Romantic Selections 2
From Atlantic Roleplay Wiki
Title: Romantic Selections II
Author: John Keats
Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art - Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night, And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient sleepless eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors; No yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever or else swoon to death.
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 Provencal 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 men 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?