Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/161

Rh Then the hurry and alarm

When the bee-hive casts its swarm;

Acorns ripe down-pattering

While the autumn breezes sing.

Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;

Every thing is spoilt by use;

Where 's the cheek that doth not fade,

Too much gazed at? Where 's the maid

Whose lip mature is ever new?

Where 's the eye, however blue,

Doth not weary? Where 's the face

One would meet in every place?

Where 's the voice, however soft,

One would hear so very oft?

At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth

Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.

Let, then, winged Fancy find

Thee a mistress to thy mind:

Dulcet-eyed as Ceres' daughter

Ere the God of Torment taught her

How to frown and how to chide;

With a waist and with a side

White as Hebe's, when her zone

Slipt its golden clasp, and down

Fell her kirtle to her feet,

While she held the goblet sweet,

And Jove grew languid.—Break the mesh

Of the Fancy's silken leash;

Quickly break her prison-string,

And such joys as these she 'll bring.—

Let the winged Fancy roam,

Pleasure never is at home.

of Passion and of Mirth,

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Have ye souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new?

Yes, and those of heaven commune

With the spheres of sun and moon;

With the noise of fountains wond'rous

And the parle of voices thund'rous;

With the whisper of heaven's trees

And one another, in soft ease

Seated on Elysian lawns

Browsed by none but Dian's fawns;

Underneath large blue-bells tented,

Where the daisies are rose-scented,

And the rose herself has got

Perfume which on earth is not;

Where the nightingale doth sing

Not a senseless, tranced thing,

But divine melodious truth;

Philosophic numbers smooth;

Tales and golden histories

Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then

On the earth ye live again;

And the souls ye left behind you

Teach us, here, the way to find you,

Where your other souls are joying,

Never slumber'd, never cloying.

Here, your earth-born souls still speak

To mortals, of their little week;

Of their sorrows and delights;

Of their passions and their spites;

Of their glory and their shame;

What doth strengthen and what maim.

Thus ye teach us, every day,

Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,

Ye have left your souls on earth!

Ye have souls in heaven too,

Double-lived in regions new!

a dove and the sweet dove died;

And I have thought it died of grieving: