196 LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY

While organs yet were mute,

Timotheus, to his breathing flute

And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.

At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast from her sacred store

Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown be

fore.

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies;

She drew an angel down!

John Dryden

LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCY

"AH! what can ail thee, wretched wight,
Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

"Ah! what can ail thee, wretched wight,
So haggard and so woebegone?
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 cheek a fading rose

Fast withereth, too."

"I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful,

a fairy's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

"I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long; For sideways would she lean and sing A fairy's song.

"I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets, too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

"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 gazed and sighed full sore And there I shut her wild, sad eyes

With kisses four.

"And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dreamed, ah! woe betide, The latest dream I ever dreamed,

On the cold hillside:

"I saw pale kings and princes, too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

198

THE WANDERING KNIGHT'S SONG

Who cried, 'La Belle Dame Sans Mercy
Hath thee in thrall!'

"I saw their starved lips in the gloom,
With horrid warning gapèd wide;
And I awoke, and found me here
On the cold hillside.

"And this is why I sojourn here,
Alone and palely loitering;

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing."

John Keats.

THE WANDERING KNIGHT'S SONG

From the Spanish

My ornaments are arms,

My pastime is in war,

My bed is cold upon the wold,
My lamp yon star.

My journeyings are long,

My slumbers short and broken;
From hill to hill I wander still,
Kissing thy token.

I ride from land to land,

I sail from sea to sea;

Some day more kind I fate may find,

Some night, kiss thee.

John Gibson Lockhart.

TO THE NIGHT

SWIFTLY walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!

Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where all the long and lone daylight
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear
Which make thee terrible and dear,
Swift be thy flight!

Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!

Blind with thine hair the eyes of day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,

Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand,-
Come, long-sought!

When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;

When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,

And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.

Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me ?

Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,

200 LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me? And I replied,
No, not thee!

Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon;

Sleep will come when thou art fled ;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon !

Percy Bysshe Shelley.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S

HOMER

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-browed 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 Cortes when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific, and all his men
Looked at each other with a wild surmise,
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

John Keats.