Volume Iii Part 52 (2/2)

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.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal 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 specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her l.u.s.trous 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 r.e.t.a.r.ds: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cl.u.s.tered 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 gra.s.s, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered 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, Called 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 pa.s.sing 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 Charmed magic cas.e.m.e.nts, 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 famed 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?

John Keats [1795-1821]

SONG

'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark, To the soothing song of sorrow.

Oh nightingale! What doth she ail?

And is she sad or jolly?

For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So like to melancholy.

The merry lark, he soars on high, No worldly thought o'ertakes him; He sings aloud to the clear blue sky, And the daylight that awakes him.

As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay, The nightingale is trilling; With feeling bliss, no less than his, Her little heart is thrilling.

Yet ever and anon, a sigh Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth.

By night and day, she tunes her lay, To drive away all sorrow; For bliss, alas! to-night must pa.s.s, And woe may come to-morrow.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1840]

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