William Blake (1757 – 1827)
“The Chimney-Sweeper”
(Songs of Innocence)
When my mother died I was
very young,
And my father sold me while
yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry 'Weep!
weep! weep! weep!'
So your chimneys I sweep, and
in soot I sleep.
There's little Tom Dacre, who
cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb's
back, was shaved; so I said,
'Hush, Tom! never mind it,
for, when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot
spoil your white hair.'
And so he was quiet, and that
very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had
such a sight! -
That thousands of sweepers,
Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in
coffins of black.
And by came an angel, who had
a bright key,
And he opened the coffins,
and set them all free;
Then down a green plain,
leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and
shine in the sun.
Then naked and white, all
their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and
sport in the wind:
And the angel told Tom, if
he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father,
and never want joy.
And so Tom awoke, and we rose
in the dark,
And got with our bags and our
brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold,
Tom was happy and warm:
So, if all do their duty,
they need not fear harm.
“The Chimney-Sweeper”
(Song of Experience)
A little black thing among
the snow,
Crying! 'weep! weep!' in
notes of woe!
'Where are thy father and
mother? Say!' -
'They are both gone up to the
church to pray.
'Because I was happy upon the
heath,
And smiled among the winter's
snow,
They clothed me in the
clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the
notes of woe.
'And because I am happy and
dance and sing,
They think they have done me
no injury,
And are gone to praise God
and His priest and king,
Who made up a heaven of our misery.'
“Holy Thursday”
(Songs of Innocence)
'Twas on a holy Thursday,
their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two and
two, in red, and blue, and green:
Grey-headed beadles walked
before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of
Paul's they like Thames waters flow.
O what a multitude they
seemed, these flowers of London
town!
Seated in companies they sit,
with radiance all their own.
The hum of multitudes was
there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and
girls raising their innocent hands.
Now like a mighty wind they
raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious
thunderings the seats of heaven among:
Beneath them sit the aged
men, wise guardians of the poor.
Then cherish pity, lest you
drive an angel from your door.
“The Lamb”
(Songs of Innocence)
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life, and bid thee
feed
By the stream and o'er the
mead;
Gave thee clothing of
delight,
Softest clothing, woolly,
bright;
Gave thee such a tender
voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Does thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I'll tell thee;
Little lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Robert Burns (1759-1796)
“Auld Lang Syne”
Should auld acquaintance be
forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be
forgot,
And auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness
yet,
For auld lang syne.
And surely ye'll be your
pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o'
kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness
yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae run about the
braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wandered mony a
weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness
yet,
For auld lang syne.
We twa hae paidled i' the
burn,
Frae morning sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae
roared
Sin' auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness
yet,
For auld lang syne.
And there's a hand, my trusty
fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine!
And we'll tak a right
guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness
yet,
For auld lang syne.
William Wordsworth
(1770 – 1850)
“Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On
revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour.”
July 13,
1798
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.--Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
’Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These
beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and ’mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,
With tranquil restoration:--feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:--that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,--
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If
this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft--
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro’ the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days,
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.--I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.--That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,--both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor
perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance--
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence--wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love--oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er
vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a
crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the
trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the
breeze.
Continuous as the stars that
shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in
never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a
glance,
Tossing their heads in
sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced;
but they
Out-did the sparkling waves
in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little
thought
What wealth the show to me
had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I
lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward
eye
Which is the bliss of
solitude;
And then my heart with
pleasure fills,
And dances with the
daffodils.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
“The Æolian Harp”
My pensive Sara! thy soft
cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most
soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our cot, our
cot o’ergrown
With white-flowered jasmin,
and the broad-leaved myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of
Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that
late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and
mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such
should wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite
the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field!
and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the
distant sea
Tells us of silence.
And that simplest
lute,
Placed length-ways in the
clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze
caressed,
Like some coy maid half
yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding,
as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong!
And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long
sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink
and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery
of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when
they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from
Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round
honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds
of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch,
hovering on untamed wing!
O the one life within us and
abroad,
Which meets all motion and
becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like
power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and
joyance every where—
Methinks, it should have been
impossible
Not to love all things in a
world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and
the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her
instrument.
