Poetry

Ode to Evening

By William Collins

If aught of oaten stop, or past'ral song, 

May hope, chaste Eve, to soothe thy modest ear, 

Like thy own solemn springs, 

Thy springs and dying gales, 

O nymph reserved, while now the bright-haired sun 

Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts, 

With brede ethereal wove, 

O'erhang his wavy bed; 

Now air is hushed, save where the weak-ey'd bat 

With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, 

Or where the beetle winds 

His small but sullen horn 

As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path 

Against the pilgrim, borne in heedless hum: 

Now teach me, maid composed, 

To breathe some softened strain, 

Whose numbers stealing through thy dark'ning vale 

May not unseemly with its stillness suit, 

As musing slow, I hail 

Thy genial loved return. 

For when thy folding star arising shows 

His paly circlet, at his warning lamp 

The fragrant Hours, and elves 

Who slept in flowers the day, 

And many a nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge 

And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and lovelier still, 

The pensive pleasures sweet 

Prepare thy shad'wy car. 

Then lead, calm votress, where some sheety lake 

Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallowed pile 

Or upland fallows grey 

Reflect its last cool gleam. 

But when chill blust'ring winds, or driving rain, 

Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut 

That from the mountain's side 

Views wilds, and swelling floods, 

And hamlets brown, and dim-discovered spires, 

And hears their simple bell, and marks o'er all 

Thy dewy fingers draw 

The gradual dusky veil. 

While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, 

And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve; 

While Summer loves to sport 

Beneath thy ling'ring light; 

While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves; 

Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, 

Affrights thy shrinking train 

And rudely rends thy robes; 

So long, sure-found beneath the sylvan shed, 

Shall Fancy, Friendship, Science, rose-lipp'd Health, 

Thy gentlest influence own, 

And hymn thy fav'rite name! 

A Poison Tree

By William Blake

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I waterd it in fears, 

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles, 

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine, 

And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright, 

In the forests of the night; 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 

Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 

On what wings dare he aspire? 

What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 

Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 

And when thy heart began to beat, 

What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 

In what furnace was thy brain? 

What the anvil? what dread grasp, 

Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 

And water'd heaven with their tears: 

Did he smile his work to see? 

Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 

In the forests of the night: 

What immortal hand or eye, 

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The Lamb

By William Blake

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead; 

Gave thee clothing of delight, 

Softest clothing wooly bright; 

Gave thee such a tender voice, 

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee, 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name, 

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

Romantic Period

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
By William Wordsworth

Five years have past; five summers, with the length 

Of five long winters! and again I hear 

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs 

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again 

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, 

That on a wild secluded scene impress 

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect 

The landscape with the quiet of the sky. 

The day is come when I again repose 

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts, 

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits, 

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms, 

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke 

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! 

With some uncertain notice, as might seem 

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, 

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire 

The Hermit sits alone. 

                                              These beauteous forms, 

Through a long absence, have not been to me 

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: 

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din 

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, 

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; 

And passing even into my purer mind 

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too 

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, 

As have no slight or trivial influence 

On that best portion of a good man's life, 

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts 

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, 

To them I may have owed another gift, 

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, 

In which the burthen of the mystery, 

In which the heavy and the weary weight 

Of all this unintelligible world, 

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood, 

In which the affections gently lead us on,— 

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame 

And even the motion of our human blood 

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep 

In body, and become a living soul: 

While with an eye made quiet by the power 

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 

We see into the life of things. 

                                                        If this 

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— 

In darkness and amid the many shapes 

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir 

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, 

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— 

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, 

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods, 

         How often has my spirit turned to thee! 

