O latest-born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus' faded hierarchy !
Fairer than Phoebe's sapphire-regioned star

Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor altar heaped with flowers

;

Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;

No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming ;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat
Of pale-mouthed prophet dreaming!
O brightest though too late for antique vows,
Too-too late for the fond believing lyre,
When holy were the haunted forest boughs,
Holy the air, the water, and the fire;
Yet even in these days so far retired

From happy pieties, thy lucent fans,
Fluttering among the faint Olympians,
I see, and sing, by my own eyes inspired!
So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
Upon the midnight hours!

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 branchéd thoughts, new-grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:

Far, far around shall those dark-clustered 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

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 !

John Keats.

399

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 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
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvéd earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt 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 grey

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 wing 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 embalméd 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

Charmed 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 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.

400

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI

'O, WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.

'O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

'I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.'-

'I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful-a faery's child:
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

'I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone.

She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend and sing
A faery's song.

'She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said :—
'I love thee true!'

'She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh'd full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

'And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dreamed-ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dreamed

On the cold hill's side!

'I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all.
They cried :-'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

'I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gapéd wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.

'And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.'

John Keats.