1 My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
2
My sense, as though of hemlock I had
drunk,
3 Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
4
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had
sunk:
5 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
6 But being too happy in thine
happiness,--
7
That thou,
light-winged Dryad of the trees
8
In some melodious plot
9 Of beechen green, and shadows
numberless,
10 Singest of summer in
full-throated ease.
11 O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
12 Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
13 Tasting
of Flora and the country green,
14
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
15 O for a beaker full of the warm South,
16
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
17 With beaded bubbles
winking at the brim,
18
And purple-stained mouth;
19 That I might drink, and leave the world
unseen,
20 And with thee fade
away into the forest dim:
21 Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
22 What thou among the leaves hast never known,
23 The weariness, the fever, and the fret
24 Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
25 Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
26 Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and
dies;
27 Where but to think is
to be full of sorrow
28
And leaden-eyed despairs,
29 Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
30 Or new Love pine at
them beyond to-morrow.
31 Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
32 Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
33 But on
the viewless wings of Poesy,
34 Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
35 Already with thee! tender is the night,
36 And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
37 Cluster'd around by
all her starry Fays;
38
But here there is no light,
39 Save what from heaven is with the breezes
blown
40 Through verdurous
glooms and winding mossy ways.
41 I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
42 Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
43 But, in
embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
44 Wherewith the seasonable month endows
45 The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
46
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
47 Fast fading violets
cover'd up in leaves;
48
And mid-May's eldest child,
49 The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
50 The murmurous haunt of
flies on summer eves.
51
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
52 I have been half in love with easeful Death,
53 Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
54 To take into the air my quiet breath;
55 Now more than ever
seems it rich to die,
56 To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
57 While thou art pouring
forth thy soul abroad
58
In such an ecstasy!
59 Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in
vain--
60 To thy
high requiem become a sod.
61 Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
62 No hungry generations tread thee down;
63 The voice I hear this passing night was heard
64 In ancient days by emperor and clown:
65 Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
66 Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for
home,
67
She stood in tears amid
the alien corn;
68
The same that oft-times hath
69 Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
70 Of perilous seas, in
faery lands forlorn.
71 Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
72 To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
73 Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
74 As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
75 Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
76 Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
77 Up the hill-side; and
now 'tis buried deep
78
In the next valley-glades:
79 Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
80 Fled is that
music:--Do I wake or sleep?
Together with the editors, the Department of English (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press, the following individuals share copyright for the work that went into this edition:
Screen Design (Electronic Edition):
Sian Meikle (University of Toronto Library)
Scanning:
Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)
Form:
ababcdedce
Composition Date:
spring 1819
2.
hemlock: a poisonous plant which produces death by paralysis.
4.
Lethe: a river of the lower world from which the shades drank, and thus obtained forgetfulness of the past.
7.
Dryad: a wood nymph.
13.
Flora: the goddess of flowers, here used for flowers themselves.
14.
Provençcal song. In the early Middle Ages the poets of southern France, the troubadours of Provence, were particularly famous for their love lyrics.
16.
Hippocrene: a fountain on Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses.
33.
viewless: invisible.
43.
embalmed: full of balms, or perfumes.
46.
pastoral eglantine. Eglantine is properly the sweet-briar, though popularly applied to various varieties of the wild rose. "Pastoral" presumably because often referred to in pastoral poetry.
51.
Darkling: in the dark; cf Milton, Paradise Lost, III, 38-40: "As the wakeful Bird/Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid/Tunes her nocturnal Note."
67.
alien corn: alien because Ruth was not an Israelite but a Moabitess.