Bless us, then, with wishèd sight,
Goddess excellently bright!

Lay thy bow of pearl apart,

And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto thy flying hart

Space to breathe, how short soever;
Thou that makest a day of night,

Goddess excellently bright!

Ben Jonson.

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk;
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains.
One minute past, and Lethe-ward had sunk.
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of Summer in full-throated ease.

Oh for a draught of vintage

Cooled a long age in the deep-delvèd earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sun-burned mirth!

Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stainèd mouth—

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim.

ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never knownThe weariness, the fever, and the fret;

95

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan— Where palsy shakes a few sad, last gray hairs— Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and diesWhen but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs;

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild:
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets, covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's oldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of bees on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now, more than ever, seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight, with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad, In such an ecstasy !

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vainTo thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird !
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home.
She stood in tears amid the alien corn:

The same that oft-times hath

Charmed magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell,

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the Fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf!

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision or a waking dream ?
Fled is that music-do I wake or sleep?

John Keats.

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Relating their

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EDITED BY LYDIA MINTURN POST.

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