Page:Keats - Poetical Works, DeWolfe, 1884.djvu/84

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are who lord it o'er their fellow-men With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen Their baaing vanities, to browse away The comfortable green and juicy hay From human pastures; or, O torturing fact! Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge Of sanctuary splendor, not a sight Able to face an owl's, they still are dight By the blear-eyed nations in empurpled vests, And crowns and turbans. With unladen breasts, Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones— Amid the fierce intoxicating tones Of trumpets, shoutings, and belabor'd drums, And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums, In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone— Like thunder-clouds that spake to Babylon, And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.— Are then regalities all gilded masks ? No, there are throned seats unscalable But by a patient wing, a constant spell.