Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/75

Rh loves to peer up at the morning sun,

With half-shut eyes and comfortable cheek,

Let him, with this sweet tale, full often seek

For meadows where the little rivers run;

Who loves to linger with that brightest one

Of Heaven—Hesperus—let him lowly speak

These numbers to the night, and starlight meek,

Or moon, if that her hunting be begun.

He who knows these delights, and too is prone

To moralize upon a smile or tear,

Will find at once a region of his own,

A bower for his spirit, and will steer

To alleys, where the fir-tree drops its cone,

Where robins hop, and fallen leaves are sear.

I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,

Before high pilèd books, in charactry,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;

When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,

Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,

And think that I may never live to trace

Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;

And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!

That I shall never look upon thee more,

Never have relish in the faery power

Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore

Of the wide world I stand alone, and think

Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

of organic numbers!

Old Scholar of the Spheres!

Thy spirit never slumbers,

But rolls about our ears,

For ever and for ever!

O what a mad endeavour

Worketh he,

Who to thy sacred and ennobled hearse

Would offer a burnt sacrifice of verse

And melody.

How heavenward thou soundest,

Live Temple of sweet noise,

And Discord unconfoundest,

Giving Delight new joys,

And Pleasure nobler pinions!

O, where are thy dominions?

Lend thine ear

To a young Delian oath,—ay, by thy soul,

By all that from thy mortal lips did roll,

And by the kernel of thine earthly love,

Beauty, in things on earth, and things above,

I swear!

When every childish fashion

Has vanish'd from my rhyme,

Will I, grey-gone in passion,

Leave to an after-time,

Hymning and harmony

Of thee, and of thy works, and of thy life;

But vain is now the burning and the strife,

Pangs are in vain, until I grow high-rife

With old Philosophy,

And mad with glimpses of futurity!