Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy incense sweet
From swinged censer teeming;

Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat
Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming.

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts, new-grown with
pleasant pain,

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind: Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by

steep;

And there by zephyrs, streams, and birds, and

bees,

The moss-lain Dryads shall be lull'd to sleep; And in the midst of this wide quietness

A rosy sanctuary will I dress

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With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain, With buds, and bells, and stars without a name, With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign, Who, breeding flowers, will never breed the

same:

And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought can win,

A bright torch, and a casement ope at night,
To let the warm Love in!

1820.

John Keats.

67

TO AUTUMN

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch

eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their
clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined
flowers:

II

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by
hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

22

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the

skies.

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1820.

FANCY

John Keats.

EVER let the Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home:

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

Then let winged Fancy wander

Through the thought still spread beyond her:

Open wide the mind's cage-door,

She 'l dart forth, and cloudward soar.

O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear fagot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;

When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy

To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overawed,

Fancy, high-commission'd:-send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up

Like three fit wines in a cup,

And thou shalt quaff it:-thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;

10

20

30

40

Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment-hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plumed lilies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway

Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;

Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

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60

When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;

Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Everything is spoilt by use;

Where's the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gazed at? Where 's the maid 70