Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) wrote love poetry of almost unbearable ardor. "The Indian Serenade" — sometimes titled "The Indian Girl's Song" — is among the most swooningly romantic lyrics in the English language, and it has a treasured place in this library.
The Indian Serenade
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me — who knows how? —
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream —
The champak odours fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O belovèd as thou art!
O lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!
A short appreciation
What makes the poem unforgettable is its breathlessness. Shelley builds the whole lyric on the verge of collapse — "I die! I faint! I fail!" — as if love itself were a kind of sweet fever. The imagery is nocturnal and sensuous: low winds, bright stars, the fainting scent of champak flowers, the nightingale's dying complaint. Every image bends toward the beloved's window.
It is worth reading aloud to feel how the meter quickens and swoons. Shelley was a master of the music of English, and here the sound does half the work — the short lines rush, catch, and sigh like the lover they describe. You can read more of Shelley's life and work at Encyclopædia Britannica or the Poetry Foundation.
A little history
Shelley wrote "The Indian Serenade" around 1819, during the extraordinary Italian years that also produced "Ode to the West Wind" and "Prometheus Unbound." The poem circulated in manuscript among friends before it was published, and it survives in several slightly different versions — which is why you may see the second stanza's "champak odours fail" printed elsewhere as "champak odours pine." Such small variants are part of the poem's charm; it has the feel of something sung rather than fixed on a page, passed between lovers and copyists and gently reshaped along the way.
Three lines to carry with you
If you memorize nothing else, keep the opening: "I arise from dreams of thee / In the first sweet sleep of night." It is one of the most perfect openings in English lyric — the whole poem's longing compressed into two lines of pure music. Say it to yourself some sleepless night and you will understand why readers have loved this small, feverish poem for two hundred years.
More from the library
Return to the classic-poetry library to continue with Keats and Byron, or visit the heirloom verse room for inspirational poems of a gentler, more devotional key. A great love poem and a great prayer, after all, are not so very far apart — both are ways of reaching for something larger than ourselves.