CCCXXIV THE POET'S DREAM On a Poet's lips I slept Dreaming like a love-adept In the sound his breathing kept; Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, But feeds on the aërial kisses Of shapes that haunt Thought's wildernesses. He will watch from dawn to gloom The lake-reflected sun illume The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, Nor heed nor see what things they be But from these create he can Forms more real than living Man, Nurslings of Immortality! P. B. Shelley CCCXXV GLEN-ALMAIN, THE NARROW GLEN In this still place, remote from men, And should, methinks, when all was past, Where rocks were rudely heap'd, and rent Where sights were rough, and sounds were wild, And everything unreconciled; In some complaining, dim retreat, For fear and melancholy meet ; But this is calm; there cannot be Does then the Bard sleep here indeed? Was moved; and in such way express'd A convent, even a hermit's cell, But something deeper far than these : W. Wordsworth CCCXXVI The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn. W. Wordsworth CCCXXVII WITHIN KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd (Albeit labouring for a scanty band Of white-robed Scholars only) this immense And glorious work of fine intelligence ! -Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely-calculated less or more : So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof W. Wordsworth CCCXXVIII ODE ON A GRECIAN URN Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : In Tempé 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 Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed 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 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 J. Keats CCCXXIX YOUTH AND AGE Verse, a breeze 'mid blossoms straying, When I was young?-Ah, woful when! Nought cared this body for wind or weather Flowers are lovely; Love is flower-like; Friendship is a sheltering tree; D! the joys, that came down shower-like, Ere I was old? Ah woful Ere, Which tells me, Youth's no longer here! |