Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/17

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With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end. And now at once, adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.


 * Upon the sides of Latmos was outspread

A mighty forest; for the moist earth fed So plenteously all weed-hidden roots Into o'erhanging boughs, and precious fruits. And it had gloomy shades, sequester'd deep, Where no man went; and if from shepherd's keep A lamb stray'd far a-down those inmost glens, Never again saw he the happy pens Whither his brethren, bleating with content, Over the hills at every night-fall went. Among the shepherds 'twas believed ever, That not one fleecy lamb which thus did sever From the white flock, but pass'd unworried By any wolf, or pard with prying head. Until it came to some unfooted plains Where fed the herds of Pan: ay, great his gains Who thus one lamb did lose. Paths there were many, Winding through palmy fern, and rushes fenny, And ivy banks; all leading pleasantly To a wide lawn, whence one could only see Stems thronging all around between the swell Of tuft and slanting branches: who could tell The freshness of the space of heaven above, Edged round with dark tree-tops? through which a dove