66 Ah, Porphyro!" said she, "but even now Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, Made tunable with every sweetest vow; And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear; How changed thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear! Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! Oh leave me not in this eternal wo, For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go." Beyond a mortal man impassion'd far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flush'd, and like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blendeth its odour with the violet,Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride! Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest? [dyed? Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest After so many hours of toil and quest, A famish'd pilgrim,-saved by miracle. Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel." "Hark! 'tis an elfin-storm from fairy-land, Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed: Arise-arise! the morning is at hand ;The bloated wassailers will never heed:Let us away, my love, with happy speed; There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see, Drown'd all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead: Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be, For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee." She hurried at his words, beset with fears, For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spearsDown the wide stairs a darkling way they found,— In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-dropp'd lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor. They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall; Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide, Where lay the porter, in uneasy sprawl, With a huge empty flagon by his side: The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide, But his sagacious eye an inmate owns: By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:The chains lie silent on the foot-worn stones, The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans. And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. That night the baron dreamt of many a wo, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old Died palsy-twitch'd, with meager face deform. The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold. HYMN TO PAN. O THOU, whose mighty palace roof doth hang From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death, Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness; Who lovest to see the hamadryads dress Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken The dreary melody of bedded reeds In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds By all the trembling mazes that she ran, O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Thou, to whom every faun and satyr flies O Hearkener to the loud-clapping shears, The many that are come to pay their vows Be still the unimaginable lodge Then leave the naked brain be still the leaven, A firmament reflected in a sea; An element filling the space between ; An unknown-but no more: we humbly screen ADONIS. I NEED not any hearing tire, By telling how the sea-born goddess pined To watch his slumber through. "Tis wellnigh pass'd, TO HOPE. WHEN by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom; When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit, And the bare heath of life presents no bloom: Sweet Hope! ethereal balm upon me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head. Whene'er I wander at the fall of night, Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright Should sad Despondency my musings fright, [ray, And frown to drive fair Cheerfulness away, Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof, And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof. Should Disappointment, parent of Despair, Strive for her son to seize my careless heart, When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air, Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart: Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright, And fright him, as the morning frightens night! Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow: Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed, And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head! Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain, To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air! In the long vista of the years to roll, Let me not see our country's honour fade! O let me see our land retain her soul! Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade. From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed, Beneath thy pinions canopy my head! Let me not see the patriot's high bequest, Great Liberty! how great in plain attire! With the base purple of a court oppress'd, Bowing her head, and ready to expire: But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings That fill the skies with silver glitterings! And as, in sparkling majesty, a star Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud; Brightening the half-veil'd face of heaven afar; So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud, Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed, Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head. SOVEREIGNTY OF LOVE. O SOVEREIGN power of love! O grief! O balm! Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades, To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. Mr 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; "T is not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,— That thou, light-winged dryad of the trees, O for a draught of vintage, that hath been 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, And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, 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, Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird! She stood in tears amid the alien corn; 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 't is buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision or a waking dream? Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep? TO AUTUMN. SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness! To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel-shells Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they? 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. ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness! A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? [loth? What men or gods are these? What maidens What mad pursuit? What straggle 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 ; For ever panting and for ever young; Who are these coming to the sacrifice? Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? 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 wo Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all 66 Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ON FIRST SEEING CHAPMAN'S HOMER. MUCH have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific-and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien. ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. THE poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead: That is the grasshopper's-he takes the lead In summer luxury, he has never done With his delights, for when tired out with fun, He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed. The poetry of earth is ceasing never: On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever And seems to one in drowsiness half lost, The grasshopper's among some grassy hills. REGALITIES. THERE are who lord it o'er their fellow-men With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen Their baaing vanities, to browse away The comfortable green and juicy hay From human pastures; or, O torturing fact! Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge Of sanctuary splendour, nor a sight Able to face an owl's, they still are dight By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests, Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabour'd drums, ADONIS SLEEPING. A CHAMBER, myrtle-wall'd, embower'd high, In midst of all, there lay & sleeping youth Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach; Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds Not hiding up an Apollonian curve Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve A FAIRY SCENE FROM ENDYMION Gold dome, and crystal wall, and turquoise floor, SLEEP. O MAGIC sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth! O unconfined Restraint! imprison'd liberty! great key To golden palaces, strange minstrelsy, Fountains grotesque, new trees, bespangled caves, Echoing grottoes, full of tumbling waves And moonlight; aye, to all the mazy world Of silvery enchantment!-who, unfurl'd Beneath thy drowsy wing, a triple hour But renovates and lives! SCENES OF BOYHOOD. Unfaded amaranth, when wild it strays |