ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S

HOMER

MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes.
He stared at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

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;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think,
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

IN

STANZAS

a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity:

The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.

In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,

They stay their crystal fretting,

Never, never petting

About the frozen time.

Ah! would 'twere so with many

A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passèd joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbéd sense to steal it,

Was never said in rhyme.

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful-a fairy's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

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
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A fairy's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said
"I love thee true."

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.