Selected Poems and Letters. John Keats

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.

      VIII.

      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 ’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?

       Fancy

      Ever let the Fancy roam,

      Pleasure never is at home:

      At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

      Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;

      Then let winged Fancy wander

      Through the thought still spread beyond her:

      Open wide the mind’s cage-door,

      She’ll dart forth, and cloudward soar.

      O sweet Fancy! let her loose;

      Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,

      And the enjoying of the Spring

      Fades as does its blossoming;

      Autumn’s red-lipp’d fruitage too,

      Blushing through the mist and dew,

      Cloys with tasting: What do then?

      Sit thee by the ingle, when

      The sear faggot blazes bright,

      Spirit of a winter’s night;

      When the soundless earth is muffled,

      And the caked snow is shuffled

      From the ploughboy’s heavy shoon;

      When the Night doth meet the Noon

      In a dark conspiracy

      To banish Even from her sky.

      Sit thee there, and send abroad,

      With a mind self-overaw’d,

      Fancy, high-commission’d: – send her!

      She has vassals to attend her:

      She will bring, in spite of frost,

      Beauties that the earth hath lost;

      She will bring thee, all together,

      All delights of summer weather;

      All the buds and bells of May,

      From dewy sward or thorny spray

      All the heaped Autumn’s wealth,

      With a still, mysterious stealth:

      She will mix these pleasures up

      Like three fit wines in a cup,

      And thou shalt quaff it: – thou shalt hear

      Distant harvest-carols clear;

      Rustle of the reaped corn;

      Sweet birds antheming the morn:

      And, in the same moment – hark!

      ’Tis the early April lark,

      Or the rooks, with busy caw,

      Foraging for sticks and straw.

      Thou shalt, at one glance, behold

      The daisy and the marigold;

      White-plum’d lilies, and the first

      Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;

      Shaded hyacinth, alway

      Sapphire queen of the mid-May;

      And every leaf, and every flower

      Pearled with the self-same shower.

      Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep

      Meagre from its celled sleep;

      And the snake all winter-thin

      Cast on sunny bank its skin;

      Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see

      Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,

      When the hen-bird’s wing doth rest

      Quiet on her mossy nest;

      Then the hurry and alarm

      When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

      Acorns ripe down-pattering,

      While the autumn breezes sing.

      Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

      Every thing is spoilt by use:

      Where’s the cheek that doth not fade,

      Too much gaz’d at? Where’s the maid

      Whose lip mature is ever new?

      Where’s the eye, however blue,

      Doth not weary? Where’s the face

      One would meet in every place?

      Where’s the voice, however soft,

      One would hear so very oft?

      At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth

      Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.

      Let, then, winged Fancy find

      Thee a mistress to thy mind:

      Dulcet-eyed as Ceres’ daughter,

      Ere the God of Torment taught her

      How to frown and how to chide;

      With a waist and with a side

      White as Hebe’s, when her zone

      Slipt its golden clasp, and down

      Fell her kirtle to her feet,

      While she held the goblet sweet,

      And Jove grew languid. – Break the mesh

      Of the Fancy’s silken leash;

      Quickly break her prison-string

      And such joys as these she’ll bring. –

      Let the winged Fancy roam

      Pleasure never is at home.

       Ode to Psyche

      O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung

      By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear,

      And