Hail to Thee, Blithe Spirit, by Alarie Tennille

The Cremation of Percy Bysshe Shelley, by Louis Édouard Fournier (France), 1889.

Hail to Thee, Blithe Spirit*
                      In Memory of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Your heart still burns within your poems,
but would not burn upon the pyre.
Like you, it chose to rail at Fate,
to cling to earth as you desired.

Alarie Tennille

*From “To a Skylark” by Shelley

This poem was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.
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Alarie Tennille was born and raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from the University of Virginia in the first class admitting women. She became fascinated by fine art at an early age, even though she had to go to the World Book Encyclopedia to find it. Today she visits museums everywhere she travels and spends time at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, where her husband is a volunteer guide. Alarie’s poetry book, Running Counterclockwise, contains many ekphrastic poems. Please visit her at alariepoet.com.