Poems and Fragments of Percy Bysshe Shelley by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Hutchinson
Fragment: ‘I Stood upon a Heaven-Cleaving Turret’
I stood upon a heaven-cleaving turret Which overlooked a wide Metropolis— And in the temple of my heart my Spirit Lay prostrate, and with parted lips did kiss The dust of Desolations [altar] hearth— And with a voice too faint to falter It shook that trembling fane with its weak prayer ’Twas noon,—the sleeping skies were blue The city