Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/41



Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity. All its more ponderous and bulky worth Is friendship, whence there ever issues forth A steady splendor; but at the tip-top, There hangs by unseen film, an orbed drop Of light, and that is love: its influence Thrown in our eyes genders a novel sense, At which we start and fret: till in the end, Melting into its radiance, we blend, Mingle, and so become a part of it,— Nor with aught else can our souls interknit So wingedly: when we combine therewith Life's self is nourish'd by its proper pith, And we are nurtured like a pelican brood. Ay, so delicious is the unsating food, That men who might have tower'd in the van Of all the congregated world, to fan And winnow from the coming step of time All chaff of custom, wipe away all slime Left by men-slugs and human serpentry. Have been content to let occasion die, Whilst they did sleep in love's Elysium. And, truly, I would rather be struck dumb, Than speak against this ardent listlessness: For I have ever thought that it might bless The world with benefits unknowingly; As does the nightingale, up-perched high, And cloister'd among cool and bunched leaves— She sings but to her love, nor e'er conceives, How tiptoe Night holds back her dark gray hood.