Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, – While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, 25 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; 29 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new? Yes, and those of heaven commune With the spheres of sun and moon; With the noise of fountains wond'rous, And the parle of voices thund'rous; With the whisper of heaven's trees And one another, in soft ease Seated on Elysian lawns Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns; Underneath large bluebells tented, Where the daisies are rose-scented, And the rose herself has got Perfume which on earth is not; Where the nightingale doth sing Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth; Philosophic numbers smooth; Tales and golden histories Of heaven and its mysteries.
Thus ye live on high, and then On the earth ye live again; And the souls ye left behind you Teach us, here, the way to find you Where your other souls are joying, Never slumber'd, never cloying. Here, your earth-born souls still speak To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights; Of their passions and their spites; Of their glory and their shame; What doth strengthen and what maim. Thus ye teach us, every day, Wisdom, though fled far away.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Ye have souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new!
LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN
Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse from horn and can.
I have heard that on a day Mine host's sign-board flew away, Nobody knew whither, till
An astrologer's old quill
To a sheepskin gave the story,
Said he saw you in your glory, Underneath a new old-sign
Sipping beverage divine,
And pledging with contented smack The Mermaid in the Zodiac.
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
Be mov'd for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh, ye, who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the sea;
O, ye, whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd!
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways ΙΟ Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high pilèd books, in charact'ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
"This river does not see the naked sky, 540 Till it begins to progress silverly
Around the western border of the wood, Whence, from a certain spot, its winding flood Seems at the distance like a crescent moon: And in that nook, the very pride of June, Had I been us'd to pass my weary eyes; The rather for the sun unwilling leaves So dear a picture of his sovereign power, And I could witness his most kingly hour, When he doth tighten up the golden reins, And paces leisurely down amber plains His snorting four. Now when his chariot last Its beams against the zodiac-lion cast, There blossom'd suddenly a magic bed Of sacred ditamy, and poppies red:
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