Commemorative plaque at St Peter's Churchyard, in Bournemouth, UK.
Mary Shelley I was only 53 when I left this world in 1851 on a day like today. She was taken away by a brain tumor she was fighting with. But he left for eternity. The creator of FrankensteinThe Gothic novel par excellence and one of the greatest literary myths, she was also a British playwright, essayist and biographer. Y poet.
This facet, more unknown and overshadowed by that of her husband, Percy Bhysse Shelley, it also deserves recognition. So in memory of his figure I highlight some phrases of two of his works and four of his poems.
My first visit to the UK was to Bournemouth, a coastal and very touristy city in the south of England, an English Benidorm, to understand each other. And I remember perfectly having seen that blue plaque in the church of St.. Peter, In the city center. His parents are also buried there, the political philosopher William godwin and the feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. And also the heart of her husband, the great poet of Romanticism Percy Bhysse Shelley.
Phrases
Frankenstein (1818)
- Be careful; for I do not know fear and I am, therefore, powerful.
- I was good and loving; suffering has debased me. Grant me happiness, and I will be virtuous again.
- I will watch with the cunning of the serpent, and with its venom I will bite you. Mortal! You'll regret the damage you've done to me
The Last Man (1826)
- The wolf dressed in sheep's clothing and the herd allowed the deception.
- Men need to cling to something so badly that they can plant their hands on a poisoned spear.
- What else but a sea is the tide of passion whose sources are found in our own nature!
poems
Come to me in dreams
Oh come to me in dreams, my love;
I will not ask for a more longed-for happiness;
come with starry beams, my love,
and with your kiss caress my eyelids.
And so it was, as the old fables say,
that love visited a Greek maiden,
until she disturbed the sacred spell,
and woke up to find his hopes betrayed.
But the peaceful sleep will veil my sight,
and the lamp Psyche it will darken,
when in the visions of the night
renew your vows for me.
So come to me in dreams, my love,
I will not ask for a more longed-for happiness;
Come with starry beams, my love.
and with your kiss caress my closed eyelids.
Love in solitude and mystery
To love in solitude and mystery;
get that which can never be mine;
contemplate the terrible yawn of an abyss
between my being and my chosen sanctuary,
splurge - to be my slave myself -
What will be the harvest of the seed that I gave?
Love responds with a dear and subtle cunning;
because he, incarnate, comes in such a sweet disguise,
that using the weapon of a smile,
and looking at me with eyes of burning calm,
I cannot resist the most intense desire:
I dedicate my soul to his adoration.
When i'm gone
When it is gone, the harp that sounds
with deep tones of passion,
will hang without melodies, with empty strings,
on my burial mound;
then when the night breeze
steal your lonely and ruined frame,
will look for the music that once
received their murmurs.
But in vain the night winds will breathe
On every crumbling rope
Mute, like the form that sleeps underneath,
that broken lyre will rest.
Oh memory! be your blessed anointing,
spilled then around my bed,
like the balm that torments the chest
of the rose, when its flower has died.
I must forget your dark eyes
I must forget your dark eyes, that look full of love;
Your voice, which filled me with emotion,
Your vows that lost me in this wild maze
The exciting pressure of your gentle hand;
And, even more dear, that exchange of thoughts,
That brought us even closer to each other,
Until in two hearts a single idea forged,
And he no longer expected or felt fear but for the other.
I must forget those flower ornaments:
Weren't they the same ones I gave you?
I must forget the count of the bright hours of the day,
Its sun has already set, and you will not return.
I must forget your love, and then close
Watery eyes on an inopportune day,
And let my tortured thoughts seek repose
that the corpses find in the grave.
Oh, by the fate of the one who, transformed into leaves,
He can no longer cry or groan;
Or the sick queen, who, trembling while suffering,
He found his warm heart turned to stone.
Oh, by the current of Lethe waves,
Equally deadly to joy and repentance;
Perhaps none of all this can be saved;
But love, hope, and you, are things that I can't forget.