JOHN KEATS

Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
A flowery tale more sweetly than our Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
rhyme: And all her silken flanks with garlands
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape drest?
Of deities or mortals, or of both, What little town by river or sea shore,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
What men or gods are these? What Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
maidens loth? And, little town, thy streets for evermore
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
What pipes and timbrels? What wild Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
ecstasy?
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play With forest branches and the trodden weed;
on; Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, thought
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not When old age shall this generation waste,
leave Thou shalt remain, in midst of other
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; woe
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou
kiss, say'st,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
grieve; Ye know on earth, and all ye need to
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy know."
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.
 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

To Autumn
Ode to a Nightingale
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
My sense, as though of hemlock I had
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-
drunk,
eves run;
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
sunk:
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
shells
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
trees
Until they think warm days will never cease,
In some melodious plot
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
Of beechen green, and shadows
cells.
numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
ease.
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt
thy hook
mirth!
Spares the next swath and all its twined
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
flowers:
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
With beaded bubbles winking at the
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
brim,
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
And purple-stained mouth;
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by
That I might drink, and leave the world
hours.
unseen,
And with thee fade away into the
Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are
forest dim:
they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
What thou among the leaves hast never
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
known,
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Here, where men sit and hear each other
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
groan;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
bourn;
 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, In such an ecstasy!
and dies; Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in
Where but to think is to be full of vain—
sorrow To thy high requiem become a sod.
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
eyes, No hungry generations tread thee down;
Or new Love pine at them beyond to- The voice I hear this passing night was heard
morrow. In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, for home,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
Though the dull brain perplexes and The same that oft-times hath
retards: Charm'd magic casements, opening on the
Already with thee! tender is the night, foam
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
But here there is no light, To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Save what from heaven is with the breezes Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
blown As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Through verdurous glooms and Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
winding mossy ways. Past the near meadows, over the still
stream,
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the deep
boughs, In the next valley-glades:
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Wherewith the seasonable month endows Fled is that music:—Do I wake or
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; sleep?
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