Writhe at defeat, and nurse your agonies!
Shut up your senses, stifle up your ears,
My voice is not a bellows unto ire.

Yet listen, ye who will, whilst I bring proof
How ye, perforce, must be content to stoop;
And in the proof much comfort will I give,
If ye will take that comfort in its truth.
We fall by course of Nature's law, not force
Of thunder nor of Jove. Great Saturn, thou
Hast sifted well the atom-universe;
But for this reason that thou art the King,
And only blind from sheer supremacy :
One avenue was shaded from thine eyes
Through which I wandered to eternal truth.
And first, as thou wast not the first of powers,
So art thou not the last; it cannot be.
Thou art not the beginning or the end.

"From Chaos and parental Darkness came
Light, the first fruits of that intestine broil,
That sullen ferment, which for wondrous ends
Was ripening in itself. The ripe hour came,
And with it Light; and Light, engendering
Upon its own producer, forthwith touched
The whole enormous matter into life.
Upon that very hour, our parentage,

The Heavens and the Earth, were manifest:
Then thou first-born, and we the giant race,
Found ourselves ruling new and beauteous realms.
"Now comes the pain of truth, to whom 'tis pain;
O folly for to bear all naked truths,

And to envisage circumstance, all calm,

That is the top of sovereignty. Mark well!

As Heaven and Earth are fairer, fairer far

Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth,

In form and shape compact and beautiful,

In will, in action free, companionship,
And thousand other signs of purer life;
So on our heels a fresh perfection treads,

A power more strong in beauty, born of us,
And fated to excel us, as we pass
In glory that old Darkness: nor are we

More conquered than by us the rule
Of shapeless Chaos.

"Say, doth the dull soil
Quarrel with the proud forests it hath fed,
And feedeth still, more comely than itself?
Can it deny the chiefdom of green groves?
Or shall the tree be envious of the dove
Because it cooeth, and hath snowy wings
To wander wherewithal and find its joys?—
We are such forest-trees, and our fair boughs
Have bred forth, not pale, solitary doves,
But eagles, golden-feathered, who do tower
Above us in their beauty, and must reign
In right thereof; for 'tis the eternal law
That first in beauty should be first in might.
Yea, by that law, another race may drive
Our conquerors to mourn as we do now.

"Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas,
My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face?
Have ye beheld his chariot, foamed along
By noble-winged creatures he hath made?
I saw him on the calmèd waters scud,
With such a glow of beauty in his eyes,
That it enforced me to bid sad farewell
To all my empire. Farewell sad I took,
And hither came to see how dolorous fate
Had wrought upon ye; and how I might best
Give consolation in this woe extreme.

Receive the truth, and let it be your balm."
-Hyperion, Book II.

ODE TO A GRECIAN URN.

Thou still unravished 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-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempé or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loath? 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 endeared,
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,
Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy boughs! that cannot shed.
Your leaves or ever bid the Spring adieu;
And happy melodist, unwearièd,

Forever piping songs forever new :

More happy love! More happy, happy love!
Forever warm and still to be enjoyed,

Forever panting, and forever young;

All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead and a parching tongue.

Who are those 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 its 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."

ON FIRST READING CHAPMAN'S HOMER.

Much have I travelled 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-browed Homer ruled as his demesne : Yet never did I 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 Looked at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak of Darien.

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

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-ward had sunk :
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy 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.

Oh, for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cooled a long time in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country-green.

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Oh, for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd 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 amongst the leaves hast never known,