John Keats - Selected Poems and Letters

Still is the burthen sung – “O cruelty,

To steal my Basil-pot away from me!”

Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the Lake

And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee Knight at arms

So haggard, and so woe begone?

The Squirrel’s granary is full

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a Lady in the Meads

Full beautiful, a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone,

She look’d at me as she did love

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend and sing

A Faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said

I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sigh’d full sore,

And there I shut her wild, wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream’d, Ah! Woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale Kings, and Princes too,

Pale warriors, death pale were they all;

They cried, La belle dame sans merci,

Thee hath in thrall.

I saw their starv’d lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke, and found me here

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here

Alone and palely loitering;

Though the sedge is withered from the Lake

And no birds sing …

Upon a time, before the faery broods

Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,

Before King Oberon’s bright diadem,

Sceptre, and mantle, clasp’d with dewy gem,

Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns

From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip’d lawns,

The ever-smitten Hermes empty left

His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:

From high Olympus had he stolen light,

On this side of Jove’s clouds, to escape the sight

Of his great summoner, and made retreat

Into a forest on the shores of Crete.

For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt

A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;

At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured

Pearls, while on land they wither’d and adored.

Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,

And in those meads where sometime she might haunt,

Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,

Though Fancy’s casket were unlock’d to choose.

Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!

So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat

Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,

That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,

Blush’d into roses ’mid his golden hair,

Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.

From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,

Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,

And wound with many a river to its head,

To find where this sweet nymph prepar’d her secret bed:

In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,

And so he rested, on the lonely ground,

Pensive, and full of painful jealousies

Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.

There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,

Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys

All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake:

“When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake!

When move in a sweet body fit for life,

And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife

Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!”

The God, dove-footed, glided silently

Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed,

The taller grasses and full-flowering weed,

Until he found a palpitating snake,

Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.

She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,

Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;

Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,

Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr’d;

And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,

Dissolv’d, or brighter shone, or interwreathed

Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries –

So rainbow-sided, touch’d with miseries,

She seem’d, at once, some penanced lady elf,

Some demon’s mistress, or the demon’s self.

Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire

Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne’s tiar:

Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!

She had a woman’s mouth with all its pearls complete:

And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there

But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?

As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.

Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake

Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love’s sake,

And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,

Like a stoop’d falcon ere he takes his prey.

“Fair Hermes, crown’d with feathers, fluttering light,

I had a splendid dream of thee last night:

I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,

Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,

The only sad one; for thou didst not hear

The soft, lute-finger’d Muses chaunting clear,

Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,

Deaf to his throbbing throat’s long, long melodious moan.

I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes,

Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,

And, swiftly as a bright Phœbean dart,

Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art!

Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?”

Whereat the star of Lethe not delay’d

His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired:

“Thou smooth-lipp’d serpent, surely high inspired!

Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,

Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,

Telling me only where my nymph is fled, –

Where she doth breathe!” “Bright planet, thou hast said,”

Return’d the snake, “but seal with oaths, fair God!”

“I swear,” said Hermes, “by my serpent rod,

And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!”

Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.

Then thus again the brilliance feminine:

“Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,

Free as the air, invisibly, she strays

About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days

She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet

Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;

From weary tendrils, and bow’d branches green,

She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:

And by my power is her beauty veil’d

To keep it unaffronted, unassail’d

By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,

Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear’d Silenus’ sighs.

Pale grew her immortality, for woe

Of all these lovers, and she grieved so

I took compassion on her, bade her steep

Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep

Her loveliness invisible, yet free

To wander as she loves, in liberty.

Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,

If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!”

Then, once again, the charmed God began

An oath, and through the serpent’s ears it ran

Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.

Ravish’d, she lifted her Circean head,

Blush’d a live damask, and swift-lisping said,

“I was a woman, let me have once more

A woman’s shape, and charming as before.