A poet's grave and a restless sea
The Grave of Shelley
"Like burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed"
Poem
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bedGaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,In the still chamber of yon pyramidSurely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the wombOf Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,But sweeter far for thee a restless tombIn the blue cavern of an echoing deep,Or where the tall ships founder in the gloomAgainst the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
Rome.
In brief
SummaryA sonnet written at Shelley's grave in Rome. The first eight lines describe the burial ground: gaunt cypresses standing round the sun-bleached stone like burnt-out torches, a night-owl and a lizard, flaming poppies, and a nearby pyramid where the speaker imagines an ancient Sphinx on guard. The last six lines turn to Shelley himself. It is sweet to rest in the earth, the speaker says, but sweeter for this poet would be a restless tomb in the depths of the sea, where tall ships founder on the rocks.
Key themes
"Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead."
Summary
The octave pictures the grave. 'Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone' like 'burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed'. The little night-owl makes her throne there and the lizard shows 'his jewelled head'. Where 'the chaliced poppies flame to red', the speaker looks at the pyramid nearby and imagines that in its 'still chamber' 'some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid', a 'Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead'.
The sestet addresses the dead poet. It is 'sweet indeed to rest within the womb / Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep', but 'sweeter far for thee a restless tomb / In the blue cavern of an echoing deep', or where 'the tall ships founder in the gloom / Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep'. The poem is signed 'Rome'.
Characters
Shelley
The poet in the grave
The poet named in the title, whose grave the octave describes and whom the sestet addresses as 'thee'. The speaker wishes him not the earth's quiet but 'a restless tomb' in the sea, among the echoing caves and foundering ships.
The speaker
The visitor at the grave
The observer who stands among the cypresses, notices the owl, the lizard and the poppies, and imagines a Sphinx in the nearby pyramid. In the sestet he speaks directly to Shelley about where a poet should rest.
Themes
Rest and restlessness
The sestet sets two kinds of grave against each other. Earth offers 'eternal sleep' in her 'womb', and the speaker grants that this is 'sweet indeed'. Yet for Shelley he wishes 'a restless tomb' in 'an echoing deep', among storms and wrecks. The poet, the lines suggest, belongs with motion and sound rather than with the stillness of the cemetery.
A garden of death
The burial ground is described with both beauty and menace. Its cypresses are 'burnt-out torches by a sick man's bed', yet the lizard has a 'jewelled head' and the poppies 'flame to red'. The speaker calls the place a 'pleasaunce of the dead', a pleasure garden, and gives it a 'Grim warder' in the imagined Sphinx, so death here is both lovely and watchful.
Quotes
Context
'The Grave of Shelley' appears in the 'Flowers of Gold' section of Wilde's collected poems and is signed 'Rome'. Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned off the Italian coast in 1822, and his ashes were buried in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome, beside the ancient Pyramid of Cestius. That explains the poem's 'pyramid' and its wish for Shelley of a tomb in the sea.
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