Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/772

 JOHN KEATS

Bacchus, young Bacchus! good or ill betide, We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide: Come hither, lady fair, and joined be To our wild minstrelsy!'


 * Whence came ye, jolly Satyrs' whence came ye,

Why have ye left your forest haunts, why left

Your nuts in oak-tree cleft" 5 ' 'For wine, for wine we left our kernel tree; For wine we left our heath, and yellow brooms,

And cold mushrooms,

For wine we follow Bacchus through the earth, Great god of breathless cupb and chirping mirth' Come hither, lady fair, and joined be

To our mad minstrelsy!'

Over wide streams and mountains great we went, And, save when Bacchus kept his ivy tent, Onward the tiger and the leopard pants,

With Asian elephants:

Onward these myriads with song and dance, With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians' prance, Web-footed alligators, crocodiles, Bearing upon their scaly backs, in files, Plump infant laughers mimicking the coil Of seamen, and stout galley-rowers' toil. With toying oars and silken sails they glide,

Nor care for wind and tide.

Mounted on panthers' furs and lions' manes, From rear to van they scour about the plains; A three days' journey in a moment done;

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