   And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, 

With many recognitions dim and faint, 

And somewhat of a sad perplexity, 

The picture of the mind revives again: 

While here I stand, not only with the sense 

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts 

That in this moment there is life and food 

For future years. And so I dare to hope, 

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first 

I came among these hills; when like a roe 

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides 

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, 

Wherever nature led: more like a man 

Flying from something that he dreads, than one 

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then 

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days 

And their glad animal movements all gone by) 

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint 

What then I was. The sounding cataract 

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, 

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, 

Their colours and their forms, were then to me 

An appetite; a feeling and a love, 

That had no need of a remoter charm, 

By thought supplied, not any interest 

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, 

And all its aching joys are now no more, 

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this 

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts 

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe, 

Abundant recompense. For I have learned 

To look on nature, not as in the hour 

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes 

The still sad music of humanity, 

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power 

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt 

A presence that disturbs me with the joy 

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 

Of something far more deeply interfused, 

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

And the round ocean and the living air, 

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: 

A motion and a spirit, that impels 

All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still 

A lover of the meadows and the woods 

And mountains; and of all that we behold 

From this green earth; of all the mighty world 

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, 

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise 

In nature and the language of the sense 

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul 

Of all my moral being. 

                                            Nor perchance, 

If I were not thus taught, should I the more 

Suffer my genial spirits to decay: 

For thou art with me here upon the banks 

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, 

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch 

The language of my former heart, and read 

My former pleasures in the shooting lights 

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while 

May I behold in thee what I was once, 

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make, 

Knowing that Nature never did betray 

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, 

Through all the years of this our life, to lead 

From joy to joy: for she can so inform 

The mind that is within us, so impress 

With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

The dreary intercourse of daily life, 

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon 

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk; 

And let the misty mountain-winds be free 

To blow against thee: and, in after years, 

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured 

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind 

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, 

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place 

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then, 

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, 

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts 

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, 

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance— 

If I should be where I no more can hear 

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams 

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget 

That on the banks of this delightful stream 

We stood together; and that I, so long 

A worshipper of Nature, hither came 

Unwearied in that service: rather say 

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal 

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget, 

That after many wanderings, many years 

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs, 

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me 

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake! 

Kubla Khan

BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment. 

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree: 

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran 

Through caverns measureless to man 

   Down to a sunless sea. 

So twice five miles of fertile ground 

With walls and towers were girdled round; 

And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; 

And here were forests ancient as the hills, 

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery. 

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 

A savage place! as holy and enchanted 

As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted 

By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, 

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 

A mighty fountain momently was forced: 

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: 

And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 

It flung up momently the sacred river. 

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 

Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; 

And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far 

Ancestral voices prophesying war! 

   The shadow of the dome of pleasure 

   Floated midway on the waves; 

   Where was heard the mingled measure 

   From the fountain and the caves. 

It was a miracle of rare device, 

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice! 

   A damsel with a dulcimer 

   In a vision once I saw: 

   It was an Abyssinian maid 

   And on her dulcimer she played, 

   Singing of Mount Abora. 

   Could I revive within me 

   Her symphony and song, 

   To such a deep delight ’twould win me, 

That with music loud and long, 

I would build that dome in air, 

That sunny dome! those caves of ice! 

And all who heard should see them there, 

And all should cry, Beware! Beware! 

His flashing eyes, his floating hair! 

Weave a circle round him thrice, 

And close your eyes with holy dread 

For he on honey-dew hath fed, 

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Ode to a Nightingale

BY JOHN KEATS

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 thine 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-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

         Dance, and Provençal 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 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 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, 

                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 embalmed 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 

         Charm'd 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 fam'd 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? 

Ode on a Grecian Urn

By John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 

       Of deities or mortals, or of both, 

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; 

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

         For ever piping songs for ever new; 

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 

                For ever panting, and for ever young; 

All breathing human passion far above, 

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 

What little town by river or sea shore, 

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 

And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 

         When old age shall this generation waste, 

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

The Lotos-eaters
By Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 

"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 

In the afternoon they came unto a land 

In which it seemed always afternoon. 

