1
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
2
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
3
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
4
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
5
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
6
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
7
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
9
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
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Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
1
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
2
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
3
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
4
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
5
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
6
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
7
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
8
And purple-stained mouth;
9
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
10
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
1
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
2
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
3
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
4
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
5
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
6
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
7
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
8
And leaden-eyed despairs,
9
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
10
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
1
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
2
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
3
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
4
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
5
Already with thee! tender is the night,
6
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
7
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
8
But here there is no light,
9
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
10
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
1
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
2
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
3
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
4
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
5
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
6
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
7
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
8
And mid-May's eldest child,
9
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
10
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
1
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
2
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
3
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
4
To take into the air my quiet breath;
5
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
6
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
7
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
9
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
10
To thy high requiem become a sod.
1
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
2
No hungry generations tread thee down;
3
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
4
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
5
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
6
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
7
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
8
The same that oft-times hath
9
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
10
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
1
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
2
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
3
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
4
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
5
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
6
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
7
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
8
In the next valley-glades:
9
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
10
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
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