Fragment: ‘And That I Walk Thus Proudly Crowned’
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- #165Fragment: ‘The Rude Wind Is Singing’
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- #166Fragment: ‘Great Spirit’
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- #167Fragment: ‘O Thou Immortal Deity’
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- #168Fragment: The False Laurel And The True
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- #169Fragment: May The Limner
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- #170Fragment: Beauty’s Halo
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- #171Fragment: ‘The Death Knell Is Ringing’
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- #172Fragment: ‘I Stood Upon A Heaven-Cleaving Turret’
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- #173The Zucca
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- #174The Magnetic Lady To Her Patient
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- #175Lines: ‘When The Lamp Is Shattered’
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- #176To Jane: The Invitation
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- #177To Jane: The Recollection
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- #178The Pine Forest Of The Cascine Near Pisa
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- #179With A Guitar, To Jane
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- #180To Jane: ‘The Keen Stars Were Twinkling’
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- #181Lines Written In The Bay Of Lerici
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- #182Lines: ‘We Meet Not As We Parted’
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- #183The Isle
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- #184Fragment: To The Moon
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- #185Epitaph
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- #186Ode to the West Wind
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Fragment: 'I Would Not Be A King' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Percy Bysshe ShelleyFragment: ‘I Would Not Be A King’ Annotated
[Published by Mrs. Shelley, "Poetical Works", 1839, 2nd edition.]
I would not be a king—enough
Of woe it is to love;
The path to power is steep and rough,
And tempests reign above.
I would not climb the imperial throne;
'Tis built on ice which fortune's sun
Thaws in the height of noon.
Then farewell, king, yet were I one,
Care would not come so soon.
Would he and I were far away
Keeping flocks on Himalay!
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