I love the Romantic poets – Blake,  Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats – but perhaps, for me, the most romantic of them all is Percy Bysshe Shelley, (somewhat incongruously for his romanticism) husband to Mary Shelley of Frankenstein fame.

Shelley (1792–1822) never saw success or acclaim for his works during his lifetime, sadly, but today he’s regarded as one of the finest lyric poet, and he was an inspiration of many great writers to come, from Robert Browning and Thomas Hardy, WB Keats to Henry David Thoreau.

Today, I’m sharing one of my favourite Shelley poems, which inspires my own romanticism and my writing. ‘When Passion’s Trance Is Overpast’ came to mind as I wrote The Echoes of Love, my new novel set in Italy. The heroine, Venetia, is defensive and distrustful of the hero, Paolo, and though she is deeply attracted to him, she keeps pushing him away, leaving Paolo with little choice but to tell her he will back away, but to also convey how that will pain him:

‘Of course, if you persist in being blind and pushing me away,’ he said, ‘I will not pursue you anymore. I’ll be your friend as you asked from me once, and I’ll try to quench my thirst at more accessible streams.’ He laughed a rough, deep, humourless sound that shimmied its way to the far end of Venetia’s soul. ‘I’ve been doing it for so long now – bitter water they might be after you, cara, but I will have no other solution, and I will “dream the rest, and burn” for you, “the secret food of my fires unseen.”’

The quote is from the following Shelley poem.

To___  (When Passion’s Trance Is Overpast…)

I.

When passion’s trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last,
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

II.

It were enough to feel, to see,
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest–and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

III.

After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea, but two, which move
And form all others, life and love.

I love the evocative, sensual language of this poem: passion, trance, tenderness, wild, slumber, dark, deep, weep, soft, tenderly, dream, fires, love. These are the very words of romance; they make something within melt. I also find the mix of hope and melancholy poignant – oh that passion’s ‘trance’, that first, heady rush of new love, would never pass! And yet, what comes afterwards is a tenderness that is appealing too – if only the loved one reciprocates.

If, like me, you find Shelley’s words wonderfully moving, be sure to read some of his other love poems:

• Love’s Philosophy
• Love’s Rose
• To the Queen of My Heart
• When Soft Voices Die
• The Indian Serenade