The Thrush
O thou! whose face hath felt the Winter's wind,
Whose eye hath seen the snow-clouds hung in mist,
And the black elm-tops among the freezing stars:
To thee the Spring will be a harvest-time.
O thou! whose only book hath been the light
Of supreme darkness, which thou feddest on
Night after night, when Phoebus was away,
To thee the Spring will be a triple morn.
O fret not after knowledge! - I have none,
And yet my song comes native with the warmth.
O fret not after knowledge! - I have none,
And yet the Evening listens. He who saddens
At thought of idleness cannot be idle,
And he's awake who thinks himself asleep.
To Leigh Hunt Esq.
Glory and loveliness have pass'd away;
For if we wander out in early morn,
No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:
No crows of nymphs soft voiced and young and gay,
In woven baskets bringing ears of corn,
Roses and pinks, and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
But there are left delights as high as these,
And I shall ever bless my destiny,
That in a time when under pleasant trees
Pan no longer sought, I feel a free,
A leafy luxury, seeing I could please
With these poor offerings, a man like thee.
Ode To A Nightengale
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-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine 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.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With bearded 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
What thou amongst 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 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 Baachus and his pards,
BUt on the wings of Poesy,
Through 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,
Nor what soft incence hangs upon the boughs,
BUt, in embalmed 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 cover'd 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.
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 -
To thy high requiem become a sod.
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
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd 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.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the next 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?
Hymn to Apollo
God of the golden bow,
And of the golden lyre,
And of the golden hair,
And of the golden fire,
Charioteer
Of the patient year,
Where - where slept thine ire,
When like a blank idiot I put on thy wreath,
Thy laurel, thy glory,
The light of thy story,
Or was I a worm - too low crawling, for death?
O Delphic Apollo!
The Thunderer grasp'd and grasp'd,
The Thunderer frown'd and frown'd;
The eagle's feathery mane
For wrath became stiffened - the sound
Of breeding thunder
Went drowsily under,
Muttering to be unbound.
O why didst thou pity, and for a worm
Why touch thy soft lute
Till the thunder was mute,
Why was not I crush'd - such a pitiful germ?
O Delphic Apollo!
The Pleides were up,
Watching the silent air;
The seeds and roots in the Earth
Were swelling for summer fare;
The Ocean, its neighbor,
Was at its old labour,
When, who - who did dare
To tie, like a madman, thy plant round his brow,
And grin and look proudly,
And blaspheme so loudly,
And live for that honour, to stoop to thee now?
O Delphic Apollo!
Lines
Unfelt, unheard, unseen,
I've left my little queen,
Her languid arms in silver slumber lying:
Ah! through their nestling touch,
Who - who could tell how much
There is for madness - cruel, or complying?
Those faery lids how sleek!
Those lips how moist! - they speak,
In ripest shadows of sweet sounds:
Into my fancy's ear
Melting a burden dear,
How 'Love doth know no fullness, and no bounds.'
True! - tender monitors!
I bend unto your laws:
This sweetest day for dalliance was born!
So, without more ado,
I'll feel my heaven anew,
For all the blushing of the hasty morn.
To My Brother George
Many wonders I this day have seen:
The sun, when first he kist away the tears
That fill'd the eyes of morn; - the laurell'd peers
Who from the feathery gold of evening lean; -
The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,
Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears, -
Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears
Must think on what will be, and what has been.
E'en now, dear George, while this for you I write,
Cynthia is from her silken curtain peeping
So scantily, that it seems her bridal night,
And she her half-discover'd revels keeping.
But what, without a social thought of thee,
Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?
A Prophecy
'Tis the witching hour of night,
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen -
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the moon is waxing warm
To hear what I shall say.
Moon! keep wide thy golden ears
Hearken, stars! and hearken, spheres! -
Hearken , thou eternal sky!
I sing an infant's lullaby.
A pretty lullaby.
Listen, listen, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Though the rushes that will make
Its cradle are in the lake -
Though the linen that will be
Its swathe, is on the cotton tree -
Though the woolen that will keep
It warm, is on the silly sheep -
Listen, starlight, listen, listen,
Glisten, glisten, glisten, glisten,
And hear my lullaby!
Child, I see thee! Child, I've found thee
Midst of the quiet all around thee!
Child, I see thee! Child, I spy thee!
And thy mother sweet is nigh thee!
Child, I know thee! Child no more
But a poet evermore!
See, see, the lyre, the lyre,
In a flame of fire,
Upon the little cradle's top
Flaring, flaring, flaring,
Past the eyesight's bearing.
Awake it from its sleep,
And see if it can keep
Its eyes upon the blaze -
Amaze, amaze!
It stares, it stares, it stares,
It dares what no one dares!
It lifts its little hand into the flame
Unharm'd, and on the strings
Paddles a little tune, and sings,
With dumb endeavour sweetly -
Bard art thou completely!
Little child
O' the western wild,
Bard art though completely!
Sweetly with dumb endeavour,
A poet now or never,
Little child
O' the western wild,
A poet now or never!
To One Who Has Been Long
To one who had been long in city pent,
'Tis very sweet to look into the fair
And open face of heaven, - to breathe a prayer
Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
Who is more happy, when, with heart's content,
Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
Of wavy grass, and read a debonair
And gentle tale of love and languishment?
Returning home at evening, with an ear
Catching the notes of Philomel, - an eye
Watching the sailing cloudlet's bright career,
He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
E'en like the passage of an angel's tear
That falls through the clear ether silently.
To G.A.W.
Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance,
In what diviner moments of the day
Art thou most lovely? When gone far astray
Into the labyrinths of sweet utterance?
Or when serenely wandering in a trance
Of sober thought? Or when starting away,
With careless robe, to meet the morning ray,
Thou sparest the flowers in thy mazy dance?
Haply, 'tis when thy ruby lips part sweetly,
And so remain, because thou listenest:
But thou to please wert nutured so completely
That I can never tell what mood is best.
I shall as soon pronouce which grace more neatly
Trips it before Apollo than the rest.
Keen, Fitful Gusts
Keen, fitful gusts are whispering here and there
Among the bushes, half leafless and dry:
The stars look very cold about the sky,
And I have many miles on foot to fare;
Yet feel I little of the cool bleak air,
Or of the dead leaves rustling drearily,
Or of those silver lamps that burn on high,
Or of the distance from home's pleasant lair:
For I am brimfull of friendliness
That in a little cottage I have found;
Of fair-haired Milton's eloquent distress,
And all his love for gentle Lycid drown'd
Of lovely Laura in her light green dress,
And faithful Petrarch gloriously crown'd.
To A Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the sky-lark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert; when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; 'twas the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on itsfragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell'd:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense of their deliciousness was spell'd:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper'd of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell'd.