Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/156

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hush! tread softly! hush, hush, my dear!

All the house is asleep, but we know very well

That the jealous, the jealous old bald-pate may hear,

Tho' you 've padded his night-cap—O sweet Isabel!

Tho' your feet are more light than a Faery's feet,

Who dances on bubbles where brooklets meet,—

Hush, hush! soft tiptoe! hush, hush, my dear!

For less than a nothing the jealous can hear.

No leaf doth tremble, no ripple is there

On the river,—all 's still, and the night's sleepy eye

Closes up, and forgets all its Lethean care,

Charm'd to death by the drone of the humming May-fly;

And the Moon, whether prudish or complaisant,

Has fled to her bower, well knowing I want

No light in the dusk, no torch in the gloom,

But my Isabel's eyes, and her lips pulp'd with bloom.

Lift the latch! ah gently! ah tenderly—sweet!

We are dead if that latchet gives one little clink!

Well done—now those lips, and a flowery seat—

The old man may sleep, and the planets may wink;

The shut rose shall dream of our loves and awake

Full-blown, and such warmth for the morning take,

The stock-dove shall hatch her soft brace and shall coo,

While I kiss to the melody, aching all through.

Town, the churchyard, and the setting sun,

The Clouds, the trees, the rounded hills all seem,

Though beautiful, cold—strange—as in a dream,

I dreamed long ago, now new begun.

The short-lived, paly Summer is but won

From Winter's ague, for one hour's gleam;

Though sapphire-warm, their Stars do never beam: