1.
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, | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
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2.
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 Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! | |
| O for a beaker full of the warm South, | 15 |
| 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: | 20 |
| |
3.
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget | |
| What thou among the leaves hast never known, | |
| The weariness, the fever, and the fret | |
| Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; | |
| Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, | 25 |
| 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. | 30 |
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4.
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, | 35 |
| 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. | 40 |
| |
5.
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; | 45 |
| 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. | 50 |
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6.
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, | 55 |
| 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. | 60 |
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7.
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 | 65 |
| 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. | 70 |
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8.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell | |
| To toil 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 | 75 |
| 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? | 80 |
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| See Notes. |
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