Why should I strive to show what from thy lips
Would come no mystery? For me, dark, dark,
And painful vile oblivion seals my eyes:
I strive to search wherefore I am so sad,
Until a melancholy numbs my limbs ;
And then upon the grass I sit, and moan,
Like one who once had wings. -O why should I
Feel cursed and thwarted, when the liegeless air
Yields to my step aspirant? why should I
Spurn the green turf as hateful to my feet?
Goddess benign, point forth some unknown thing:
Are there not other regions than this isle?
What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun!
And the most patient brilliance of the moon!
And stars by thousands! Point me out the way
To any one particular beauteous star,
And I will flit into it with my lyre,

90

100

And make its silvery splendour pant with bliss.
I have heard the cloudy thunder: Where is power?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity

Makes this alarum in the elements,

While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves !
Mute thou remainest

Mute! yet I can read

A wondrous lesson in thy silent face :

Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.

110

Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebellions, Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,

Creations and destroyings, all at once

Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal.' Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept

120

Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.

Soon wild commotions shook him, and made flush
All the immortal fairness of his limbs:

Most like the struggle at the gate of death;
Or liker still to one who should take leave
Of pale immortal death, and with a pang
As hot as death's is chill, with fierce convulse
Die into life so young Apollo anguish'd :
His very hair, his golden tresses famed
Kept undulation round his eager neck.
During the pain Mnemosyne upheld

Her arms as one who prophesied. At length
Apollo shriek'd; and lo! from all his limbs

Celestial

130

TO AUTUMN

I

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves

run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy
cells.

II

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, – While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river-sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

VERSES TO FANNY BRAWNE

SONNET

THE day is gone, and all its sweets are gone! Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast,

Warm breath, light whisper, tender semi-tone,

Bright eyes, accomplish'd shape, and lang'rous waist!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!
Vanish'd unseasonably at shut of eve,

When the dusk holiday or holinight –
Of fragrant-curtain'd love begins to weave
The woof of darkness thick, for hid delight:
But, as I've read love's missal through to-day,
He'll let me sleep, seeing I fast and pray.

LINES TO FANNY

WHAT can I do to drive away

Remembrance from my eyes? for they have seen,

Aye, an hour ago, my brilliant Queen!

Touch has a memory.

O say, love, say,

What can I do to kill it and be free

In my old liberty?

When every fair one that I saw was fair,
Enough to catch me in but half a snare,

Not keep me there:

When, howe'er poor or particolour'd things,

My muse had wings,

And ever ready was to take her course
Whither I bent her force,