alien corn;
The same that ofttimes hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas,
in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy
cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past
the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was
it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—do I wake or sleep?
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-fringed 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, unweariàd,
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 its 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.’
O GODDESS! hear these tuneless numbers, wrung
By sweet enforcement and remembrance
dear,
And pardon that thy secrets should be sung
Even into thine own soft-conchàd ear:
Surely I dream’d
to-day, or did I see
The wingàd Psyche with awaken’d eyes?
I wander’d in a forest thoughtlessly,
And, on
the sudden, fainting with surprise,
Saw two fair creatures, couchàd side by side
In deepest grass, beneath
the whisp’ring roof
Of leaves and trembled blossoms, where there ran
A brooklet, scarce espied:
’Mid hush’d,
cool-rooted flowers fragrant-eyed,
Blue, silver-white, and budded Tyrian
They lay calm-breathing on the
bedded grass;
Their arms embracàd, and their pinions too;
Their lips touch’d not, but had not bade adieu,
As
if disjoinàd by soft-handed slumber,
And ready still past kisses to outnumber
At tender eye-dawn of aurorean
love:
The wingàd boy I knew;
But who wast thou, O happy, happy dove?
His Psyche true!
O latest-born and loveliest vision far
Of all Olympus’ faded hierarchy!
Fairer than Phœbe’s sapphire-
region’d star,
Or Vesper, amorous glow-worm of the sky;
Fairer than these, though temple thou hast none,
Nor
altar heap’d with flowers;
Nor Virgin-choir to make delicious moan
Upon the midnight hours;
No voice, no
lute, no pipe, no incense sweet
From chain-swung censer teeming;
No shrine, no grove, no oracle, no
heat
Of pale-mouth’d prophet dreaming.
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