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

      “Hark! ’tis an elfin-storm from faery land,

      Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:

      Arise – arise! the morning is at hand; —

      The bloated wassaillers will never heed: —

      Let us away, my love, with happy speed;

      There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see, —

      Drown’d all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:

      Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,

      For o’er the southern moors I have a home for thee.”

      She hurried at his words, beset with fears,

      For there were sleeping dragons all around,

      At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears —

      Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found. —

      In all the house was heard no human sound.

      A chain-droop’d lamp was flickering by each door;

      The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound,

      Flutter’d in the besieging wind’s uproar;

      And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

      They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall;

      Like phantoms, to the iron porch, they glide;

      Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,

      With a huge empty flaggon by his side:

      The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,

      But his sagacious eye an inmate owns:

      By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide: —

      The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; —

      The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans.

      And they are gone: ay, ages long ago

      These lovers fled away into the storm.

      That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe,

      And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form

      Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm,

      Were long be-nightmar’d. Angela the old

      Died palsy-twitch’d, with meagre face deform;

      The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,

      For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.

      And what is love? It is a doll dress’d up

      For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle;

      A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

      That silly youth doth think to make itself

      Divine by loving, and so goes on

      Yawning and doting a whole summer long,

      Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,

      And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

      Then Cleopatra lives at number seven,

      And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

      Fools! if some passions high have warm’d the world,

      If Queens and Soldiers have play’d deep for hearts,

      It is no reason why such agonies

      Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

      Fools! make me whole again that weighty pearl

      The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say

      That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

      Much have I traveled in the realms of gold,

      And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

      Round many western islands have I been

      Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

      Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

      That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;

      Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

      Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

      Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

      When a new planet swims into his ken;

      Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

      He star’d at the Pacific – and all his men

      Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —

      Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

      Now Morning from her orient chamber came,

      And her first footsteps touch’d a verdant hill;

      Crowning its lawny crest with amber flame,

      Silv’ring the untainted gushes of its rill;

      Which, pure from mossy beds, did down distill,

      And after parting beds of simple flowers,

      By many streams a little lake did fill,

      Which round its marge reflected woven bowers,

      And, in its middle space, a sky that never lowers.

      There the king-fisher saw his plumage bright

      Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below;

      Whose silken fins, and golden scales’ light

      Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow:

      There saw the swan his neck of arched snow,

      And oar’d himself along with majesty;

      Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show

      Beneath the waves like Afric’s ebony,

      And on his back a fay reclined voluptuously.

      Ah! could I tell the wonders of an isle

      That in that fairest lake had placed been,

      I could e’en Dido of her grief beguile;

      Or rob from aged Lear his bitter teen:

      For sure so fair a place was never seen,

      Of all that ever charm’d romantic eye:

      It seem’d an emerald in the silver sheen

      Of the bright waters; or as when on high,

      Through clouds of fleecy white, laughs the coerulean sky.

      And all around it dipp’d luxuriously

      Slopings of verdure through the glossy tide,

      Which, as it were in gentle amity,

      Rippled delighted up the flowery side;

      As if to glean the ruddy tears, it tried,

      Which fell profusely from the rose-tree stem!

      Haply it was the workings of its pride,

      In

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