Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy heat 15 O for a beaker full of the warm South, Of pale-mouth'd prophet dreaming. 50 Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane In some untrodden region of my mind, Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain, Full of the true, the blushful Hippo crene, 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 known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret groan; 25 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 1 A drug made from the leaves or fruit of the poison hemlock tree. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, In ancient days by emperor and clown: Not charioted by Bacchus and his 65 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 ;1 .1 5 Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns, 10 The ever-smitten Hermes empty left theft: Of his great summoner, and made retreat 15 At whose white feet the languid Tritons pour'd Pearls, while on land they wither'd and ador'd. Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, 20 Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose. Ah, what a world of love was at her feet! So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat Burnt from his winged heels to either ear, That from a whiteness, as the lily clear, 25 Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair, Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare. |