Friday Poem: 'One Word Is Too Often Profaned'
A Friday Poem fromPercy Bysshe Shelley.
This beautiful poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of several poems he wrote for his dear friend, Jane Williams, for whom he held a particularly strong affection.
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
Our hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not,-
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
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