All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; 

And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, 

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, 

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, 

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, 

Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops, 

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 

In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 

Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 

And meadow, set with slender galingale; 

A land where all things always seem'd the same! 

And round about the keel with faces pale, 

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, 

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave 

To each, but whoso did receive of them, 

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave 

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 

And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake, 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 

Between the sun and moon upon the shore; 

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 

Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 

Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, 

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 

Then some one said, "We will return no more"; 

And all at once they sang, "Our island home 

Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 

CHORIC SONG 

I 

There is sweet music here that softer falls 

Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 

Or night-dews on still waters between walls 

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; 

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 

Here are cool mosses deep, 

And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep." 

II 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 

And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 

While all things else have rest from weariness? 

All things have rest: why should we toil alone, 

We only toil, who are the first of things, 

And make perpetual moan, 

Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 

Nor ever fold our wings, 

And cease from wanderings, 

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; 

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 

"There is no joy but calm!" 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 

III 

Lo! in the middle of the wood, 

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 

With winds upon the branch, and there 

Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 

Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 

Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow 

Falls, and floats adown the air. 

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, 

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 

Drops in a silent autumn night. 

All its allotted length of days 

The flower ripens in its place, 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

IV 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 

Death is the end of life; ah, why 

Should life all labour be? 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 

And in a little while our lips are dumb. 

Let us alone. What is it that will last? 

All things are taken from us, and become 

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. 

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 

To war with evil? Is there any peace 

In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 

In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. 

V 

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 

With half-shut eyes ever to seem 

Falling asleep in a half-dream! 

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, 

Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; 

To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 

Eating the Lotos day by day, 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory, 

With those old faces of our infancy 

Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! 

VI 

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 

And dear the last embraces of our wives 

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change: 

For surely now our household hearths are cold, 

Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: 

And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 

Or else the island princes over-bold 

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 

Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 

And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. 

Is there confusion in the little isle? 

Let what is broken so remain. 

The Gods are hard to reconcile: 

'Tis hard to settle order once again. 

There is confusion worse than death, 

Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 

Long labour unto aged breath, 

Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars 

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. 

VII 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 

With half-dropt eyelid still, 

Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 

His waters from the purple hill— 

To hear the dewy echoes calling 

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine— 

To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. 

VIII 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: 

The Lotos blows by every winding creek: 

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: 

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. 

We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, 

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. 

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd 

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd 

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: 

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. 

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song 

Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, 

Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; 

Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, 

Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, 

Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; 

Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell 

Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, 

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 

Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; 

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 

The Scholar-Gipsy

By Matthew Arnold

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill; 

Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes! 

No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed, 

Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats, 

Nor the cropp'd herbage shoot another head. 

But when the fields are still, 

And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest, 

And only the white sheep are sometimes seen 

Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanch'd green. 

Come, shepherd, and again begin the quest! 

Here, where the reaper was at work of late— 

In this high field's dark corner, where he leaves 

His coat, his basket, and his earthen cruse, 

And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves, 

Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use— 

Here will I sit and wait, 

While to my ear from uplands far away 

The bleating of the folded flocks is borne, 

With distant cries of reapers in the corn— 

All the live murmur of a summer's day. 

Screen'd is this nook o'er the high, half-reap'd field, 

And here till sun-down, shepherd! will I be. 

Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep, 

And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see 

Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep; 

And air-swept lindens yield 

Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed showers 

Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid, 

And bower me from the August sun with shade; 

And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers. 

And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book— 

Come, let me read the oft-read tale again! 

The story of the Oxford scholar poor, 

Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain, 

Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door, 

One summer-morn forsook 

His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore, 

And roam'd the world with that wild brotherhood, 

And came, as most men deem'd, to little good, 

But came to Oxford and his friends no more. 

But once, years after, in the country-lanes, 

Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew, 

Met him, and of his way of life enquired; 

Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew, 

His mates, had arts to rule as they desired 

The workings of men's brains, 

And they can bind them to what thoughts they will. 

