| O goddess ! hear these tuneless
numbers, wrung |
| By sweet
enforcement and remembrance dear, |
| And pardon that thy secrets should be
sung |
| Even into
thine own soft-conched ear : |
| Surely I dreamt to-day, or did I see |
| The winged
Psyche with awaken’d eyes ? |
| I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly, |
| And, on the
sudden, fainting with surprise, |
| Saw two fair creatures, couched side by
side |
| In deepest
grass, beneath the whisp’ring roof |
| Of leaves and
trembled blossoms, where there ran |
A brooklet, scarce espied :
|
| ’Mid hush’d, cool-rooted flowers,
fragrant-eyed, |
| Blue,
silver-white, and budded Tyrian, |
| They lay calm-breathing on the bedded
grass ; |
| Their arms
embraced, and their pinions too ; |
| Their lips
touch’d not, but had not bade adieu, |
| As if disjoined by soft-handed slumber, |
| And ready still past kisses to
outnumber |
| At tender
eye-dawn of aurorean love ; |
|
The winged boy I knew ; |
| But who wast
thou, O happy, happy dove ? |
His Psyche true !
|
| O latest born and loveliest vision far |
| Of all
Olympus’ faded hierarchy ! |
| Fairer than Phœbe’s sapphire-region’d
star, |
| Or Vesper,
amorous glow-worm of the sky ; |
| Fairer than these, though temple thou
hast none, |
|
Nor altar heap’d with flowers ; |
| Nor virgin-choir to make delicious moan |
|
Upon the midnight hours ; |
| No voice, no lute, no pipe, no incense
sweet |
| From
chain-swung censer teeming ; |
| No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no heat |
Of pale-mouth’d
prophet dreaming.
|
| O brightest ! though too late for
antique vows, |
| Too, too late
for the fond believing lyre, |
| When holy were the haunted forest
boughs, |
| Holy the air,
the water, and the fire ; |
| Yet even in these days so far retir’d |
| From happy
pieties, thy lucent fans, |
| Fluttering
among the faint Olympians, |
| I see, and sing, by my own eyes
inspired. |
| So let me be thy choir, and make a moan |
|
Upon the midnight hours ; |
| Thy voice, thy lute, thy pipe, thy
incense sweet |
| From swinged
censer teeming ; |
| Thy shrine, thy grove, thy oracle, thy
heat |
Of pale-mouth’d
prophet dreaming.
|
| Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a
fane |
| In some
untrodden region of my mind, |
| Where branched thoughts, new grown with
pleasant pain, |
| Instead of
pines shall murmur in the wind : |
| Far, far around shall those dark-cluster’d
trees |
| Fledge the
wild-ridged mountains steep by steep ; |
| And there by zephrs, streams, and
birds, and bees, |
| The moss-lain
Dryads shall be lull’d to sleep ; |
| And in the midst of this wide quietness |
| A rosy sanctuary will I dress |
| With the wreath’d trellis of a working
brain, |
| With buds, and
bells, and stars without a name, |
| With all the gardener Fancy e’er could
feign, |
| Who breeding
flowers, will never breed the same : |
| And there shall be for thee all soft
delight |
| That shadowy
thought can win, |
| A bright torch, and a casement ope at
night, |
To let the
warm Love in !
|
| John Keats
| Classic Poems |
| |
|
[ La Belle Dame Sans Merci ] [ Ode to a Nightingale ] [ Ode on a Grecian Urn ] [ Ode on Indolence ] [ Ode to Psyche ] [ Ode on Melancholy ] [ Ode to autumn ] |
