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 gazed 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

Split 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.

JOHN KEATS.

MY

Ode to a Nightingale.

Y 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-ward had sunk.
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy 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.

Oh for a draught of vintage that hath been

Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burned 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

What thou among the leaves hast never known—

The weariness, the fever, and the fret;

Here, where men sit and hear each other groanWhere palsy shakes a few sad, last grey 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 can not 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, covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's oldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called 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

Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy 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 famed 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.

To Autumn.

EASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!

Echose boom-friend of the maturing sun!

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run

To bend with apples the mossed 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-brimmed 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-reaped furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometime like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-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.

Hymn to Hesperus.

Εσπερε πάντα φέρεις.

BRIGHT solitary beam, fair speck,

That, calling all the stars to duty,
Through stormless ether gleam'st to deck
The fulgent west's unclouded beauty ;
All silent are the fields, and still

The umbrageous wood's recesses dreary,

As if calm came at thy sweet will,

And Nature of Day's strife were weary.