And thus, my love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my
limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed
eye-lids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like
diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon
tranquillity;
Full many a thought uncalled
and undetained,
And many idle flitting
phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and
passive brain,
As wild and various as the
random gales
That swell and flutter on
this subject lute!
And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic harps
diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as
o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one
intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and
God of All?
But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved woman! nor
such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou
not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly
with my God.
Meek daughter in the family
of Christ!
Well hast thou said and
holily dispraised
These shapings of the
unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they
rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s
aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I
speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save
when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith
that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies
healed me,
A sinful and most miserable
man,
Wildered and dark, and gave
me to possess
Peace, and this cot, and
thee, heart-honoured Maid!
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)
“She Walks in Beauty”
She walks in beauty, like the
night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark
and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender
light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray
the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven
tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet
express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er
that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the
tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all
below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
“I Would I Were a Careless Child”
I would I were a careless
child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky
wild,
Or bounding o’er the dark
blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon
pride
Accords not with the freeborn
soul,
Which loves the mountain’s
craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where
billows roll.
Fortune! take back these
cultured lands,
Take back this name of
splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile
hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe
around.
Place me among the rocks I
love,
Which sound to Ocean’s
wildest roar;
I ask but this — again to
rove
Through scenes my youth hath
known before.
Few are my years, and yet I
feel
The world was ne’er designed
for me:
Ah! why do dark’ning shades
conceal
The hour when man must cease
to be?
Once I beheld a splendid
dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth! — wherefore did thy
hated beam
Awake me to a world like
this?
I loved — but those I love
are gone;
Had friends — my early
friends are fled:
How cheerless feels the heart
alone,
When all its former hopes are
dead!
Though gay companions o’er
the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of
ill;
Though pleasure stirs the
maddening soul,
The heart — the heart — is
lonely still.
How dull! to hear the voice
of those
Whom rank or chance, whom
wealth or power,
Have made, though neither
friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive
hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still
the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist’rous joy is but a
name.
And woman, lovely woman!
thou,
My hope, my comforter, my
all!
How cold must be my bosom
now,
When e’en thy smiles begin to
pall!
Without a sigh would I resign
This busy scene of splendid
woe,
To make that calm contentment
mine,
Which virtue know, or seems
to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts
of men —
I seek to shun, not hate
mankind;
My breast requires the sullen
glen,
Whose gloom may suit a
darken’d mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were
given
Which bear the turtle to her
nest!
Then would I cleave the vault
of heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest.
“When We Two Parted”
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow —
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shrudder comes o’er me —
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee so well —
Long, long I shall rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee? —
With silence and tears.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1803-1822)
“Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”
The awful shadow of some
unseen Power
Floats through unseen among
us,-visiting
This various world with as
inconstant wing
As summer winds that creep
from flower to flower,-
Like moonbeams that behind
some piny mountain shower,
It visits with inconstant
glance
Each human heart and
countenance;
Like hues and harmonies of
evening,-
Like clouds in starlight
widely spread,-
Like memory of music fled,-
Like aught that for its grace
may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its
mystery.
Spirit of Beauty, that dost
consecrate
With thine own hues all thou
dost shine upon
Of human thought or
form,-where art thou gone?
Why dost thou pass away and
leave our state,
This dim vast vale of tears,
vacant and desolate?
Ask why the sunlight not for
ever
Weaves rainbows o'er yon
mountain-river,
Why aught should fail and
fade that once is shown,
Why fear and dream and death
and birth
Cast on the daylight of this
earth
Such gloom,-why man has such
a scope
For love and hate,
despondency and hope?
No voice from some sublimer
world hath ever
To sage or poet these
responses given-
Therefore the names of Demon,
Ghost, and Heaven,
Remain the records of their
vain endeavour,
Frail spells-whose uttered
charm might not avail to sever,
From all we hear and all we
see,
Doubt, chance, and
mutability.
Thy light alone-like mist
oe'er the mountains driven,
Or music by the night-wind
sent
Through strings of some still
instrument,
Or moonlight on a midnight stream,
Gives grace and truth to
life's unquiet dream.
Love, Hope, and Self-esteem,
like clouds depart
And come, for some uncertain
moments lent.
Man were immortal, and
omnipotent,
Didst thou, unknown and awful
as thou art,
Keep with thy glorious train
firm state within his heart.
