John Keats

Hence Burgundy, Claret, and Port, Away with old Hock and madeira, Too earthly ye are for my sport;

Ah! ken ye what I met the day Out oure the Mountains A coming down by craggi[e]s grey

Pensive they sit, and roll their languid eyes, Nibble their toast, and cool their tea with sighs, Or else forget the purpose of the night,

'Tis the witching hour of night, Orbed is the moon and bright, And the stars they glisten, glisten,

I. There was a naughty boy, A naughty boy was he,

Give me your patience, sister, while I frame Exact in capitals your golden name; Or sue the fair Apollo and he will

When they were come into Faery's Court They rang, no one at home, all gone to sport And dance and kiss and love as faerys do

Dark eyes are dearer far Than those that mock the hyacinthine bell. Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, the domain

Asleep! O sleep a little while, white pearl! And let me kneel, and let me pray to thee, And let me call Heaven's blessing on thine eyes,

There was one Mrs. Cameron of 50 years of age and the fattest woman in all Inverness-shire who got up this Mountain some few years ago, true she had her servants, but then she had her self.    She ought to have hired Sisyphus,, "Up the high hill he heaves a huge round, Mrs. Cameron." 'Tis said a little conversation took place between the mountain and the Lady. After taking a glass of Whiskey as she was tolerably seated at ease she thus began, Mrs. C. Upon my Life Sir Nevis I am pique'd

Young Calidore is paddling o'er the lake; His healthful spirit eager and awake To feel the beauty of a silent eve,

I. He is to weet a melancholy carle: Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair

Over the hill and over the dale, And over the bourn to Dawlish, Where gingerbread wives have a scanty sale

Glory and loveliness have pass'd away; For if we wander out in early morn, No wreathed incense do we see upborne

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

O Sovereign power of love! O grief! O balm! All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, And shadowy, through the mist of passed years:

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen Their baaing vanities, to browse away

Muse of my native land! loftiest Muse! O first-born on the mountains! by the hues Of heaven on the spiritual air begot:

Dear Reynolds, as last night I lay in bed, There came before my eyes that wonted thread Of shapes, and shadows, and remembrances,

Full many a dreary hour have I past, My brain bewildered, and my mind o'ercast With heaviness; in seasons when I've thought

O! were I one of the Olympian twelve, Their godships should pass this into law, That when a man doth set himself in toil

I. Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year.

Ever let the Fancy roam, Pleasure never is at home: At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,

Fill for me a brimming bowl And in it let me drown my soul: But put therein some drug, designed

To-night I'll have my friar, let me think About my room, I'll have it in the pink; It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,

Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia! May I sing to thee As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?

And what is love? It is a doll dress'd up For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle; A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

"Under the flag Of each his faction, they to battle bring Their embryo atoms."

Where's the Poet? show him! show him, Muses nine! that I may know him. 'Tis the man who with a man

Give me women, wine, and snuff Until I cry out "hold, enough!" You may do so sans objection

Hither hither, love 'Tis a shady mead Hither, hither, love!

1. God of the golden bow, And of the golden lyre,

CANTO I. Fanatics have their dreams, wherewith they weave A paradise for a sect; the savage, too,

Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star,

Just at the self-same beat of Time's wide wings Hyperion slid into the rustled air, And Saturn gain'd with Thea that sad place

Thus in altemate uproar and sad peace, Amazed were those Titans utterly. O leave them, Muse! O leave them to their woes;

I stood tip-toe upon a little hill, The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

Now Morning from her orient chamber came, And her first footsteps touch'd a verdant hill; Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,

I. Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel! Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!

1. Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight, Alone and palely loitering?

Part 1 Upon a time, before the faery broods Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,

1. Unfelt unheard, unseen, I've left my little queen,

Chief of organic Numbers! Old Scholar of the Spheres! Thy spirit never slumbers,

Souls of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern,

I. The Gothic looks solemn, The plain Doric column

What can I do to drive away Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen, Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!

