Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/249

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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 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
 * 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 oft-times 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.