"And I," he said, "the secret of their art, 

When fully learn'd, will to the world impart; 

But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill." 

This said, he left them, and return'd no more.— 

But rumours hung about the country-side, 

That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, 

Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied, 

In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey, 

The same the gipsies wore. 

Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring; 

At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors, 

On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors 

Had found him seated at their entering, 

But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly. 

And I myself seem half to know thy looks, 

And put the shepherds, wanderer! on thy trace; 

And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks 

I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place; 

Or in my boat I lie 

Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats, 

'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills, 

And watch the warm, green-muffled Cumner hills, 

And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats. 

For most, I know, thou lov'st retired ground! 

Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe, 

Returning home on summer-nights, have met 

Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe, 

Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 

As the punt's rope chops round; 

And leaning backward in a pensive dream, 

And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers 

Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers, 

And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream. 

And then they land, and thou art seen no more!— 

Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come 

To dance around the Fyfield elm in May, 

Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam, 

Or cross a stile into the public way. 

Oft thou hast given them store 

Of flowers—the frail-leaf'd, white anemony, 

Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer eves, 

And purple orchises with spotted leaves— 

But none hath words she can report of thee. 

And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here 

In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames, 

Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass 

Where black-wing'd swallows haunt the glittering Thames, 

To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass, 

Have often pass'd thee near 

Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown; 

Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare, 

Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air— 

But, when they came from bathing, thou wast gone! 

At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills, 

Where at her open door the housewife darns, 

Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate 

To watch the threshers in the mossy barns. 

Children, who early range these slopes and late 

For cresses from the rills, 

Have known thee eyeing, all an April-day, 

The springing pasture and the feeding kine; 

And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and shine, 

Through the long dewy grass move slow away. 

In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood— 

Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way 

Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see 

With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of grey, 

Above the forest-ground called Thessaly— 

The blackbird, picking food, 

Sees thee, nor stops his meal, nor fears at all; 

So often has he known thee past him stray, 

Rapt, twirling in thy hand a wither'd spray, 

And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall. 

And once, in winter, on the causeway chill 

Where home through flooded fields foot-travellers go, 

Have I not pass'd thee on the wooden bridge, 

Wrapt in thy cloak and battling with the snow, 

Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge? 

And thou has climb'd the hill, 

And gain'd the white brow of the Cumner range; 

Turn'd once to watch, while thick the snowflakes fall, 

The line of festal light in Christ-Church hall— 

Then sought thy straw in some sequester'd grange. 

But what—I dream! Two hundred years are flown 

Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls, 

And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe 

That thou wert wander'd from the studious walls 

To learn strange arts, and join a gipsy-tribe; 

And thou from earth art gone 

Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid— 

Some country-nook, where o'er thy unknown grave 

Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave, 

Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree's shade. 

—No, no, thou hast not felt the lapse of hours! 

For what wears out the life of mortal men? 

'Tis that from change to change their being rolls; 

'Tis that repeated shocks, again, again, 

Exhaust the energy of strongest souls 

And numb the elastic powers. 

Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen, 

And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit, 

To the just-pausing Genius we remit 

Our worn-out life, and are—what we have been. 

Thou hast not lived, why should'st thou perish, so? 

Thou hadst one aim, one business, one desire; 

Else wert thou long since number'd with the dead! 

Else hadst thou spent, like other men, thy fire! 

The generations of thy peers are fled, 

And we ourselves shall go; 

But thou possessest an immortal lot, 

And we imagine thee exempt from age 

And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page, 

Because thou hadst—what we, alas! have not. 

For early didst thou leave the world, with powers 

Fresh, undiverted to the world without, 

Firm to their mark, not spent on other things; 

Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt, 

Which much to have tried, in much been baffled, brings. 

O life unlike to ours! 