There is a charm in footing slow across a silent plain, Where patriot battle has been fought, where glory had the gain; There is a pleasure on the heath where Druids old have been,

1. Old Meg she was a gypsy; And liv'd upon the moors:

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too,

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

1. One morn before me were three figures seen, I With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;

No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist

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

1. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

1. In thy western halls of gold When thou sittest in thy state,

1. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

1. Physician Nature! Let my spirit blood! O ease my heart of verse and let me rest;

O Goddess! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung By sweet enforcement and remembrance dear, And pardon that thy secrets should be sung

Bards of Passion and of Mirth, Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too,

As Hermes once took to his feathers light When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon'd and slept, So on a Delphic reed my idle spright

I Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?

Of late two dainties were before me plac'd Sweet, holy, pure, sacred and innocent, From the ninth sphere to me benignly sent

Hast thou from the caves of Golconda, a gem Pure as the ice-drop that froze on the mountain? Bright as the humming-bird's green diadem,

The town, the churchyard, and the setting sun, The clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem, Though beautiful, cold, strange, as in a dream

To A Friend No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray,

I O Blush not so! O blush not so! Or I shall think you knowing;

As I lay in my bed slepe full unmete Was unto me, but why that I ne might Rest I ne wist, for there n'as erthly wight

Fire, Air, Earth, and Water, Salamander, Zephyr, Dusketha, and Breama. Salamander.

I had a dove, and the sweet dove died; And I have thought it died of grieving: O, what could it grieve for? its feet were tied

1 Hush, hush! tread softly! hush, hush my dear! All the house is asleep, but we know very well

Spirit here that reignest! Spirit here that painest! Spirit here that burneth!

Many the wonders I this day have seen: The sun, when first he kissed away the tears That filled the eyes of Morn; the laurelled peers

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well

What though, for showing truth to flatter'd state, Kind Hunt was shut in prison, yet has he, In his immortal spirit, been as free

How many bards gild the lapses of time! A few of them have ever been the food Of my delighted fancy, I could brood

Keen, fitful gusts are whisp'ring here and there Among the bushes half leafless, and dry; The stars look very cold about the sky,

Byron! how sweetly sad thy melody! Attuning still the soul to tenderness, As if soft Pity, with unusual stress,

O Chatterton! how very sad thy fate! Dear child of sorrow son of misery! How soon the film of death obscur'd that eye,

Brother belov'd if health shall smile again, Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek: If e'er returning vigour bid these weak

Standing aloof in giant ignorance, Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades, As one who sits ashore and longs perchance

O that a week could be an age, and we Felt parting and warm meeting every week, Then one poor year a thousand years would be,

Cat! who hast pass'd thy grand climacteric, How many mice and rats hast in thy days Destroy'd? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze

O soft embalmer of the still midnight! Shutting, with careful fingers and benign, Our gloom-pleas'd eyes, embower'd from the light,

Spenser! a jealous honourer of thine, A forester deep in thy midmost trees, Did last eve ask my promise to refine

Son of the old Moon-mountains African! Chief of the Pyramid and Crocodile! We call thee fruitful, and that very while

As late I rambled in the happy fields, What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew From his lush clover covert; when anew

Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance! In what diviner moments of the day Art thou most lovely? when gone far astray

O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,

Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals, And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep Like whispers of the household gods that keep

To one who has been long in city pent, 'Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven to breathe a prayer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been

Give me a golden pen, and let me lean On heaped-up flowers, in regions clear, and far; Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,

High-mindedness, a jealousy for good, A loving-kindness for the great man's fame, Dwells here and there with people of no name,

Great spirits now on earth are sojourning; He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake,

The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

Good Kosciusko, thy great name alone Is a full harvest whence to reap high feeling; It comes upon us like the glorious pealing

Happy is England! I could be content To see no other verdure than its own; To feel no other breezes than are blown

As Hermes once took to his feathers light, When lulled Argus, baffled, swooned and slept, So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright

After dark vapors have oppress'd our plains For a long dreary season, comes a day Born of the gentle South, and clears away

As from the darkening gloom a silver dove Upsoars, and darts into the eastern light, On pinions that nought moves but pure delight,

If by dull rhymes our English must be chain'd, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter'd, in spite of pained loveliness;

Oh! how I love, on a fair summer's eve, When streams of light pour down the golden west, And on the balmy zephyrs tranquil rest

Come hither all sweet Maidens soberly Down looking aye, and with a chasten'd light Hid in the fringes of your eyelids white,

Who loves to peer up at the morning sun, With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek, Let him with this sweet tale full often seek

It keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell

The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast, Warm breath, light whisper, tender semitone,

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

Time's sea hath been five years at its slow ebb, Long hours have to and fro let creep the sand, Since I was tangled in thy beauty's web,

Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear From my glad bosom, now from gloominess I mount for ever not an atom less

When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charactry,

Why did I laugh to-night? No voice will tell No God, no Demon of severe response, Deigns to reply from Heaven or from Hell

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute! Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away! Leave melodizing on this wintry day,

Blue! 'Tis the life of heaven, the domain Of Cynthia, the wide palace of the sun, The tent of Hesperus, and all his train,

The church bells toll a melancholy round, Calling the people to some other prayers, Some other gloominess, more dreadful cares,

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart,

This pleasant tale is like a little copse: The honied lines do freshly interlace, To keep the reader in so sweet a place,

Read me a lesson, Muse, and speak it loud Upon the top of Nevis, blind in mist! I look into the chasms, and a shroud

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry; For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye. Not like the formal crest of latter days:

In after-time, a sage of mickle lore Yclep'd Typographus, the Giant took, And did refit his limbs as heretofore,

I He is to weet a melancholy carle: Thin in the waist, with bushy head of hair,

Not Aladdin magian Ever such a work began; Not the wizard of the Dee

O come Georgiana! the rose is full blown, The riches of Flora are lavishly strown, The air is all softness, and crystal the streams,

In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember

I. Here all the summer could I stay, For there's Bishop's teign

I. In midmost Ind, beside Hydaspes cool, There stood, or hover'd, tremulous in the air,

Where be ye going, you Devon maid? And what have ye there i' the basket? Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy,

Upon a Sabbath-day it fell; Twice holy was the Sabbath-bell That call'd the folk to evening prayer;

I St. Agnes' Eve Ah, bitter chill it was! The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;

All gentle folks who owe a grudge To any living thing Open your ears and stay your t[r]udge

I. Fair Isabel, poor simple Isabel! Lorenzo, a young palmer in Love's eye!

This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb,

Hadst thou liv'd in days of old, O what wonders had been told Of thy lively countenance,

Think not of it, sweet one, so; Give it not a tear; Sigh thou mayst, and bid it go

Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid! Give answer by thy voice, the sea-fowls' screams! When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless

Oft have you seen a swan superbly frowning, And with proud breast his own white shadow crowning; He slants his neck beneath the waters bright

I cry your mercy, pity, love! aye, love! Merciful love that tantalizes not, One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,

Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong, And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song; Nor can remembrance, Mathew! bring to view

When by my solitary hearth I sit, And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom; When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,

What though while the wonders of nature exploring, I cannot your light, mazy footsteps attend; Nor listen to accents, that almost adoring,

Nature withheld Cassandra in the skies For more adornment a full thousand years; She took their cream of Beauty's fairest dyes,

Two or three Posies With two or three simples, Two or three Noses

I. Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy To those who woo her with too slavish knees,

I. Haydon! forgive me that I cannot speak Definitively of these mighty things;

O thou whose face hath felt the Winter's wind, Whose eye has seen the snow-clouds hung in mist And the black elm tops 'mong the freezing stars,

Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain, Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies; Without that modest softening that enhances

This mortal body of a thousand days Now fills, O Burns, a space in thine own room, Where thou didst dream alone on budded bays,