View source for Romantic Selections II

'''Title: Romantic Selections II'''

'''Author: John Keats'''

- Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art -<BR>
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art<BR>
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night<BR>
And watching, with eternal lids apart,<BR>
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,<BR>
The moving waters at their priestlike task<BR>
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,<BR>
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask<BR>
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--<BR>
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,<BR>
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,<BR>
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,<BR>
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,<BR>
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,<BR>
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.<BR>

- Ode to a Nightingale - <BR>
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains <BR>
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, <BR>
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains <BR>
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: <BR>
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, <BR>
But being too happy in thine happiness, - <BR>
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, <BR>
In some melodious plot <BR>
Of beechen green and shadows numberless, <BR>
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. <BR>

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been <BR>
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, <BR>
Tasting of Flora and the country green, <BR>
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! <BR>
O for a beaker full of the warm South, <BR>
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, <BR>
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, <BR>
And purple-stained mouth; <BR>
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, <BR>
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: <BR>

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget <BR>
What thou among the leaves hast never known, <BR>
The weariness, the fever, and the fret <BR>
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; <BR>
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, <BR>
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; <BR>
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow <BR>
And leaden-eyed despairs, <BR>
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, <BR>
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. <BR>

Away! away! for I will fly to thee, <BR>
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, <BR>
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, <BR>
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: <BR>
Already with thee! tender is the night, <BR>
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, <BR>
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; <BR>
But here there is no light, <BR>
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown <BR>
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. <BR>

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, <BR>
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, <BR>
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet <BR>
Wherewith the seasonable month endows <BR>
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; <BR>
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; <BR>
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; <BR>
And mid-May's eldest child, <BR>
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, <BR>
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. <BR>

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time <BR>
I have been half in love with easeful Death,<BR> 
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, <BR>
To take into the air my quiet breath; <BR>
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, <BR>
To cease upon the midnight with no pain, <BR>
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad <BR>
In such an ecstasy! <BR>
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain - <BR>
To thy high requiem become a sod. <BR>

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! <BR>
No hungry generations tread thee down; <BR>
The voice I hear this passing night was heard <BR>
In ancient days by emperor and clown: <BR>
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path <BR>
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, <BR>
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; <BR>
The same that oft-times hath <BR>
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam <BR>
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. <BR>

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell <BR>
To toll me back from thee to my sole self! <BR> 
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well <BR>
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. <BR>
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades <BR>
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, <BR> 
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep <BR>
In the next valley-glades: <BR>
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? <BR>
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep? 


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