Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotes
... a wild dissolving bliss
Over my frame he breathed, approaching near,
And bent his eyes of kindling tenderness
Near mine, and on my lips impressed a lingering kiss
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. The Revolt of Islam; A Poem, in Twelve Cantos. C. and J. Ollier, 1818, p. 154.
Usually, a prominent politician sending love notes to a mistress does not make for a notable quotation. However, in this bizarre instance, his passion was so great that he went to Argentina without telling his staff of the Lieutenant Governor where he was going. He disappeared for almost a week and the state was left without a chief executive. When he returned amidst the scandal, he refused to resign. That in itself was noteworthy when he had earlier called for the resignation of President William Clinton for sexual indiscretions which did not even affect the government as his indiscretions did. See {628239}.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem." A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Browning, Swinburne, Hardy and Yeats.
