A Thing of Beauty

from Endymion

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its lovliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

John Keats

La Belle Dame sans Merci

O, WHAT can ail thee, Knight at arms,

Alone and palely loitering;

The sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

O, what can ail thee, Knight at arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever dew;

And on thy cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the Meads

Full beautiful, a faery's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a Garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant Zone;

She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long;

For sideways would she lean, and sing

A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew;

And sure in language strange she said,

"I love thee true."

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild sad eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream'd, Ah Woe betide,

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

Who cry'd--"La belle Dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starved lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering;

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

John Keats

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-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 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

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

            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 Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though 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 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.

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 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?

John Keats

Ode on a Grecian Urn

THOU still unravish'd 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-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

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 endear'd,

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,

    For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;

And, happy melodist, unwearied,

For ever piping songs for ever new;

More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,

    For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human passion far above,

That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,

    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these 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 this 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."

John Keats

To Sleep

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight,

Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,

Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,

Enshaded in forgetfulness divine:

O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close

In midst of this thine hymn my willing eyes,

Or wait the "Amen," ere thy poppy throws

Around my bed its lulling charities.

Then save me, or the passed day will shine

Upon my pillow, breeding many woes,--

Save me from curious Conscience, that still lords

Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;

Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,

And seal the hushed Casket of my Soul.

John Keats

The Human Seasons

FOUR Seasons fill the measure of the year;

There are four seasons in the mind of man:

He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear

Takes in all beauty with an easy span:

He has his Summer, when luxuriously

Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves

To ruminate, and by such dreaming high

Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves

His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings

He furleth close; contented so to look

On mists in idleness--to let fair things

Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.

He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,

Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

John Keats

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

        To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

        For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

  Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

        Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or, by a cyder-press, with patient look,

        Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

        Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

        And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

Ode on Melancholy

NO, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist

  Wolf's bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;

Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd

  By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;

Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

  Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

        Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl

A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

  For shade to shade will come too drowsily,

        And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

  Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,

That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

  And hides the green hill in an April shroud;

Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

  Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

        Or on the wealth of globed peonies;

Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

  Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,

        And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;

  And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

  Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips:

Ay, in the very temple of delight

  Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,

        Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue

  Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;

His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,

        And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

John Keats

Ode

[Written on the blank page before Beaumont and
Fletcher's Tragi-Comedy "The Fair Maid of the Inn."]

BARDS of Passion and of Mirth,

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Have ye souls in heaven too,

Double lived in regions new?

Yes, and those of heaven commune

With the spheres of sun and moon;

With the noise of fountains wound'rous,

And the parle of voices thund'rous;

With the whisper of heaven's trees

And one another, in soft ease

Seated on Elysian lawns

Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;

Underneath large blue-bells tented,

Where the daisies are rose-scented,

And the rose herself has got

Perfume which on earth is not;

Where the nightingale doth sing

Not a senseless, tranced thing,

But divine melodious truth;

Philosophic numbers smooth;

Tales and golden histories

Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then

On the earth ye live again;

And the souls ye left behind you

Teach us, here, the way to find you,

Where your other souls are joying,

Never slumber'd, never cloying.

Here, your earth-born souls still speak

To mortals, of their little week;

Of their sorrows and delights;

Of their passions and their spites;

Of their glory and their shame;

What doth strengthen and what maim.

Thus ye teach us, every day,

Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Ye have souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new!

John Keats