Maggie's Farm

To Jane

The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane.
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.

As the moon's soft splendour
O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.

The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.

Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

Shelley was not a typical Maggie's Farm sort of fellow. He was a fan of all of the hip and rebellious ideas of the early 1800s: vegetarianism, free love, atheism, (and anti-monarchism and related radical politics of the time), and he always seemed to be chasing 16 year-old girls.