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ODE TO A GRECIAN URN.

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 enjoyed,

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,

ODE TO A GRECIAN URN.

Is emptied of its 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.

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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.

Keats.

1

Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown ;

This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me

The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn,

POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION.

Or up the mountain springs;
And hers shall be the breathing balm,
And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see,

Even in the motions of the Storm,

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

The stars of midnight shall be dear

To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound.
Shall pass into her face.

And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

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POEMS FOUNDED

Thus Nature spake the work was done—
How soon my Lucy's race was run !

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,

And never more will be.

Wordsworth.

POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS.

(FOREBODINGS.)

STRANGE fits of passion have I known:

And I will dare to tell,

But in the Lover's ear alone,

What once to me befel.

When she I loved looked every day

Fresh as a rose in June,

I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,

All over the wide lea:

With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.