I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd 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 covered 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.

45

50

55

Darkling I listen ; and for many a time

1
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a musèd 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.

60

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

65 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.

70 Adieu! adieu ! thy plaintive anthem fades

75 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?

80

John Keats. CCXXIII

ODE TO A SKYLARK.

5

10

Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it

Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;

The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still cost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning

Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are brightening,

Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied Joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even

Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven

In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:

Keen as are the arrows

Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows

In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.

15

20

25

All the earth and air

With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,

From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

31

What thou art we know not ;

What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not

Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

35

Like a poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,

Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

40

Like a high-born maiden

In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden

Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 45

Like a glowworm golden

In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden

Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 50

view:

Like a rose embowered

In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,

Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 55 thieves.

U

Sound of vernal showers

On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,

All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.

60

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard

Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

65

Chorus hymeneal,

Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine, would be all

But an empty vaunt-
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70

What objects are the fountains

Of thy happy strain ?
What fields, or waves, or mountains ?

What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain ? 75

With thy clear keen joyance

Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance

Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.

80

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 85

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not :

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

91

Yet if we could scorn

Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

95

Better than all measures

Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures

That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground !

100

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now! 105

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

CCXXIV

•ON THIS DAY I COMPLETE MY THIRTY-SIXTH

YEAR.'

'Tis time this heart should be unmoved,

Since others it hath ceased to move :
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,

Still let me love !

5

My days are in the yellow leaf;

The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief

Are mine alone!