ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: SONNET WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-pilèd books, in charact❜ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; Of the wide world I stand alone, and think, IN STANZAS a drear-nighted December, The north cannot undo them, In a drear-nighted December, They stay their crystal fretting, Never, never petting About the frozen time. Ah! would 'twere so with many A gentle girl and boy! Was never said in rhyme. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms, The sedge has withered from the lake, O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms I see a lily on thy brow With anguish moist and fever-dew, I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful-a fairy's child, I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan. I set her on my pacing steed She found me roots of relish sweet, She took me to her elfin grot, And there she wept and sighed full sore; And there I shut her wild wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulléd me asleep, And there I dreamed — Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill's side. I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all: They cried "La belle dame sans merci Hath thee in thrall!" I saw their starved lips in the gloam With horrid warning gapéd wide, And I awoke and found me here On the cold hill's side. |