In the first stanza, the concept of the "unseen Power" - the mind - is put forward, and Shelley states his position on the subject. Throughout the stanza, extensive use is made of profluent similes. "As summer winds... | Like moonbeams... | Like hues... | Like clouds... | Like memory..."; these intangible elements of nature and, significantly, memory (which here is a human quality) is aiming to create the air of this Power as something beautiful that is at one with nature and yet is transient and somehow beyond human reach and grasp. Similes such as "Like hues and harmonies of evening" are used to state that this Power has an equilibrium, an intrinsic, inevitable concordance. The five similes in this stanza are all intangible; the first four are all an intrinsic part of the Romantic's love of, and preoccupation with, nature. Through these similes Shelley constructs an image of the Power's awesome and intense status.

nza is a question Shelley asks of the Power. Lines 2 and 3 are particularly important, as it is where he says the Beauty (another form of the Power) "shine[s] upon | ...human thought". On line three, the question is posed to Beauty: "where art thou gone?" However, he recognises the futility of such a question with lines 4-8, which are a series of even more rhetorical questions. At the same time, he asks why it is that humanity remains disinterested in worshipping or deifying the human intellect, which he believes is the reason for our "scope | For love and hate, despondency and hope". Of course, the impact of nature is intense, as is shown by the ongoing figurative language involving it: "Ask why sunlight not for ever | Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain-river". This shows how Shelley sees a divine being as integral in nature. And yet, he is despondent because humanity will not worship it.

Stanza three is how Shelley attacks traditional views of the divine being or beings. It relates to the second stanza because it goes partially to answering these questions. This stanza says that, because no one has yet to be physically proven to have returned from death, it is presumptuous for people to believe in gods. Indeed, Shelley says that "the names of Demon, Ghost, and Heaven, | Remain the records of their vain endeavour", and that their "uttered charms" - referring to dogmata and religious documents - that amount to nothing without the proof of the living dead. The purpose of this, as well as an opportunity to attack organised religion, is to suggest why the force of human intellect (which we can all detect, manipulate, and recognise) is the true "religion". Shelley says that worshipping (and hence "Hymn" in the title) human intellect would give "truth to life's unquiet dream".

Stanza

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Approximate Word count = 1208
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)