Part of a famous line in the poem "Ode to the West Wind" written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, romantic English poet, and husband to author Mary Shelley. The full line from the poem states "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!". Often imitated, and transmutated, used in other poems and writings, notably in On Turning Ten by Billy Collins, but other places as well.

It has become a poetic meme.