Page:The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1899.djvu/78

42 A desert fills our seeing's inward span;

Nurse of swart nations since the world began,

Art thou so fruitful? or dost thou beguile

Such men to honour thee, who, worn with toil,

Rest for a space 'twixt Cairo and Decan?

O may dark fancies err! They surely do;

'T is ignorance that makes a barren waste

Of all beyond itself. Thou dost bedew

Green rushes like our rivers, and dost taste

The pleasant sun-rise. Green isles hast thou too,

And to the sea as happily dost haste.

a jealous honourer of thine,

A forester deep in thy midmost trees,

Did last eve ask my promise to refine

Some English that might strive thine ear to please.

But Elfin Poet, 't is impossible

For an inhabitant of wintry earth

To rise like Phœbus with a golden quill

Fire-wing'd and make a morning in his mirth.

It is impossible to escape from toil

O' the sudden and receive thy spiriting:

The flower must drink the nature of the soil

Before it can put forth its blossoming:

Be with me in the summer days, and I

Will for thine honour and his pleasure try.

here that reignest!

Spirit here that painest!

Spirit here that burnest!

Spirit here that mournest!

Spirit, I bow

My forehead low,

Enshaded with thy pinions.

Spirit, I look

All passion-struck

Into thy pale dominions.

Spirit here that laughest!

Spirit here that quaffest!

Spirit here that dancest!

Noble soul that prancest!

Spirit, with thee

I join in the glee

A-nudging the elbow of Momus.

Spirit, I flush

With a Bacchanal blush

Just fresh from the Banquet of Comus.

 Under the flag Of each his faction, they to battle bring Their embryo atoms.

joy, and welcome sorrow,

Lethe's weed and Hermes' feather;

Come to-day, and come to-morrow,

I do love you both together!

I love to mark sad faces in fair weather;

And hear a merry laugh amid the thunder;