O Wind, / If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
These are the closing lines of the ode, which Shelley wrote in the autumn of 1819 near Florence and published in 1820 in the volume containing Prometheus Unbound. The poet asks the wind to scatter his words “among mankind”.
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! / Bird thou never wert,
‘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.
All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players;