Hymn to Intellectual Beauty

Hymn to Intellectual Beauty, poem in seven stanzas by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in the summer of 1816. The poem, a philosophical musing, contains references to Shelley’s childhood, when he first recognized the intangible spirit of beauty alive in the world. By intellectual beauty Shelley refers to a mysterious, intangible awareness that is not accessible through the senses but is capable of increasing the potency of the natural world. In the first four stanzas, Shelley...