Who fluctuate idly without term or scope, 

Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives, 

And each half lives a hundred different lives; 

Who wait like thee, but not, like thee, in hope. 

Thou waitest for the spark from heaven! and we, 

Light half-believers of our casual creeds, 

Who never deeply felt, nor clearly will'd, 

Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds, 

Whose vague resolves never have been fulfill'd; 

For whom each year we see 

Breeds new beginnings, disappointments new; 

Who hesitate and falter life away, 

And lose to-morrow the ground won to-day— 

Ah! do not we, wanderer! await it too? 

Yes, we await it!—but it still delays, 

And then we suffer! and amongst us one, 

Who most has suffer'd, takes dejectedly 

His seat upon the intellectual throne; 

And all his store of sad experience he 

Lays bare of wretched days; 

Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs, 

And how the dying spark of hope was fed, 

And how the breast was soothed, and how the head, 

And all his hourly varied anodynes. 

This for our wisest! and we others pine, 

And wish the long unhappy dream would end, 

And waive all claim to bliss, and try to bear; 

With close-lipp'd patience for our only friend, 

Sad patience, too near neighbour to despair— 

But none has hope like thine! 

Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray, 

Roaming the country-side, a truant boy, 

Nursing thy project in unclouded joy, 

And every doubt long blown by time away. 

O born in days when wits were fresh and clear, 

And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames; 

Before this strange disease of modern life, 

With its sick hurry, its divided aims, 

Its heads o'ertax'd, its palsied hearts, was rife— 

Fly hence, our contact fear! 

Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood! 

Averse, as Dido did with gesture stern 

From her false friend's approach in Hades turn, 

Wave us away, and keep thy solitude! 

Still nursing the unconquerable hope, 

Still clutching the inviolable shade, 

With a free, onward impulse brushing through, 

By night, the silver'd branches of the glade— 

Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue, 

On some mild pastoral slope 

Emerge, and resting on the moonlit pales 

Freshen thy flowers as in former years 

With dew, or listen with enchanted ears, 

From the dark tingles, to the nightingales! 

But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly! 

For strong the infection of our mental strife, 

Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest; 

And we should win thee from thy own fair life, 

Like us distracted, and like us unblest. 

Soon, soon thy cheer would die, 

Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfix'd thy powers, 

And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made; 

And then thy glad perennial youth would fade, 

Fade and grow old at last, and die like ours. 

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles! 

—As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea, 

Descried at sunrise an emerging prow 

Lifting the cool-hair'd creepers stealthily, 

The fringes of a southward-facing brow 

Among the Ægæan Isles; 

And saw the merry Grecian coaster come, 

Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine, 

Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steep'd in brine— 

And knew the intruders on his ancient home, 

The young light-hearted masters of the waves— 

And snatch'd his rudder, and shook out more sail; 

And day and night held on indignantly 

O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, 

Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 

To where the Atlantic raves 

Outside the western straits; and unbent sails 

There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam, 

Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come; 

And on the beach undid his corded bales.

Ode to a Nightingale

By John Keats

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 thine 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-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

         Dance, and Provençal 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 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 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, 

                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 embalmed 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 

         Charm'd 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 fam'd 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? 

Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 

       Of deities or mortals, or of both, 

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; 

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

         For ever piping songs for ever new; 

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 

                For ever panting, and for ever young; 

All breathing human passion far above, 

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 

What little town by river or sea shore, 

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 

And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 

         When old age shall this generation waste, 

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

The Lotos-eatersBy Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, 

"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon." 

In the afternoon they came unto a land 

In which it seemed always afternoon. 

All round the coast the languid air did swoon, 

Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. 

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; 

And like a downward smoke, the slender stream 

Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem. 

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke, 

Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go; 

And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke, 

Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below. 

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow 

From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops, 

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow, 

Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops, 

Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse. 

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown 

In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale 

Was seen far inland, and the yellow down 

Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale 

And meadow, set with slender galingale; 

A land where all things always seem'd the same! 

