ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. THOU still unravished 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-fringed 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 loath?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

SONNETS.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

MUCH have I travelled 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-browed 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 Looked at each other with a wild surmise

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

WRITTEN IN JANUARY, 1818.

WHEN I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like full garners the full-ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starred face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And feel 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.

ADDRESSED TO HAYDON.

GREAT spirits now on earth are sojourning:

He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,

Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing:

He of the rose, the violet, the spring, The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake:

And lo! whose steadfastness would never take

A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering.

And other spirits there are, standing apart

Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart,

And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings?

Listen awhile, ye nations, and be dumb.

ON A PICTURE OF LEANDER. COME hither, all sweet maidens, soberly, Down-looking aye, and with a chastened light,

Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white, And meekly let your fair hands joined be,

As if so gentle that ye could not see, Untouched, a victim of your beauty bright,

Sinking away to his young spirit's night, Sinking bewildered 'mid the dreary sea: 'Tis young Leander toiling to his death; Nigh swooning, he doth purse his weary lips

For Hero's cheek, and smiles against her smile.

O horrid dream! see how his body dips

Dead-heavy; arms and shoulders gleam awhile:

He's gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!