PROEM

are

we

the moon,

As music and splendour

FROM ENDYMION
Survive not the lamp and the lute,

The heart's echoes render
No song when the spirit is mute:

A THING of beauty is a joy for ever :
No song but sad dirges,

Its loveliness increases; it will never Like the wind through a ruined cell, Pass into nothingness; but still will Or the mournful surges

keep That ring the dead seaman's knell.

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and When hearts have once mingled

quiet breathing Love first leaves the well-built nest, Therefore, on every morrow, The weak one is singled

wreathing To endure what it once possessed.

A flowery band to bind us to the earth. O Love! who bewailest

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman The frailty of all things here,

dearth Why choose you the frailest

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, For your cradle, your home, and your bier ? Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened

ways Its passions will rock thee

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of As the storms rock the ravens on high :

all, Bright reason will mock thee,

Some shape of beauty moves away the Like the sun from a wintry sky.

pall From thy nest every rafter

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, Will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady When leaves fall and cold winds come.

boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils JOHN KEATS

With the green world they live in; and

clear rills ON FIRST LOOKING INTO

That for themselves a cooling covert CHAPMAN'S HOMER

make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,

brake, And many goodly states and kingdoms Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose seen;

blooms: Round many western islands have I been And such too is the grandeur of the Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

dooms Oft of one wide expanse had I been told We have imagined for the mighty dead; That deep-browed Homer ruled as his All lovely tales that we have heard or demesne;

read: Yet did I never breathe its pure serene An endless fountain of immortal drink, Till I heard Chapman speak out loud Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the Nor do we merely feel these essences skies

For one short hour; no, even as the trees When a new planet swims into his ken, That whisper round a temple become Orlike stout Cortez when with eagle

soon eyes

Dear as the temple's self, so does the He star'd at the Pacific and all his men

moon, Look'd at each other with a wild sur- The passion poesy, glories infinite, mise

Haunt us till they become a cheering Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

light

the year

Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness; That, whether there be shine, or gloom Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress o'ercast,

Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels They alway must be with us, or we die.

darken;

And through whole solemn hours dost Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I

sit, and hearken Will trace the story of Endymion.

The dreary melody of bedded reeds The very

music of the name has gone In desolate places, where dank moisture Into my being, and each pleasant scene

breeds Is growing fresh before me as the green The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth; Of our own valleys: so I will begin Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx – do thou Now while the early budders are just

now, new,

By thy love's milky brow! And run in mazes of the youngest hue By all the trembling mazes that she ran, About old forests; while the willow trails Hear us, great Pan! Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet,

turtles Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly Passion their voices cooingly ’mong myrsteer

tles, My little boat, for many quiet hours, What time thou wanderest at eventide With streams that deepen freshly into Through sunny meadows, that outskirt bowers.

the side Many and many a verse I hope to write, Of thine enmossed realms: Othou, to Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and

whom white,

Broad leaved fig trees even

now foreHide in deep herbage; and ere yet the

doom bees

Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,

bees I must be near the middle of my story. Their golden honeycombs; our village O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,

leas See it half finished: but let Autumn bold, Their fairest-blossom'd beans and popWith universal tinge of sober gold,

pied corn; Be all about me when I make an end. The chuckling linnet its five young unAnd now at once, adventuresome, I send

born, My herald thought into a wilderness : To sing for thee; low creeping strawThere let its trumpet blow, and quickly

berries dress

Their summer coolness; pent up butterMy uncertain path with green, that I

flies may speed

Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh Easily onward, thorough flowers and

budding year
weed.

All its completions – be quickly near,
By every wind that nods the mountain

pine,

O forester divine ! HYMN TO PAN. BOOK I O THOU, whose mighty palace roof Thou, to whom every fawn and satyr doth hang

flies From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth For willing service; whether to surprise Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; death

Or upward ragged precipices flit

corn

To save poor lambkins from the eagle's With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly maw;

bending, Or by mysterious enticement draw

And giving out a shout most heavenBewildered shepherds to their path again; rending, Or to tread breathless round the frothy Conjure thee to receive our humble main,

Pæan,
And gather up all fancifullest shells

Upon thy Mount Lycean!
For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells,
And, being hidden, laugh at their out-
peeping;

THE INDIAN MAIDEN'S ROUNDELAY. Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping,

BOOK IV The while they pelt each other on the crown

“O SORROW, With silvery oak apples, and fir cones Why dost borrow brown

The natural hue of health, from vermeil By all the echoes that about thee ring,

lips? Hear us, O satyr king !

To give maiden blushes

To the white rose bushes ? O Hearkener to the loud clapping Or is it thy dewy hand the daisy tips?

shears, While ever and anon to his shorn peers,

“O Sorrow, A ram goes bleating : Winder of the horn,

Why dost borrow When snouted wild-boars routing tender The lustrous passion from a falcon

eye? Anger our huntsman: Breather round To give the glow-worm light? our farms,

Or, on a moonless night, To keep off mildews, and all weather To tinge, on siren shores, the salt seaharms:

spray? Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, That

a swooning over hollow “O Sorrow, grounds,

Why dost borrow And wither drearily on barren moors : The mellow ditties from a mourning Dread opener of the mysterious doors

tongue? Leading to universal knowledge — see,

To give at evening pale Great son of Dryope,

Unto the nightingale, The many that are come to pay their That thou mayst listen the cold dews

among? With leaves about their brows!

“O Sorrow, Be still the unimaginable lodge

Why dost borrow For solitary thinkings; such as dodge Heart's lightness from the merriment of Conception to the very bourne of heaven,

May? Then leave the naked brain: be still A lover would not tread the leaven,

A cowslip on the head, That spreading in this dull and clodded Though he should dance from eve till earth

peep of day Gives it a touch ethereal

a new birth:

Nor any drooping flower Be still a symbol of immensity;

Held sacred for thy bower, A firmament reflected in a sea ;

Wherever he may sport himself and play. An element filling the space between; An unknown — but no more: we humbly “To Sorrow, screen

I bade good-morrow,

come

VOWS