To The Nile
To The Nile Lyrics
Drenching yon secret Aethiopian dells,
And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles
Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend
On Atlas, fields of moist snow half depend.
Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells
By Nile's aereal urn, with rapid spells
Urging those waters to their mighty end.
O'er Egypt's land of Memory floods are level
And they are thine, O Nile—and well thou knowest
That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil
And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest.
Beware, O Man—for knowledge must to thee,
Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be.
***
About
To the Nile was composed by Shelley on a sonnet competition with John Keats
and Leigh Hunt.
The competition stated that they had 15 minutes to write a sonnet about the Nile.
Published in 1876 long after Shelley’s death after it was found by Mr. Townshend Meyer among the papers of Leigh Hunt. It was published in the “St. James’s Magazine” for March, 1876.‘ (Mr. H. Buxton Forman, C.B.; “Poetical Works of P. B. S.”, Library Edition, 1876, volume 3 page 410.) First included among Shelley’s poetical works in Mr. Forman’s Library Edition, where a facsimile of the manuscript is given. Composed February 4, 1818. See “Complete Works of John Keats”, edition H. Buxton Forman, Glasgow, 1901, volume 4 page 76
Q&A
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- 3.To Harriet
- 6.Mutability
- 7.On Death
- 11.The Sunset
- 13.Fragment: Home
- 14.Marianne’s Dream
- 16.Stanzas 1 And 2
- 17.To Constantia
- 21.‘Mighty Eagle’
- 25.On Fanny Godwin
- 27.Death
- 28.Otho
- 36.A Hate-Song
- 38.Ozymandias
- 39.To The Nile
- 41.The Past
- 42.To Mary —
- 57.Song For ‘Tasso’
- 61.Marenghi
- 72.National Anthem
- 74.Cancelled Stanza
- 76.An Exhortation
- 82.To Mary Shelley
- 100.The Cloud
- 101.To A Skylark
- 102.Ode To Liberty
- 103.Arethusa
- 105.Hymn Of Apollo
- 106.Hymn Of Pan
- 107.The Question
- 108.Autumn: A Dirge
- 109.The Waning Moon
- 110.To The Moon
- 111.Liberty
- 112.Summer And Winter
- 113.The Tower Of Famine
- 114.An Allegory
- 116.Lines To A Reviewer
- 118.Good-Night
- 119.Buona Notte
- 120.Orpheus
- 121.Fiordispina
- 122.Time Long Past
- 133.Dirge For The Year
- 135.Time
- 137.To Emilia Viviani
- 138.The Fugitives
- 139.Song
- 143.The Aziola
- 144.A Lament
- 145.Remembrance
- 146.To Edward Williams
- 147.Epithalamium
- 151.Ginevra
- 154.Music
- 155.Sonnet To Byron
- 156.Fragment On Keats
- 158.To-Morrow
- 159.Fragment: A Wanderer
- 164.Fragment: Rain
- 175.The Zucca
- 185.The Isle
- 187.Epitaph