All overgrown with azure moss and flowers For whose path the Atlantic's level powers 37 Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below. The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 49 Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear! 42 If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; The impulse of thy strength, only less free The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! 45 48 51 54 A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd One too like thee: tameless and swift, and proud. 56 Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own! The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 59 62 Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth! And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? 1820. 65 68 Percy Bysshe Shelley, ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, 30 O for a draught of vintage! that hath been O for a beaker full of the warm South, 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 20 What thou among 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 youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: 30 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, 40 Nor what soft incense 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. 50 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. 60 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! 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 fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 't is buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? 70 Fled is that music:-Do I wake or sleep? 80 1819. ODE John Keats. BARDS of Passion and of Mirth, Yes, and those of heaven commune |