Percy Bysshe Shelley

Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than read more

Obedience indeed is only the pitiful and cowardly egotism of him who thinks that he can do something better than reason

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to read more

The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow.

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.

Songs consecrate to truth and liberty.

Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
read more

Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
The signet of its all-enslaving power
Upon a shining ore, read more

Commerce has set the mark of selfishness,
The signet of its all-enslaving power
Upon a shining ore, and called it gold;
Before whose image bow the vulgar great,
The vainly rich, the miserable proud,
The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings,
And with blind feelings reverence the power
That grinds them to the dust of misery.
But in the temple of their hireling hearts
Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn
All earthly things but virtue.