Music, When Soft Voices Die

by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1824) — a poem card from Justes Mots

Proof that what we love does not end but settles into memory, like a chord still ringing.

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,…

Themes: grief · reflection · sympathy