Ode to a Nightingale. I. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk; Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, II. O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, III. Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, IV. 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, Clustered 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. V. 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; The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, VI. 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, Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— VII. Thou was not born for death, immortal Bird! 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. VIII. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Early Morning. SEE, the day begins to break, Many a note and many a lay. KEATS. FLETCHER. Flowers. SPAKE full well, in language quaint and olden, One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers, so blue and golden Stars that in earth's firmament do shine. Stars they are, wherein we read our history, Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery, Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous, God hath written in those stars above; But not less in the bright flowerets under us Stands the revelation of his love. Bright and glorious is that revelation, In these stars of earth-these golden flowers. And the Poet, faithful and far-seeing, Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part Of the self-same universal being, Which is throbbing in his brain and heart. Gorgeous flowerets in the sun-light shining, Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day, Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining, Buds that open only to decay; |