The Complete Works: Poetry, Plays, Letters and Extensive Biographies. John Keats

      Bards of Passion and of Mirth,

      Ye have left your souls on earth!

      Have ye souls in heaven too,

      Double-lived in regions new?

      Yes, and those of heaven commune

      With the spheres of sun and moon;

      With the noise of fountains wond’rous,

      And the parle of voices thund’rous;

      With the whisper of heaven’s trees

      And one another, in soft ease

      Seated on Elysian lawns

      Brows’d by none but Dian’s fawns

      Underneath large bluebells tented,

      Where the daisies are rose-scented,

      And the rose herself has got

      Perfume which on earth is not;

      Where the nightingale doth sing

      Not a senseless, tranced thing,

      But divine melodious truth;

      Philosophic numbers smooth;

      Tales and golden histories

      Of heaven and its mysteries.

      Thus ye live on high, and then

      On the earth ye live again;

      And the souls ye left behind you

      Teach us, here, the way to find you,

      Where your other souls are joying,

      Never slumber’d, never cloying.

      Here, your earth-born souls still speak

      To mortals, of their little week;

      Of their sorrows and delights;

      Of their passions and their spites;

      Of their glory and their shame;

      What doth strengthen and what maim.

      Thus ye teach us, every day,

      Wisdom, though fled far away.

      Bards of Passion and of Mirth,

      Ye have left your souls on earth!

      Ye have souls in heaven too,

      Double-lived in regions new!

      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.

      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

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