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 o’er the strings his fingers gently move, And melt the soul to pity and to love.
But when Thou joinest with the Nine,
And all the powers of song combine,
We listen here on earth:
The dying tones that fill the air,
And charm the ear of evening fair,
From thee, great God of Bards, receive their heavenly birth.
Ode to Fanny
I
Physician Nature! let my spirit blood!
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest;
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast.
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme;
Let me begin my dream.
I come - I see thee, as thou standest there,
Beckon me out into the wintry air.
II
Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries. -
Tonight, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright.
