The Sensitive Plant Part I
The Sensitive Plant Part I Lyrics
And the young winds fed it with silver dew,
And it opened its fan-like leaves to the light.
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night.
And the Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
But none ever trembled and panted with bliss
In the garden, the field, or the wilderness,
Like a doe in the noontide with love's sweet want,
As the companionless Sensitive Plant.
The snowdrop, and then the violet,
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet,
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour, sent
From the turf, like the voice and the instrument.
Then the pied wind-flowers and the tulip tall,
And narcissi, the fairest among them all,
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream's recess,
Till they die of their own dear loveliness;
And the Naiad-like lily of the vale,
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen
Through their pavilions of tender green;
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew
Of music so delicate, soft, and intense,
It was felt like an odour within the sense;
And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,
Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare:
And the wand-like lily, which lifted up,
As a Maenad, its moonlight-coloured cup,
Till the fiery star, which is its eye,
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky;
And the jessamine faint, and the sweet tuberose,
The sweetest flower for scent that blows;
And all rare blossoms from every clime
Grew in that garden in perfect prime.
And on the stream whose inconstant bosom
Was pranked, under boughs of embowering blossom,
With golden and green light, slanting through
Their heaven of many a tangled hue,
Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by,
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance.
Which led through the garden along and across,
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze,
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees,
Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells
As fair as the fabulous asphodels,
And flow'rets which, drooping as day drooped too,
Fell into pavilions, white, purple, and blue,
To roof the glow-worm from the evening dew.
And from this undefiled Paradise
The flowers (as an infant's awakening eyes
Smile on its mother, whose singing sweet
Can first lull, and at last must awaken it),
When Heaven's blithe winds had unfolded them,
As mine-lamps enkindle a hidden gem,
Shone smiling to Heaven, and every one
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun;
For each one was interpenetrated
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed,
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere.
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root,
Received more than all, it loved more than ever,
Where none wanted but it, could belong to the giver,—
For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower;
Radiance and odour are not its dower;
It loves, even like Love, its deep heart is full,
It desires what it has not, the Beautiful!
The light winds which from unsustaining wings
Shed the music of many murmurings;
The beams which dart from many a star
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar;
The plumed insects swift and free,
Like golden boats on a sunny sea,
Laden with light and odour, which pass
Over the gleam of the living grass;
The unseen clouds of the dew, which lie
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high,
Then wander like spirits among the spheres,
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears;
The quivering vapours of dim noontide,
Which like a sea o'er the warm earth glide,
In which every sound, and odour, and beam,
Move, as reeds in a single stream;
Each and all like ministering angels were
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear,
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by
Like windless clouds o'er a tender sky.
And when evening descended from Heaven above,
And the Earth was all rest, and the air was all love,
And delight, though less bright, was far more deep,
And the day's veil fell from the world of sleep,
And the beasts, and the birds, and the insects were drowned
In an ocean of dreams without a sound;
Whose waves never mark, though they ever impress
The light sand which paves it, consciousness;
(Only overhead the sweet nightingale
Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail,
And snatches of its Elysian chant
Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant);—
The Sensitive Plant was the earliest
Upgathered into the bosom of rest;
A sweet child weary of its delight,
The feeblest and yet the favourite,
Cradled within the embrace of Night.
About
The sensitive plant is not one of the most famous poems of Shelley but it has some qualities and approaches many themes that were dear to Shelley, mainly beauty and nature.
It is a season based story of a garden
The sensitive plant is one of many located in the garden (along with roses, lilies, violets, snowdrops). It may be associated with mimosa pudica, a member of the Fabaceae family (peas)
who retracts when touched or shaken before unfolding again a few minutes later (one of its nicknames is the sensitive plant)
The garden in spring and summer is tended by a lady of unspecified name with many beautiful flowers blossoming.
Sadly the lady dies just as autumn is approaching. The garden is mourning and all the flower wither and are slowly replaced with weeds as the winter comes and destroys all the remaing harmony.
At the come of a new season, the garden is nothing like it used to be and Shelley questions whether the beauty in itself is gone or if we only ceased to see it as love and beauty never dies and we fail to see the perpetuated beauty with our obscure senses.
The poem is decomposed is three parts and a conclusion which picture gradually the dereliction of the garden as the year progresses and the mood gets darker
The three parts are of uneven lengths (1st and third are of the same length) and composed mostly of 4 verses stanzas (with some apparently randomly consisting of five verses).
First part is 28 stanzas long, Second 15 stanzas long, and third again 28 stanzas long, while the conclusion is 6 stanzas long.
Three five line stanzas (2 in the 1st part, one in the 3rd). Rhymes go AABB (or AABBB in the 5 line stanzas)
Q&A
Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning
- 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
- 96.The Sensitive Plant Part I
- 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