And round about the keel with faces pale, 

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame, 

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came. 

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem, 

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave 

To each, but whoso did receive of them, 

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave 

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave 

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake, 

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave; 

And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake, 

And music in his ears his beating heart did make. 

They sat them down upon the yellow sand, 

Between the sun and moon upon the shore; 

And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland, 

Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore 

Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar, 

Weary the wandering fields of barren foam. 

Then some one said, "We will return no more"; 

And all at once they sang, "Our island home 

Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam." 

CHORIC SONG 

I 

There is sweet music here that softer falls 

Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 

Or night-dews on still waters between walls 

Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 

Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 

Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes; 

Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. 

Here are cool mosses deep, 

And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 

And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 

And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep." 

II 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 

And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 

While all things else have rest from weariness? 

All things have rest: why should we toil alone, 

We only toil, who are the first of things, 

And make perpetual moan, 

Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 

Nor ever fold our wings, 

And cease from wanderings, 

Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; 

Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 

"There is no joy but calm!" 

Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 

III 

Lo! in the middle of the wood, 

The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 

With winds upon the branch, and there 

Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 

Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 

Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow 

Falls, and floats adown the air. 

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, 

The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 

Drops in a silent autumn night. 

All its allotted length of days 

The flower ripens in its place, 

Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 

Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil. 

IV 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 

Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea. 

Death is the end of life; ah, why 

Should life all labour be? 

Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, 

And in a little while our lips are dumb. 

Let us alone. What is it that will last? 

All things are taken from us, and become 

Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. 

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have 

To war with evil? Is there any peace 

In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 

All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 

In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 

Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. 

V 

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 

With half-shut eyes ever to seem 

Falling asleep in a half-dream! 

To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, 

Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; 

To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 

Eating the Lotos day by day, 

To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 

And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 

To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 

To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 

To muse and brood and live again in memory, 

With those old faces of our infancy 

Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 

Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! 

VI 

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 

And dear the last embraces of our wives 

And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change: 

For surely now our household hearths are cold, 

Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: 

And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy. 

Or else the island princes over-bold 

Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 

Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 

And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things. 

Is there confusion in the little isle? 

Let what is broken so remain. 

The Gods are hard to reconcile: 

'Tis hard to settle order once again. 

There is confusion worse than death, 

Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 

Long labour unto aged breath, 

Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars 

And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars. 

VII 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, 

How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 

With half-dropt eyelid still, 

Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 

To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 

His waters from the purple hill— 

To hear the dewy echoes calling 

From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine— 

To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 

Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 

Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 

Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine. 

VIII 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: 

The Lotos blows by every winding creek: 

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: 

Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown. 

We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 

Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, 

Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea. 

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined 

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind. 

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd 

Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd 

Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: 

Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 

Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 

Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands. 

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song 

Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, 

Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; 

Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, 

Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, 

Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; 

Till they perish and they suffer—some, 'tis whisper'd—down in hell 

Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, 

Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel. 

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 

Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; 

O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more. 

Ode to a Nightingale

By John Keats

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 thine 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-delved earth, 

Tasting of Flora and the country green, 

         Dance, and Provençal 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 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 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, 

                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 embalmed 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 

         Charm'd 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 fam'd 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? 

Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, 

       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, 

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

       A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: 

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape 

       Of deities or mortals, or of both, 

               In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? 

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? 

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

       Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; 

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, 

       Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: 

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

       Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; 

               Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 

Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; 

       She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 

               For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 

         Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; 

And, happy melodist, unwearied, 

         For ever piping songs for ever new; 

More happy love! more happy, happy love! 

         For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd, 

                For ever panting, and for ever young; 

All breathing human passion far above, 

         That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd, 

                A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice? 

         To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 

Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

         And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? 

What little town by river or sea shore, 

         Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, 

                Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 

And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

         Will silent be; and not a soul to tell 

                Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 

         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 

With forest branches and the trodden weed; 

         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 

         When old age shall this generation waste, 

                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."