The Penguin Book of English Verse

by Paul Keegan

  And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,

  In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,

  While he from forth the closet brought a heap

  Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd

  With jellies soother than the creamy curd,

  And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;

  Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d

  From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,

  From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.

  These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand

  On golden dishes and in baskets bright

  Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand

  In the retired quiet of the night,

  Filling the chilly room with perfume light. –

  ‘And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake!

  ‘Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite:

  ‘Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake,

  ‘Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.’

  Thus whispering, his warm, unnerved arm

  Sank in her pillow. Shaded was her dream

  By the dusk curtains: – ’twas a midnight charm

  Impossible to melt as iced stream:

  The lustrous salvers in the moonlight gleam;

  Broad golden fringe upon the carpet lies:

  It seem’d he never, never could redeem

  From such a stedfast spell his lady’s eyes;

  So mus’d awhile, entoil’d in woofed phantasies.

  Awakening up, he took her hollow lute, –

  Tumultuous, – and, in chords that tenderest be,

  He play’d an ancient ditty, long since mute,

  In Provence call’d, ‘La belle dame sans mercy:’

  Close to her ear touching the melody; –

  Wherewith disturb’d, she utter’d a soft moan:

  He ceased – she panted quick – and suddenly

  Her blue affrayed eyes wide open shone:

  Upon his knees he sank, pale as smooth-sculptured stone.

  Her eyes were open, but she still beheld,

  Now wide awake, the vision of her sleep:

  There was a painful change, that nigh expell’d

  The blisses of her dream so pure and deep

  At which fair Madeline began to weep,

  And moan forth witless words with many a sigh;

  While still her gaze on Porphyro would keep;

  Who knelt, with joined hands and piteous eye,

  Fearing to move or speak, she look’d so dreamingly.

  ‘Ah, Porphyro!’ said she, ‘but even now

  ‘Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear,

  ‘Made tuneable with every sweetest vow;

  ‘And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear:

  ‘How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear!

  Give me that voice again, my Porphyro,

  Those looks immortal, those complainings dear!

  Oh leave me not in this eternal woe,

  For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go.’

  Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far

  At these voluptuous accents, he arose,

  Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star

  Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose

  Into her dream he melted, as the rose

  Blendeth its odour with the violet, –

  Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows

  Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet

  Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

  ’Tis dark: quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:

  ‘This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!’

  ’Tis dark: the iced gusts still rave and beat:

  ‘No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!

  Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine. –

  Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?

  I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine

  Though thou forsakest a deceived thing; –

  A dove forlorn and lost with sick unpruned wing.’

  ‘My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!

  Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?

  Thy beauty’s shield, heart-shap’d and vermeil dyed?

  Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest

  After so many hours of toil and quest,

  A famish’d pilgrim, – saved by miracle.

  Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest

  Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think’st well

  To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.’

  ‘Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,

  Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:

  Arise – arise! the morning is at hand; –

  The bloated wassaillers will never heed: –

  Let us away, my love, with happy speed;

  There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see, –

  Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:

  Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,

  For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.’

  She hurried at his words, beset with fears,

  For there were sleeping dragons all around,

  At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears –

  Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found. –

  In all the house was heard no human sound.

  A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;

  The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,

  Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;

  And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

  They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

  Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;

  Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,

  With a huge empty flaggon by his side:

  The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,

  But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

  By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide: –

  The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; –

  The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

  And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

  These lovers fled away into the storm.

  That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,

  And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form

  Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,

  Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old

  Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;

  The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,

  For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

  JOHN KEATS 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-wards had sunk:

  ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

  But being too happy in thine 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.

  O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

  Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,

  Tasting of Flora and the country green,

  Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

  O for a beaker full of the warm South,

  Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

  With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

  And purple-stained mouth;

  That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

  And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

  Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

  What thou among the leaves hast never known,

  The weariness, the fever, and the fret

  Here, where m
en sit and hear each other groan;

  Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

  Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

  Where 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,

  Cluster’d 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 embalmed 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 cover’d up in leaves;

  And mid-May’s eldest child,

  The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

  The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

  Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

  I have been half in love with easeful Death,

  Call’d 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 vain –

  To 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

  Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam

  Of perilous seas, in faery 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 fam’d 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 Ode on a Grecian Urn

  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?

  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!

  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.

  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.

  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.

  JOHN KEATS To Autumn

  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-eves 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.

  Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find