Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/782

 JOHN KEATS

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

��Ode on Melancholy

NO, no' go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kist

By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine, Make not your rosary of yew-berries,

Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be

Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;

For shade to shade will come too drowsily, And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

But when the melancholy fit shall fall

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,

And hides the green hill in an April shroud, Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,

Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,

Or on the wealth of globed peonies, Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,

Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty Beauty that must die, And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips

Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,

Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:

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