Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/47



Though autumn mists, and took Peona's hand: They stept into the boat, and launch'd from land.

BOOK II.

power of love! O grief! O balm! All records, saving thine, come cool, and calm, And shadowy, through the mist of passed years: For others, good or bad, hatred and tears Have become indolent; but touching thine, One sigh doth echo, one poor sob doth pine, One kiss brings honey-dew from buried days. The woes of Troy, towers smothering o'er their blaze, Stiff-holden shields, far-piercing spears, keen blades, Struggling, and blood, and shrieks—all dimly fades Into some backward corner of the brain; Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet. Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat! Swart planet in the universe of deeds! Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, And golden-keel'd, is left unlaunch'd and dry. But wherefore this? What care, though owl did fly About the great Athenian admiral's mast? What care, though striding Alexander past