Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! / Bird thou never wert,
Shelley addresses the skylark as a spirit rather than a bird, because its song seems to pour from heaven “in profuse strains of unpremeditated art”. The poem appeared in 1820 in the volume with Prometheus Unbound.
O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Music, when soft voices die, / Vibrates in the memory—
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: / Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness;
I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.