Percy Bysshe Shelley - Sonnet To A Balloon Laden With Knowledge lyrics

[Published from the Esdaile man*script book by Dowden, "Life of Shelley", 1887; dated August, 1812.] Bright ball of flame that through the gloom of even Silently takest thine aethereal way, And with surpa**ing glory dimm'st each ray Twinkling amid the dark blue depths of Heaven,— Unlike the fire thou bearest, soon shalt thou Fade like a meteor in surrounding gloom, Whilst that, unquenchable, is doomed to glow A watch-light by the patriot's lonely tomb; A ray of courage to the oppressed and poor; A spark, though gleaming on the hovel's hearth, Which through the tyrant's gilded domes shall roar; A beacon in the darkness of the Earth; A sun which, o'er the renovated scene, Shall dart like Truth where Falsehood yet has been. ***