The Complete Works of John Keats: Poems, Plays & Personal Letters. John Keats
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Philosophic numbers smooth; Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.
Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber’d, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week; Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.
Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new!
Ode on a Grecian Urn
1.
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
2.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
3.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
4.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
5.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” — that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
The original manuscript
Ode to Apollo
In thy western halls of gold
When thou sittest in thy state,
Bards, that erst sublimely told
Heroic deeds, and sang of fate,
With fervour seize their adamantine lyres,
Whose chords are solid rays, and twinkle radiant fires.
Here Homer with his nervous arms
Strikes the twanging harp of war,
And even the western splendour warms,
While the trumpets sound afar: But, what creates the most intense surprise,
His soul looks out through renovated eyes.
Then, through thy Temple wide, melodious swells
The sweet majestic tone of Maro’s lyre:
The soul delighted on each accent dwells, -
Enraptur’d dwells, - not daring to respire,
The while he tells of grief around a funeral pyre.
’Tis awful silence then again;
Expectant stand the spheres;
Breathless the laurell’d peers, Nor move, till ends the lofty strain,
Nor move till Milton’s tuneful thunders cease,
And leave once more the ravish’d heavens in peace.
Thou biddest Shakespeare wave his hand,
And quickly forward spring
The Passions - a terrific band -
And each vibrates the string
That with its tyrant temper best accords,
While from their Master’s lips pour forth the inspiring words.
A silver trumpet Spenser blows, And, as its martial notes to silence flee,
From a virgin chorus flows
A hymn in praise of spotless Chastity.
’Tis still! Wild warblings from the Aeolian lyre
Enchantment softly breathe, and tremblingly expire.
Next thy Tasso’s ardent numbers
Float along the pleased air,
Calling youth from idle slumbers,
Rousing them from Pleasure’s lair: -
Then