Fragment: The Vine-Shroud
Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee; For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below The rotting bones of dead antiquity.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee; For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below The rotting bones of dead antiquity.
Shelley addresses a flourishing vine, its clusters glowing in the autumnal sun, but no one ever tastes the fruit. Why? Because the vine shrouds a ruin, and below lie the rotting bones of the dead. The poem’s power comes from the way it yokes vibrant life to decay.
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