The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (ed. Hutchinson, 1914)/An Exhortation
For other versions of this work, see An Exhortation.
AN EXHORTATION
[Published with Prometheus Unbound, 1820. Dated 'Pisa, April, 1820' in Harvard MS. (Woodberry), but assigned by Mrs. Shelley to 1819.]
Chameleons feed on light and air:
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they, 5
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a-day?
Poets' food is love and fame:
If in this wide world of care
Poets could but find the same
With as little toil as they, 5
Would they ever change their hue
As the light chameleons do,
Suiting it to every ray
Twenty times a-day?
Poets are on this cold earth, 10
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
In a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do: 15
Fame is love disguised: if few
Find either never think it strange
That poets range.
As chameleons might be,
Hidden from their early birth
In a cave beneath the sea;
Where light is, chameleons change:
Where love is not, poets do: 15
Fame is love disguised: if few
Find either never think it strange
That poets range.
Yet dare not stain with wealth or power 19
A poet's free and heavenly mind:
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
Children of a sunnier star, 25
Spirits from beyond the moon,
Oh, refuse the boon!
A poet's free and heavenly mind:
If bright chameleons should devour
Any food but beams and wind,
They would grow as earthly soon
As their brother lizards are.
Children of a sunnier star, 25
Spirits from beyond the moon,
Oh, refuse the boon!