Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples

The sun is warm, the sky is clear,

         The waves are dancing fast and bright,

      Blue isles and snowy mountains wear

      The purple noon's transparent might,

         The breath of the moist earth is light,

      Around its unexpanded buds;

         Like many a voice of one delight,

      The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,

The City's voice itself, is soft like Solitude's.

         I see the Deep's untrampled floor

         With green and purple seaweeds strown;

      I see the waves upon the shore,

      Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:

         I sit upon the sands alone,—

      The lightning of the noontide ocean

         Is flashing round me, and a tone

      Arises from its measured motion,

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

         Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

         Nor peace within nor calm around,

      Nor that content surpassing wealth

      The sage in meditation found,

         And walked with inward glory crowned—

      Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.

         Others I see whom these surround—

      Smiling they live, and call life pleasure;

To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

         Yet now despair itself is mild,

         Even as the winds and waters are;

      I could lie down like a tired child,

      And weep away the life of care

         Which I have borne and yet must bear,

      Till death like sleep might steal on me,

         And I might feel in the warm air

      My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea

Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

         Some might lament that I were cold,

         As I, when this sweet day is gone,

      Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,

      Insults with this untimely moan;

         They might lament—for I am one

      Whom men love not,—and yet regret,

         Unlike this day, which, when the sun

      Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet.

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples,” emphasizes the emotional gap between the narrator’s internal sorrow and disconnect, and the external world’s joy. Shelley uses juxtaposition to highlight the radiant imagery of nature placed beside the speaker’s bleak self-assessment, highlighting the detachment he feels towards human companionship. He introduces the beauty around the narrator, describing, “The lightning of the moonrise ocean…/ How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.” While the narrator acknowledges the beauty around him, he also longs for somebody to understand him—to connect with him. However, the absence of a connection with those around him only cost him pain, especially as he notes the people around him, highlighting, “Others I see whom these surround-/ Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; / To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.” Though the narrator watches others who have joy, love, and purpose, he feels alienated not just from individuals, but from the very experience of belonging. His life has been very different from those he observes—“dealt in another measure.” In “Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples,” Shelley uses juxtaposition to explore the isolating consequences of a lack of human connection; although the narrator is surrounded by a beautiful world, he still feels estranged from and unable to emotionally access such a world.