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“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Sheila Variations

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Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “Ode to the West Wind” Shelley was born on this day in 1792. He was born into wealth and went to top schools (Eton and then Oxford), but was expelled after he wrote a treatise on the glories of atheism. He got into huge trouble with his father when he eloped with the teenage Harriet Westbrook. (Harriet’s father owned a tavern, making her beyond the pale to Shelley’s privileged family.) Shelley and Harriet traveled about England, Wales and Ireland, political rabble-rousing. Around this same time, he started publishing poetry, poems reflecting his political radicalism and atheism. Then he met Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, daughter of the fem

“Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley | The Sheila Variations The Sheila Variations Skip to content Home Substack Elvis Writing Ebert reviews Movies Actors Directors Personal On This Day About Me ← “There is one Metallica. We have many styles, it’s called Metallica.” — James Hetfield July 2025 Viewing Diary → “Poets, the best of them, are a very chameleonic race.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley Posted on August 4, 2025 by sheila Drive my dead thoughts over the universe Like wither’d lea

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