Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/50

14

tiptoe upon a little hill,

The air was cooling, and so very still

That the sweet buds which with a modest pride

Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside,

Their scantly-leaved and finely tapering stems,

Had not yet lost those starry diadems

Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.

The clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,

And fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept

On the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept

A little noiseless noise among the leaves,

Born of the very sigh that silence heaves:

For not the faintest motion could be seen

Of all the shades that slanted o'er the green.

There was wide wand'ring for the greediest eye

To peer about upon variety;

Far round the horizon's crystal air to skim,

And trace the dwindled edgings of its brim;

To picture out the quaint and curious bending

Of a fresh woodland alley, never-ending;

Or by the bowery clefts, and leafy shelves,

Guess where the jaunty streams refresh themselves.

I gazed awhile, and felt as light and free

As though the fanning wings of Mercury

Had played upon my heels: I was lighthearted,

And many pleasures to my vision started;

So I straightway began to pluck a posey

Of luxuries bright, milky, soft, and rosy.

A bush of May flowers with the bees about them;

Ah, sure no tasteful nook could be without them;

And let a lush laburnum oversweep them,

And let long grass grow round the roots to keep them

Moist, cool, and green; and shade the violets,

That they may bind the moss in leafy nets.

A filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined,

And clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind

Upon their summer thrones; there too should be

The frequent chequer of a youngling tree,

That with a score of light green brethren shoots

From the quaint mossiness of aged roots:

Round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters

Babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters

The spreading blue-bells: it may haply mourn

That such fair clusters should be rudely torn