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 cheeks a fading rose I met a lady in the mead Full beautiful, a fairy'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 looked 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 sidelong would she bend, and sing A fairy 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, wild eyes With kisses four. And there she lulléd me asleep; And there I dreamed-Ah! woe betide! The latest dream I ever dreamed On the cold hill's side. I saw pale kings and princes too- I saw their starved lips in the gloam, On the cold hill's side. And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing. SONNET. There was a season when the fabled name But when the page of everlasting Truth The poet feels; and thence his best resource TO A YOUNG LADY WHO SENT ME A LAUREL CROWN. Fresh morning gusts have blown away all fear From my glad bosom-now from gloominess I mount forever-not an atom less Than the proud laurel shall content my bier. By thy white fingers and thy spirit clear? SONNET. In a letter to his brother and sister in America (May, 1819), Keats introduces this sounet thus: "I have been endeavoring to discover a better Sonnet stanza than we have. The legitimate does not suit the language well, from the pouncing rhymes: the other appears too elegiac, and the couplet at the end of it has seldom a pleasing effect. I do not pretend to have succeeded. It will explain itself." If by dull rhymes our English must be chained, Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET. The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, On a lone winter evening, when the frost Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills KEATS'S LAST SONNET. Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art— FAIRY SONG. Shed no tear! Oh, shed no tear! To ease my breast of melodies Shed no tear. Overhead! look overhead! 'Mong the blossoms white and redLook up, look up. I flutter now On this flush pomegranate bough. See me! 'tis this silvery bill Ever cures the good man's ill. I vanish in the heaven's blue Adieu, adieu! FANCY. Ever let the fancy roam, At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth, Through the thought still spread beyond her: O sweet Fancy! let her loose; When the soundless earth is muffled, To banish Even from her sky, And thou shalt quaff it:-thou shalt hear Rustle of the reapéd 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. Sapphire queen of the mid-May; O sweet Fancy! let her loose; Fell her kirtle to her feet, While she held the goblet sweet, And Jove grew languid.-Break the mesh And such joys as these she'll bring: ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Oh for a draught of vintage, that hath been Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! Oh 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 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, Clustered 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, White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a muséd 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 vainTo thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! She stood in tears amid the alien corn; Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adier adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Was it a vision, or a waking dream? ODE TO AUTUMN. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? 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 barród 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. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed Forever piping songs forever new; All breathing human passion far above, 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 dressed? What little town by river or sea-shore, Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 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. Hartley Coleridge. The eldest son of the poet Coleridge, Hartley (17961849), born at Clevedon, inherited much of his father's genius, but also some of his defects of organization and temperament. At six years of age he attracted, by his superior gifts, the attention of Wordsworth, who wrote of him : "O thou, whose fancies from afar are brought, The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream: I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years." What would have become of the elder Coleridge but for the friends in whose home his later years found a refuge, no one can say. With no such friends or home, poor Hartley became a castaway. In 1815 he was a student at Oxford, and obtained a fellowship-elect at Oriel; but he was dismissed, on the ground of intemperance, before his probationary year had passed. After some ineffectual literary efforts in London, he went to Ambleside, and sought for pupils; but his tutorial life, owing to his unfortunate habits, was a failure. The rest of his life was very sad, and its melancholy tone is in his verse. It was passed without any settled employment. He read diligently, thought deeply, and wrote charmingly; but his occasional fits of inebriety disqualified him for any responsible work, and at times overshadowed his mind with a depression which was pitiable. Few men have lived more beloved (especially by the poor who surrounded him) than Hartley. At Grasmere and Rydal all knew his one infirmity; but they also knew and loved his many virtues, while they admired his great talents. His name long continued a household word among the cottagers, whom he seems to have inspired with the affection they might have felt for a very dear though erring child. With hair white as snow, he had, as a friend remarked, "a heart green as May." As a poet, Hartley is esteemed chiefly for his sonnets, some of which possess a charm almost peculiar to themselves, even in an age which has abounded in that form of composition. STILL I AM A CHILD. Long time a child, and still a child, when years SONG. She is not fair to outward view Her loveliness I never knew Until she smiled on me; Oh! then I saw her eye was bright, A well of love, a spring of light. But now her looks are coy and cold, |