Thou messgenger of
sympathies,
That wax and wane in lovers'
eyes-
Thou-that to human thought
art nourishment,
Like darkness to a dying
flame!
Depart not as thy shadow
came,
Depart not-lest the grave
should be,
Like life and fear, a dark
reality.
While yet a boy I sought for
ghosts, and sped
Through many a listening
chamber, cave and ruin,
And starlight wood, with
fearful steps pursuing
Hopes of high talk with the
departed dead.
I called on poisonous names with
which our youth is fed;
I was not heard-I saw them
not-
When musing deeply on the lot
Of life, at that sweet time
when winds are wooing
All vital things that wake to
bring
News of birds and
blossoming,-
Sudden, thy shadow fell on
me;
I shrieked, and clasped my
hands in ecstasy!
I vowed that I would dedicate
my powers
To thee and thine-have I not
kept the vow?
With beating heart and
streaming eyes, even now
I call the phantoms of a
thousand hours
Each from his voiceless
grave: they have in visioned bowers
Of studious zeal or love's
delight
Outwatched with me the
envious night-
They know that never joy
illumed my brow
Unlinked with hope that thou
wouldst free
This world from its dark
slavery,
That thou-O awful Loveliness,
Wouldst give whate'er these
words cannot express.
The day becomes more solemn
and serene
When noon is past-there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in
its sky,
Which through the summer is
not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if
it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which
like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life
supply
Its calm-to one who worships
thee,
And every form containing
thee,
Whom, Spirit fair, thy spells
did bind
To fear himself, and love all
human kind.
"Ode to the West Wind”
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath
of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen
presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from
an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale,
and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken
multitudes: 0 thou,
Who chariotest to their dark
wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they
lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its
grave,until
Thine azure sister of the
Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming
earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like
flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours
plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving
everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver;
hear, O hear!
II
Thou on whose stream, 'mid
the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth's
decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs
of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning:
there are spread
On the blue surface of thine
airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted
from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even
from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the
zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching
storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which
this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast
sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy
congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid
atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and
hail will burst: O hear!
III
Thou who didst waken from his
summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean,
where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his
crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in
Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces
and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser
day,
All overgrown with azure moss
and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints
picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into
chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy
woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the
ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow
grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil
themselves: O hear!
IV
If I were a dead leaf thou
mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to
fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy
power, and share
The impulse of thy strength,
only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable!
If even
I were as in my boyhood, and
could be
The comrade of thy wanderings
over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy
skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I
would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer
in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a
leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of
life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has
chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless,
and swift, and proud.
V
Make me thy lyre, even as the
forest is:
What if my leaves are falling
like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty
harmonies
Will take from both a deep,
autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be
thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me,
impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over
the universe
Like withered leaves to
quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of
this verse,
Scatter, as from an
unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words
among mankind!
Be through my lips to
unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O
Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring
be far behind?
John Keats (1795-1821)
“Ode on a Grecian Urn”
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?
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,
For ever wilt thou love, and
she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that
cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the
Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist,
unwearied,
For ever piping songs for
ever new;
More happy love! more happy,
happy love!
For ever warm and still to be
enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for
ever young;
All breathing human passion
far above,
That leaves a heart
high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a
parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the
sacrifice?
To what green altar, O
mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer
lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks
with garlands drest?
What little town by river or
sea shore,
Or mountain-built with
peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this
pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets
for evermore
Will silent be; and not a
soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can
e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude!
with brede
Of marble men and maidens
overwrought,
With forest branches and the
trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease
us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold
Pastoral!
When old age shall this
generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst
of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man,
to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth
beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye
need to know."
“Ode to a Nightingale”
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 thine
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.
O, for a draught of vintage!
that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the
deep-delved 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
blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking
at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave
the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into
the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and
quite forget
What thou among the leaves
hast never known,
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,
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.
Away! away! for I will fly to
thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and
his pards,
But on the viewless wings of
Poesy,
Though the dull brain
perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is
the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is
on her throne,
Cluster'd 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.
I cannot see what flowers are
at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs
upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness,
guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month
endows
The grass, the thicket, and
the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the
pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd
up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of
dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies
on summer eves.
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 mused 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.
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.
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:
Was it a vision, or a waking
dream?
Fled is that music:--Do I
wake or sleep?
