Percy Shelley wrote this short elegy after the death of his three-year-old son, William, in Rome. The Italian epigraph—“Rome, Rome, Rome, it is no longer what it was”—immediately announces a world permanently altered by loss. Shelley refuses to locate his child in the pyramid or tomb where the body rests. If such a bright spirit can truly die, he says, its only real shrine is the ongoing grief of his mother and father. Then the poem shifts. Standing among wild ruins and graves, the speaker imagines the child’s intense yet gentle spirit feeding the weeds, seeds, and flowers that grow there, passing into their colours and scents. The broken-off final line, “A portion—”, suggests a thought left unfinished, mirroring a sorrow that cannot fully settle. The mood is sorrowful but not hopeless: it reaches toward a quiet, natural afterlife, where love seeps into sunlight and grass.
To William Shelley — Summary
(With what truth may I say-- Roma! Roma! Roma! Non e piu come era prima!)
My lost William, thou in whom Some bright spirit lived, and did That decaying robe consume Which its lustre faintly hid,-- Here its ashes find a tomb, But beneath this pyramid Thou art not--if a thing divine Like thee can die, thy funeral shrine Is thy mother's grief and mine.
Where art thou, my gentle child? Let me think thy spirit feeds, With its life intense and mild, The love of living leaves and weeds Among these tombs and ruins wild;-- Let me think that through low seeds Of sweet flowers and sunny grass Into their hues and scents may pass A portion--