My 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-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness, That thou, light-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South! Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stainèd 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 groan; Where 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, Cluster'd 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
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd 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 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 musèd 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 ofttimes hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery 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?
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possest, Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising— Haply I think on thee: and then my state, Like to the Lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at Heaven's gate; For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my fate with Kings.
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicæan barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land!
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it;
One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother; And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love: But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not,
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