Death in Percy Bysshe Shelley

On Death

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 wordly way,

And the billows of clouds 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 unencompass'd by 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? 

  Death

They die -- the dead return not -- Misery

Sits near an open grave and calls them over,

A Youth with hoary hair and haggard eye --

They are the names of kindred, friend and lover,

Which he so feebly calls -- they all are gone -- 

Fond wretch, all dead! those vacant names alone,

This most familiar scene, my pain --

These tombs -- alone remain.

Misery, my sweetest friend -- oh, weep no more!

Thou wilt not be consoled -- I wonder not! 

For I have seen thee from thy dwelling's door

Watch the calm sunset with them, and this spot

Was even as bright and calm, but transitory,

And now thy hopes are gone, thy hair is hoary;

This most familiar scene, my pain -- 

These tombs -- alone remain.

I have compared two poems from Percy Bysshe Shelley, in both of them the main theme is death.

We know the theme only reading the title, that is almost the same, the first is “On Death” and the other is “Death”.

In “On Death” the poet tells that life is something that has an end. Then, when you die the only thing that stays is your soul, all the other things are not useful. You can do nothing, because all depends on your destiny.

When you die the world you know ends with your life, and something starts that is a mistery for men.

This poem is composed by 5 stanzas, with 6 lines each one. The rhyme scheme is:         a b a b c c.

Each stanza introduces one aspect of death:

In stanza 1 life is compared with a light that has an ending.

In stanza 2 the poet addresses a man and tells him the importance of destiny.

In stanza 3 he talks about the world we know, death changes everything and all that follows is a mistery.

In stanza 4 we are told then that the secrets of death would be discovered, when you are dead.

In stanza 5 there are a serie of rethorical questions, that men ask themselves about the mistery of death.

In “Death” the narrator addresses another person. It seems that he is trying to console this person, because someone has died. He tells him that people die, it is a normal thing. Everything is transitory , death is there.

This poem is shorter than the other one, it has 2 stanzas with 8 verses each one. The rhyme scheme is a b a b c c d d.

In stanza 1 the narrator tells that people die. And this also happens to people you love, as friends, or family.

In stanza 2, the narrator says to the other not to weep, because it does not help.

So, both poems are about the same theme, but they are written from a different perspective.

In the first poem, death is presented in a more objective way, it is more or less a description. Although it is a description from the point of view of a human person that knows what happens during lifetime, but then it is a mistery for men. Here the narrator appears in the poem, but he appears as we, he identifies himself with the rest of the world.

In the other poem, things are told from a more personal perspective. It is an example of the cruelty of death, it is an experience lived by someone the narrator knows. So the narrator himself tries to show the other the reality of death. He does not try to console the other, because nothing can be done for it. It has a clear addressee.

Taking into account this aspect, when you read the poem, you take the general sense of death in the first poem. But in the second, you notice the sense of loss that death has.

It is shorter but more direct.

As we have said, in the first poem, the narrator is present in some we. In “Death” the narrator starts with they, so he refers to others. It is in the second part of the poem, when the narrator takes an active role and and appears with a direct I.

In both poems, there are a lot of words relating to death: pale, lonely, wan, hell, heaven, shadow(On Death), hoary, die, dead, pain, tombs, weep(Death).

The only word that appears in both poems is grave. The word death, apart from the title, appears only once in “On Dead”. In “Death” the synonim dead appears.

In “Dead” there is a personification of Misery, this misery represents death itself, who calls people.

Although in the first poem, life is seen as a world, the real world we know, and death is another world unknown for us, but we have to know at some point. A clear contrast between something we see or hear, and something that cannot be explain, no one can see or hear. There are souls, without the eyes or the ears you have during your life.

In the second poem, life and death are seen as processes. Life is a kind of pilgrimage, people live and then they go away. Life is something transitory. This idea is shown through different words such as dead return not, all are gone.

There is also a clear distinction in the structure of both poems. In “On Death” the narrator explain what he wants to explain but at the end, what he gets are rethoric questions. He is at the same point that he was at the beginning, asking himself about death.

 Whereas in “Death” the narrator in a realistic way ends both stanzas with the same sentence: the image that stays are the tombs. People dies, and nothing of them stays.

So, in a way the narrator gives his conclusion.

Maybe both poems are from the point of view of a person that has experiences in life, and knows about death. But in the second we have the point of view that has experienced the death of someone near him. When time has passed, he has reached the conclusion that there is no consolation for those who have lost someone.

At first sight, both poems could seem equal. But when you read them you notice how different they are. In spite of being about the same theme, their perspective is very different.

In “On Death”, we get the idea of death as something more external and misterious. It is something all know about, but at the same time nobody knows about what it  is really. So the only thing you can do is make yourself questions.

In “Dead” the perspective is more internal. It reflects the idea of loss.

The first poem explains us ideas, whereas the second one expresses feelings.