LIV

That light whose smile kindles the Universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

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LV

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven,
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and spherèd skies are riven !
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar;

Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven,
The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

A LAMENT

O WORLD! O life! O time !

On whose last steps I climb,

Trembling at that where I had stood before ;
When will return the glory of your prime?

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar,
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more - oh, never more!

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JOHN KEATS

1795-1821

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE

I

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thy happiness,

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

II

O for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blissful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stainèd mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

III

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

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The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

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Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

IV

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

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Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

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And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

V

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ;
White hawthorne, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves ;
And mid-May's eldest child,

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The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

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VI

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain
To thy high requiem become a sod.

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VII

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown :

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

VIII

Forlorn the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades :

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Was it a vision, or a waking dream ?

Fled is that music: Do I wake or sleep?

80

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN

I

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these?

What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

II

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,

Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

III

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And happy melodist, unwearied,

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